Just as the earth is illuminated by the light of the sun, so too are bodies illuminated by the light of the ruh (the spirit). (Tedbīrāt, 110)
The realm of the nafs (the lower self) is twofold: obedient and rebellious. The obedient is called the realm of jabarūt (ceberūt, the world of divine power). According to them, the realm of the nafs is entirely barzakh (berzah, the isthmus/intermediate realm). The rebellious nafs are the enemies of this city. (Tedbīrāt, 154)
The nafs is the ruh that Allah has set upon the qalb (the heart) to extinguish its sparks.
The nafs is that which is related to the attributes of the servant. (Iṣṭilāḥ, 533)
The existence of the Real (al-Ḥaqq) has shone forth
O my nafs, O my nafs
Do not deny Him
You will find Me in yourself
I am in myself
O nafs, O nafs who is found between constriction and expansion! Allah has chosen you as the lowest among the people of the dunyā (this world). (Rūḥī, 137)
They name the nafs as the subtle essence of humanity (laṭīfa-i insāniyya). It should be known that, in the terminology of the people of Sufism (taṣawwuf), this concept of nafs expresses two aspects, from the barzakh realm to the universal nafs (kullī nafs). For barzakh is not realized for one who is between two things, until both aspects are fulfilled and nothing remains except Allah. He has linked the manifestation of things to causes. For nothing exists without a cause. Every existent has two causes: one pertaining to itself, and one to Allah. Thus, it is an obstacle between the cause and Allah.
The first barzakh in the mirrors is the existence of the Universal Nafs (Kullī Nafs). It has emerged from the intellect (ʿaql) and its creator is Allah. It has an aspect pertaining to its own cause and an aspect pertaining to Allah. This is the first barzakh to appear. When you understand this, in the nafs, which is the subtle aspect of the servant that governs the body, only after the body is rectified and made sound does a mirror appear. Then, the Real breathes into it from His ruh, and the nafs appears between the body, which has been fashioned by the divine breath (nafh-i ilāhī), and the divine breath itself. Therefore, temperament is affected there, and nafses become superior to one another. In terms of the divine breath, there is no superiority among them. Superiority lies in the acceptance and development of this. It has an aspect oriented toward nature and an aspect toward the divine ruh. We have accepted this nafs from the barzakh realm.
Among the attributes of the servant, those influenced by the barzakh realm are like this. According to one group, these are censured from the perspective of the nafs. According to most scholars, since the act is attributed to Allah, it is praised. Not because of the cause, but rather due to the blame that is not the same as the cause itself, it is from the barzakh realm, which is a place between praise and blame.
Every attribute belongs to the nafs of the servant. However, in this attribute, the Real cannot be witnessed by the nafs at the level of the mirror's existence. This view is defective (not sound). Therefore, it has been said regarding it: It is the nafs, that is, nothing is witnessed in it except the nafs itself. As some see it, they have not seen it from the Real, so that the Real could be witnessed in it by means of the nafs. Likewise, when this attribute appears in it due to a worldly cause, there is no connection to Allah in its witnessing, nor is there any thought of Allah in it. It is defective (ill, faulty) due to that worldly cause that led the servant to be found with this attribute. It is like one who chooses one of the pleasures and fleeting desires of the world. He is moved only by this aim and its love. No thought or inspiration comes to him from Allah. This movement is said to be defective (faulty). That is, in your witnessing of this, there is no beginning from Allah. (Futūḥāt, II, 558)
My abode is the garden of meanings
I am the one who sees with my own eye
There is nothing in me but duality
They call me the second
But I am not the second
My existence ends
with everything that comes into being
I watch that which is opposed to the Essence from the eyes
I have a judgment acquired
in distant times
I have no equal
except for one who resembles my state
Criticize, if you wish,
the subtleties brought by my tongue,
the beautiful ḥaqīqas (ḥaqīqa, inner realities) suspended from the delicacies,
to hearts that have turned away,
free from the echoes of dominion,
from the beauties of the desired gardens of paradise.
The Breath of the Merciful (Nafas-i Raḥmānī) is the source of life for this emergence. Through it, the nafs al-nāṭiqa (the rational soul) knows and perceives. With the power of thought, it details what the Real has summarized in it. It brings things down to their levels and gives each rightful owner their due.
We reached the middle heaven and the just presence (maqām, spiritual station). The Prophet ascended to the verses of exaltation and qudra (kudret, divine power). These are the highest among those who give life, like mothers and fathers. When we reached this heaven we sought, the beloved master of ḥikma (hikmet, wisdom) asked for permission for us. The master of that heaven granted us permission. Then we entered the nafs. Upon entering, the Presence stood up, and we sat. The Presence asked: Where did this preserved and protected caravan come from? We replied: We came from the land of foreign bodies. Then he said: Welcome, visitors from the land of the beloved! That place—(the nafs)—what a beautiful protected city it is!
