Guiding a Blind Child Without Reason
The “nafs” (ego), which is the most insidious enemy that leads humanity astray from the path of Allah, often drags a person into sin by hiding behind logical excuses. Shaykh Abd al-Qadir al-Geylani explains this dangerous nature of the nafs with an extremely striking analogy: “It has no reason. It resembles a tiny child. Its eyes are also blind. You must show it the way.” Showing compassion to the nafs, submitting to its desires, is actually like allowing a child with sightless eyes to play on the edge of a precipice. It is not possible to learn any truth or knowledge from it; rather, one must forcibly hold the hand of that blind child with the light of reason and faith and lead him onto the right path.
Disobedience Does Not End Without a Stick and Discipline
The nafs always desires comfort, luxury, sleep, and indulgence. It is “a bad slave, who only obeys under compulsion by a stick. Do not satisfy it, but if you believe that satisfying it will not lead to its corruption, feed it as much as it wants.” The struggle (mujahada) on the Sufi path is precisely the name of this discipline. When the nafs’s desires are given, it immediately becomes spoiled, throws the burden of worship off its back, and falls into laziness. If a person “shows it the whiteness of its teeth” (acts with a smiling face), that nafs immediately turns to arrogance and rebellion. The true dervish always looks at it with seriousness, worship, and awe.
Subduing Desires and Finding Peace
As a result of this relentless jihad against the nafs, that spoiled child eventually learns to submit. The perfect believer who follows the command “Oppose your nafs. Do not obey it. Bind it with force, do not loosen it. Imprison it. Only give it what is due” will one day ride on the back of that nafs. The servant who breaks the arrogance of the nafs with the sword of Tawhid tames it into a docile mount, crosses the seas of spirituality upon its back, and appears before his Lord as a free human being.