Safeguarding the heart
If the heart is so essential and yet unstable, its health must be eagerly and carefully protected. The heart, much more than our bodies, is susceptible to sickness and the influences around it. Yet many of us allow everything to flow into it without attention to the damage this can do.
The Prophet (saw) said: “The qalb (heart) was given this name only because of its fluctuations. The heart is like a feather in the wilderness – at a base of a tree – that continues to be turned on its head by the wind.” (Imam Ahmad)
Umar Ibn Abdul Aziz was not a man of war and military battles but rather a simple man who strived to live a very humble life in the midst of the type of life of luxury and affluence. What makes this all the more remarkable is that Umar Ibn Abdul Aziz did all this after he became the Caliph or the ruler of a great empire. Umar the Caliph who was accustomed to the life of ease and comfort shunned all the amenities and luxuries of royal life and led a humble life like any of the ordinary citizens of the Empire he ruled.