Restraining the Nafs

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ 

The following is an adapted extract of Imam Abu Hamid Muhammad ibn Muhammad al-Ghazali’s (r.a.) Ayyuha al-Walad.  When Shaykh Abu ‘Ali Shaqiq ibn Ibrahim al-Azdi al-Balkhi (q.s.) asked his student, Shaykh Hatim Ism (q.s.), who became a great spiritual master, about the benefits of associating with him, he named eight. 

Of the second, he said, “O my teacher!  The second benefit is that I glanced at the people of the world and saw that everyone follows the pleasures and desires from the nafs and is subservient to the desires from the lower self.  Upon seeing that, I deliberated on the following verse: 

سُوۡرَةُ النَّازعَات

وَأَمَّا مَنۡ خَافَ مَقَامَ رَبِّهِۦ وَنَهَى ٱلنَّفۡسَ عَنِ ٱلۡهَوَىٰ (٤٠) فَإِنَّ ٱلۡجَنَّةَ هِىَ ٱلۡمَأۡوَىٰ (٤١) 

But as for him who feared to stand before his Lord and restrained his soul from lust, lo!  The Garden will be his home. (Surah an-Nazi’at:40-41) 

I developed the certitude that the Wise Qur’an is correct and the Book of Allah is the Truth.  Then, I established a front against my nafs and became determined to oppose it.  I molded it in such a shape that I did not fulfill any of its desires until it started to find peace in the worship of Allah (s.w.t.).”