On the Soul - Nafs 4

النفس

The Most Important Task

An Enemy With the Appearance of a Friend

Know that the soul is an enemy with the appearance of a friend. Its guile and deceit are unbounded, and to repel its evil and subjugate it is the most important of tasks. For it is the most hostile of all enemies, more so than demons, infidels, and the life of this world.

• Of course the most important task is the worship of the One who deserves undivided worship, while following the example of Prophet Muhammad ﷺ. But true worship is not possible without knowledge of the self/ soul - worship in awareness of the human situation and the demands of the Divine.

Restoring the Soul to a State of Rectitude

Thus, to train the soul and to restore it to a state of rectitude, and to advance it from the attribute of commanding [evil]** to the degree of tranquility*, is a great task. The perfection of human happiness lies in the refinement of the soul, and the completion of man's wretchedness lies in abandoning the soul to the demands of instinctual nature.

Hence God Almighty said, after invoking a multiple oath: {Truly he prospers who refines it, and he fails who corrupts it.} For the refinement and training of the soul yields knowledge of the soul, and knowledge of the soul leads to knowledge of God: ”He who knows his soul knows his Lord.” This knowledge is the summit of all felicity.

** see above, Sura 12-53

* Sura 89-27
{O Self, in complete rest and satisfaction!}
This highest stage of the soul is called the nafs al-mutma`inna (the soul at peace).

The Path of God’s Bondsmen; Najm al-Din Razi

Regarding the tribulations of the soul

The real state of the soul only comes to light in tribulation, poverty and conflict (mukhālafa). How can one come to know his Lord when he does not even know what lies in his own soul?
Abu Said al-Kharraz, cited in Sirjani, Book of Black and White, 192.

Joseph Lumbard, شاكر عبد الحق @JosephLumbard, 2023
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NB:

We have to guard against ”a confusion that is very widespread in the modern world, namely, the confusion of the psychic and the spiritual domains. …This confusion assimilates the spiritual to all that is most inferior in the psychic order; it is therefore extremely serious in every case.”

The Confusion of the Psychic and the Spiritual

See video next page: On Selfhood And The Loss of Meaning