The Captivity of the Heart: A Lecture by Ustadh Hamza Tzortzis
Not every prison is carved from stone nor every chain forged from iron.
There exists an imprisonment worse than palsy and more severe than the stifling of breath. Rather the confinement of the heart, a state in which the soul finds itself unable to outstretch, towards the Divine. One may possess liberties over his own motions yet remain fettered by desires that bind him, mind and soul. He may stand amongst the trees, beneath an open sky but his interior horizons narrow until the perception of Fashioner, Creator and King dissolve into a hissing cataclysm.
The Quran reveals, and revels in the rivalling of this clandestine captivity. In the story of Prophet Yusuf AS, we encounter a man placed within the walls of a prison subjugated by human injustice, yet radiating a peace and conviction surpassing not just his guards but even the pharaohs of Egypt. In that dark dungeon, he spoke words that have cut through centuries, “O my companions of prison, are many lords better, or Allah, the One, the Prevailing?” [Yusuf 12:39].
In these lines we find a subtle paradox. Yusuf was chained yet unbound, watched by guards yet freer than them and their commanders, bound by earthly constructs yet limitless in his devotion.
Tawhid had torn the chains from his heart.
The Messenger PBUH unmasked the same reality in his statement, “The world is a prison for the believer and a paradise for the disbeliever.” [Sahih Muslim]. The believer is not enslaved by Allah but by the awareness of what awaits us beyond this life. He perceives the glamour of this world as transient. He recognises that indulgence without worship is nothing but a cage gilded in delusion. The disbeliever may laugh, may pleasure, may consume, yet he dwells in a fleeting paradise that will one day burn around him. The believer may be denied and restricted yet his eyes see past the veil. His prison is temporary, his freedom eternal.
So, what are these prisons that enclose us while we walk unbound? They are the idols fashioned not from stone but from ambition, envy, fear and the endless pursuit of validation. Each ungoverned desire is a clasp across the heart.
Tawhid is the emancipation. To affirm the oneness of Allah is to dismantle every competing authority. To remember Him is to breathe freely. To submit is to stand upright even when the body is forced to bow before tyrants. The liberation that emerges from la ilaha illa Allah is unrestricted. It erupts within ourselves, transforming every narrow into expanse, every deprivation into sufficiency and every prison into a sanctuary.
Our world confuses freedom with indulgence. It insists that to be free is to choose endlessly, to consume without restraint, to silence every command that interrupts desire. Yet this very pursuit enslaves. It renders man obedient to his appetite, submissive to his fears and shackled to his greed.
Yusuf AS was freer in his cell than the king who later summoned him. The Prophet Muhammed PBUH was freer under persecution in Makkah than the Quraysh who sought to suffocate his truth. They remind us that liberation is not the absence of prison walls but the presence of Allah SWT in our hearts.
And so the question lingers for us all... Are we imprisoned by our desires? Or are we emancipated by the Truth that is La Illaha Illa Allah.
This reflection was inspired by a lecture at Masjid Al Furqan in Manchester last week delivered by Ustadh Hamza Tzortzis. May Allah reward him.
Faithfully, Issa.
