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Peace be upon you all.

Imagine somebody who constantly throughout the day kept on eating and nibbling, never stopping every 5-10-20 minutes eating something.

How unhealthy would this person become, obese overload of the system?

That's not the way Allah created us, we need gaps, we need time to eat and time to not eat.

This like the body also needs its time to not eat, so too the soul needs time that it is not interacting with the dunya.

In our journey towards cleansing the soul, in our lessons about how to attain Tezgia, one of the aspects, one of the tips that the Quran and Sunnah hints at,

the scholars are explicit at, is the tip or the advice of cutting off from the world for a period of time, of not being involved in the dunya,

and spending some quality time alone by yourself in front of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.

And there are a number of terms for this, some have used the term isla, you cut off from the people, others use the term khallwa with Allah, you are alone with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.

It's not the term that's relevant, that's important, it is the concept, what is the concept?

The concept is, one of the mechanisms of cleansing the soul is to make it a point, to cut off and have some private time, quality, personal time,

that you are worshipping Allah, that nobody else is seeing, nobody else is witnessing, just you yourself with your personal ta'ala with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.

And the Quran and Sunnah hints at it, there's nothing explicit, but we have references, and as we said the sahab and ta'ala were very explicit in this regard.

As for the Quran and Sunnah hinting at it, a number of verses and a Hadith are mentioned that we can derive this from.

Of them, for example Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala praises, those who, they have the khashya of Allah in raib, in secrecy.

And one of the interpretations, when nobody is watching them, when nobody is looking at them, that is when they're khashya, when they're khushur, when their taqwa becomes the most manifest.

Salallahu alayhi wa sallam said, Hadith is in the masana of Ibn Abi Shabah, that whoever amongst you can have secret deeds that no one knows about, let him have those secret deeds.

Try to do deeds, nobody is watching, nobody else knows about, have some deeds between you and Allah that nobody else knows about.

And in fact the concept of ithikaf even, that you cut off from the dunya, you cut off from your friends, you cut off from your work, and you just sit in the masjid and you worship Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.

This is of the mechanisms to attain tazgia. Subhanallah, this world we live in, the hustle and bustle, the stress, the constant noise.

We don't even have time to just allow our souls to be comforted in dhikr and ibadah, constantly surrounded by our cell phones, our family, our job.

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