The Interior of Palaces

How To Have A Sound Heart (1/7)

Feb 20, 2026

"There is a piece of flesh in the body if it becomes good (reformed) the whole body becomes good but if it gets spoilt the whole body gets spoilt, and that is the heart."
- Prophet Muhammad ﷺ

Disclaimer: This is one of eight parts in the faith-based series ‘How To Have A Sound Heart’ and can be read as a stand-alone.
However, for unclear terms: check the footnotes and links.
For disjointed concepts or more like this: start with the series index here.

Chances are you’re reading this while fasting, so it must be easier to imagine the following.

Like the physical body has survival needs of food (insert your favourite iftar here), shelter and sleep, our soul’s essence or ‘Ruh’ has similar needs to fill other kinds of voids. Its nourishment is spiritual food - which we might forage for in all sorts of things, people and places.

This designated space is inside every human being, but the hunt is argued to be silenced by some more than others.

When I was a child, my teacher would analogise the heart to a grand palace with multiple rooms - one to be allotted to every subject of personal importance in life; what we spend most time and energy on and cannot live without. Maybe one for family, career passions, a hobby or sport, relationships, little things like looking at the moon, guilty pleasures like a good kebab, or the material enjoyment of a cool car.

In all these rooms, the largest and most key is reserved for the King of the palace - something that means to us the most and is ultimately above all else: what we worship. This object of worship - or nourisher - could be status, a lover, validation, money, a craft, a substance, a feeling, maybe our own intellect. And many, as the Quran describes, worship their own selves, desires and whims.

Yasmin Mogahed explained the word ‘ilaah’ or the status of God through this concept of what our life is centred around. So, the occupier of this key room is the highest thing we love - the only thing we serve.

When a Muslim says ‘La Ilaaha Illa Allah’ (there is no God but Allah), what she really means is “despite other things existing in my heart that I love and constitute life to be, the ultimate overarching position or source is held for my one true God - Allah. And, if I let something invade that prime position - an unlawful occupier - the palace has issues and it manifests into my life with voids or confusion.”

It’s a call to have a museum of beneficial, beloved things while also completely decentring them and other idols that control us and we seek value from - our ego, hedonism, the good perception from people (as we’ll see later) or even the obsession with romantic love.

These misplacements can be argued to trigger diseases of the heart: arrogance, greed, hatred, jealousy, power, fear, obsessive attachments, hypocrisy, materialism. Each is explored across this series at some point and is quite dependent on what you expose your ‘Qalb’ to.

‘You are what you eat’ is relevant for the physical body’s needs, and ‘you are what you consume’ is reflective of the spiritual heart or Qalb. We cannot expect this responsive and alive faculty to remain immune to what it faces.

Islam calls this the ‘khiyanat of senses’: when trust is breached for God-given senses meant to be taken care of. Our inputs are highly influential; if the eyes given to experience life are misused for consuming harm that imprints onto the sensitive Qalb, it’s a disloyalty to the blessing of sight.

Perhaps that’s why the following dua exists:

اللَّهُمَّ طَهِّرْ قَلْبِي مِنَ النِّفَاقِ وَعَمَلِي مِنَ الرِّيَاءِ وَلِسَانِي مِنَ الْكَذِبِ وَعَيْنِي مِنَ الْخِيَانَةِ فَإِنَّكَ تَعْلَمُ خَائِنَةَ الأَعْيُنِ وَمَا تُخْفِي الصُّدُور
O Allah, purify my heart from hypocrisy, my deeds from any kind of riya (ostentation), my tongue from lying, and my eye from khiyanat/treachery. For indeed You know the treachery of the eyes and what the hearts conceal.

Regulating what we consume is all the more pressing in the age of overconsumption and constant bombardments of readily available information - given how brain-rotting and soul-rotting they can be.

There’s more to this we’ll uncover, but essentially, all the things you choose to pay attention to make your spiritual diet. What you consistently read, watch, listen to, the kinds of people you spend most time with, the communities you choose to identify with and will, therefore, emulate. Of course, this is evident in the output. The reason eating junk food is discouraged is the obesity and subpar health it manifests. The inputs sent into the Qalb also return as direct consequences.

It is commonly said that the taste of one’s heart is given by their tongue. Mindful speech is just one of the many ways people’s hearts are glimpsed by - as if there was an eyehole to view the beauty or the horror of it.

Words sometimes put deadly weapons to shame in causing harm, and are the arsenal at everyone’s disposal we don’t receive mercy from. Other times they put magicians to shame in deceiving people with illusions and promises not intended to be kept. To be careless with our words, the only way we connect to people, is choosing to forgo the wisdom of “speak good or remain silent”. It’s choosing to be cruel, side-lining their potential to inspire a nation or mend a broken heart. They say “what starts out as a sound, ends with a deed” and thus actions are only secondary manifestations of the Qalb, preceded by words.

With all this pressure to speak well, it’s better to speak less but speak with sensitive balance. It’s better to adopt seclusion and periods of silence that make you appreciate the times together - speaking with people, and help you process things in solitude.

Wahb ibn Munabbih said, “The doctors agreed that the head of medicine is diet, and the wise ones agreed that the head of wisdom is silence.”

This silence and thoughtfully weighed speech makes us empathetic and, importantly, introspective. For when the noise fades and the world is tuned out for stillness, the only voice remaining is of our thoughts. Not many are willing to face the music though - people escape and numb themselves plenty to keep the demons in the closet, keep their problems under the carpet, keep jumping mechanically distraction to distraction. However, the brave have higher standards. They know the pause or stillness isn’t a nice-to-have but a non-negotiable look in the mirror.

This is when you drag your Qalb away from the commotion and connect solely with it.
This is when you ask it “How are you?” and listen attentively.

Read the next part of this series here: