It should be known that the endeavor to reform the ‘heart...

It should be known that the endeavor to reform the ‘heart,’ on whose wholesomeness and corruption depends one’s felicity and wretchedness, is more essential than an inquiry into its meanings and delving into the technical jargon.[^3] In fact, it often happens that intense attention to terms and preoccupation with words and that which relates to them make one totally oblivious of the heart and its reform.

[As a result] one may acquire complete mastery in expounding the meaning and essence of the heart and the terminology of the metaphysicians ( hukama’ ) and the mystics ( ‘urafa ) while one’s heart, na’udhubillah, is one that is either inverted or sealed, like someone who knows well the beneficial and harmful properties of medicines and is able to describe them with expertise without himself refraining from poisonous medicines or making use of the beneficial ones.

Such a person perishes despite all his knowledge of pharmacology, which is unable to rescue him. We said earlier[^4] that all the sciences are absolutely practical and even the transcendental sciences have a practical aspect in them. Here that which we have to say is that the science of the states of the heart and that which relates to their health and sickness, reform and corruption, is something which is purely a preliminary step to action and the way of its reform and remedy.

Its mere knowledge and understanding is not considered a human perfection. Hence one’s main attention and goal should be the reform and refinement of the heart so that one may attain to ultimate spiritual felicity and to the higher transcendent stations.

And even if one were well adept in the sciences, the subtleties and the realities, during the course of his journey through ‘the horizons and the souls’, his main concern should be the discovery of his own spiritual states, so that if it were ruinous he should try to remedy it, and if oriented towards salvation, try to make it complete and perfect.

The Basis for The Classification Of The Hearts One should know that this classification of the hearts made in this noble tradition is one that is non-detailed and general. Every heart has a different rank and degree, whether it is from the viewpoint of shirk and hypocrisy or that of faith and perfection.