Shedding Tears for Fear of Allah

Assalamualaikum warahmatullah,

Last Friday's sermon was about a feature that a Muslim should have. It relates to the condition of the heart of a Muslim. The better the condition of the heart, the easier to gain this feature. It is also correct in reverse. The more we are able to do this feature, the cleaner our hearts will be. The feature that the khatib spoke about last week was "Shedding Tears for Fear of Allah."

From Islamic point of view, shedding tears will cleanse and tenderize our hearts, and clean hearts shall bring about good manners that are acted by our limbs and other organs. Similarly, in medical perspective, a good heart shall keep other parts of the body in a healthy condition.

Remember one Hadith (from the collection of Malik's Muwatta (also in Sahih Bukhari & Sahih Muslim)) that shows how this feature is recognized by Allah s.w.t.

Yahya related to me from Malik from Khubayb ibn Abd ar-Rahman al-Ansari from Hafs ibn Asim that either Abu Said al-Khudri or Abu Hurayra said, "The Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said, 'There are seven whom Allah will shade in His shade on the day on which there is no shade except His shade: a just imam, a youth who grows up worshipping Allah, a man whose heart is attached to the mosque when he leaves it until he returns to it, two men who love each other in Allah and meet for that and part for that, a man who remembers Allah when he is alone and his eyes overflow with tears, a man who refuses the approaches of a noble, beautiful woman, saying "I fear Allah," and a man who gives sadaqa and conceals it so that his left hand does not know what his right hand gives.' "

So, how do we get this feature? There are many practical ways with which we can achieve to gain this feature. Among others;

1) Set a specific time in a day (normally at night) for us to ponder about what we have done for the whole day. Reflect on our wrongdoings, on our laziness to do good deeds, on our lack of knowledge, on our weaknesses to fight with satan's whispers, on the lack of struggles to overcome our own "self"(nafs), so on and so forth.
2) Avoid doing sins, whether minor or grave sins since a sin will represent a black dot on our hearts and as hearts become darkened with sins, they harden and shedding tears for Allah will become difficult.

Wallahu'alam and TBC