Right living is an art. Those who have learned the art can construct a successful life in this world. Those who are oblivious to it have nothing but failure in store. To put it briefly, this art can be described as ‘positive thinking; that is, keeping an open mind so that we can rise above the psychology of reaction or retaliation and plan objectively after arriving at rational conclusions. If positive thinking gives us the direction to use our intellectual capacity, negative thinking acts as a check upon developing that intellectual capacity. Those who tend towards negative thinking think and plan only under the influence of external situations, which may or may not be particularly good. Humans are social beings. We cannot survive by ourselves. We need each other to sustain our needs. In one way or another, we are all indispensable to each other. In such a situation, reacting negatively is never beneficial. Success will come only to those who respond positively, even negatively.
Tazkiya literally means purification. A person regularly has negative thoughts. Examples of negative thought are arrogance, lust, hate, intolerance and anger. A person has to purify himself of these. Purification does not mean to remove these feelings from your heart. Removal of these feelings is not intended. Copy Arabic text (3:134)
This verse does not say believers are those who don’t get angry. The Quran says believers are those who swallow their anger. This is a continuous struggle of life. You will get angry, but you should restrain your anger. You will develop hate, but you have to defuse it. You will seek revenge, but you must stop yourself. You will have lust, but you must manage it. This is the struggle called tazkiya. Tazkiya is desire management. In this way, you purify your heart. A hadith says that when a person does evil, his heart develops a black spot. If he does not wash his black spot, he will develop a second, third and fourth spot until his entire heart will become black. (Sunan ibn Majah 4244)
This is when we are unable to manage our negative thoughts. We allow them to persist in our heart. Our entire mind will become negative. Negative thoughts will keep getting stored in the mind. Tazkiya means to not allow these thoughts to store up in your mind. You have to convert negative thought into positive thought. Before they get stored in your mind, you have to convert negative thought into positive thought. If you get angry, convert it into forgiveness. Convert jealousy into prayer.
If someone has a big house and a luxurious car, you should pray for him and yourself. In this way, you convert the negative feeling into prayer. If a person continues to convert in this manner, his heart will remain purified. If he does not convert, his heart will keep becoming black. Negative items will keep getting stored in his mind. We have to save ourselves from this. Tazkiya means purification, and the meaning of purification is to defuse every negative thought, manage it and convert it into a positive thought. This is tazkiya, a process which continues throughout our lives.
