The word · The heart
الهَوَى
Hawa
Whim: personal desire raised high enough that a person follows it instead of the evidence.
Also written · Hawaa · Hava · Ahwa · Ahwaa · Ahl al-ahwa · Desire · Whim · Whims · Caprice · Following desires · Lust · Nafs desires
The meaning
What Hawa means in Islam
The Qur'an asks whether you have seen the one who has taken his desire as his god (Qur'an 45:23), and promises the Garden to whoever feared standing before his Lord and restrained the self from its whim (Qur'an 79:40-41). It is used for appetite, but also for opinion held out of preference, which is why the early scholars called sects the people of desires. The test is what you do when the proof turns out to go against what you wanted.
Evidence · Qur’an · Stated directly in the Qur’an
Read beside it
Rooms that name it
Words that sit beside it
- NafsThe self: the inner person that can command wrong, blame itself, or come to rest.النَّفْس
- MujahadahThe struggle against your own self: making yourself do the right thing when you do not want to.المُجَاهَدَة
- TaqwaAn alert, careful awareness of Allah that keeps a person away from what harms them.التَّقْوَى
- Ghadd al-BasarLowering the gaze: turning your eyes away from what you are not permitted to look at.غَضُّ البَصَر
More from The heart
- 'AfwPardon: dropping a wrong you are owed, without the other person having to earn it.العَفْو
- GhaflahHeedlessness: not the denial of the truth, but the habit of never getting round to it.الغَفْلَة
- Kaba'irMajor sins: the ones the texts single out with a punishment, a curse, or a warning of the Fire.الكَبَائِر
- NamimahCarrying words between people in a way that sets them against each other.النَّمِيمَة
- SabrHolding yourself steady under what is hard, without complaint to creation and without giving up.الصَّبْر
- TabarrukSeeking blessing through a person, place or object, which scholars permit narrowly and dispute widely.التَّبَرُّك