The dignitaries were sitting cross-legged. He had made his sovereignty a beautiful world. This world was divided into high and low. This sultan was the sultan of the high world, and in that sultanate, divine attributes were established. These attributes were called living (ḥayy), knowing (ʿālim), willing (murīd), powerful (qādir), speaking (mutakallim), seeing (baṣīr), and hearing (samīʿ). These attributes were reinforced by nine nourishing faculties: nourishing, growing, shaping and forming, speaking, reasoning, protecting, thinking, imagining, and sensing. These faculties were further strengthened by those that attract the beneficial, retain them, digest what enters the stomach to protect from harm, and expel them from the stomach. Since there is much excess in it, explaining the order of this city would be lengthy.
However, this city (the nafs) encompasses the reality of the created (maḥlūq) and some of the divine realities. Allah has not created a creature more noble than it. No one has produced wisdoms like those that arise from it. It has been given the power to utter concise words and has been granted various wisdoms. Ah! My long yearning and longing for it! (Latāʾif, 112)
The nafs is accepted in the cosmic barzakh,
the ruh is accepted in the celestial sphere,
between two trustworthy ones,
while sensation is bound to the lower sphere.
The mother of all idols is the idol of your nafs. The idols seen externally are but snakes, while the idol of the nafs is a dragon.
The nafs is flint and iron; the idol is the spark that leaps from the flint. That spark is extinguished by water. (Mathnawī, I, 49)
The spark is extinguished, but can flint and iron be extinguished by water? How can a human be secure as long as these two are with him?
The fire of flint and iron is hidden within them. Water does not enter them to extinguish the fire.
Water only extinguishes fire that is outside. How can it enter the stone and iron?
From the flint and iron, which symbolize the nafs and shahwa (shahwa, carnal desire), leap the sparks of kufr (disbelief) and all evils. Their smoke rises.
Even if the water in the vessel or jug runs out, the water of the fountain of the nafs flows fresh and unceasing.
The idol of the nafs is the black water hidden in the jug. Know the source of this hidden black water as the nafs.
That carved idol is like a muddy, dirty black flood. The nafs that carves the idol is the fountain on the main road.
A piece of stone breaks a hundred jugs. But the water of the fountain flows ceaselessly. Breaking the idol is easy, very easy, but to think breaking the idol of the nafs is easy is ignorance, sheer ignorance.
The nafs has a trick at every moment, and with each trick, hundreds of Pharaohs and their followers are drowned in the sea of rebellion.
If you wish to be saved, seek refuge in the Lord of Moses and in Moses. Do not lose your iman (faith) by acting like Pharaoh.
O brother, follow Allah's command and the sunnah of our noble Prophet, and be saved from the Abu Jahl of the body and from carnal desires... (Mathnawī, I, 50)
If your nafs sees you with the shaykh, it will inevitably become subject to your command.
When the shaykh becomes your friend, then the intellect overcomes the dog of the nafs. (Mathnawī, III, 201)
The nafs, with its hundreds of powers, skills, and maʿrifa (gnosis), is a dragon. The face of the shaykh is the emerald that blinds it. (Note: It is said that the emerald stone dazzles the eyes of a snake and blinds it. Şefik Can)
If the nafs is present in the presence of a walī (friend of God), its tongue, which is a hundred cubits long, becomes shortened, i.e., it loses its audacity for evil.
The nafs has a hundred tongues, each with a hundred languages. Its trickery and tales are beyond telling... (Note: The nafs knowing many languages and having many tongues expresses its ability to understand the languages of all the peoples of the world, who speak in various colors and tongues. Şefik Can)
The nafs holds a rosary and the Qur'an in its right hand, but hides a dagger and sword in its sleeve. (Note: The nafs, which presents itself as a Sufi and believer, commits all kinds of sins and crimes when given the chance. Şefik Can)
Do not be deceived by its Qur'an or its display; do not make yourself its confidant and friend.
The nafs leads you to the pool for ablution, then pushes you in and drowns you.
The intellect is a luminous gift from Allah, desiring good, but how does the dark nafs overcome it?
Because your intellect is a stranger in the body. The nafs is at home, and dogs at their own doors become lions of heyba (heybet, awe). (Note: In his Dīvān-i Kabīr, Mawlānā says: This love is like the ruh, a stranger in the body made of clay. Love, intellect, ruh—all these are spiritual and lofty beings, so in the lowly, earthly body, they are like strangers. Similarly, Burhān al-Dīn Tirmidhī said: The ruh is in exile, the body is at home. O Allah, have mercy on the ruh, which is a stranger, sorrowful, and separated from its homeland. Şefik Can) (Mathnawī, III, 202)
The nafs is a Pharaoh; do not indulge it, lest it become a captive to its old kufr (disbelief).
Without the fire of ascetic discipline (riyāḍa), the nafs will not be corrected. Do not attempt to forge cold iron. (Mathnawī, IV, 643)
Know that unless the body is hungry, it will not turn to the Real, will not submit, but will rebel; to correct it while it is full is like forging cold iron. (Note: If Allah were to expand the provision of all His servants, they would surely transgress on earth. al-Shūrā 42:27) Şefik Can
This shadow-existence of the body and the nafs hidden within it—let it weep or moan, do not trust it, it will not become Muslim.
The nafs is like Pharaoh, who, in times of famine, prostrated and pleaded before Moses.
When a person is freed from need and hardship, he becomes insolent, like a donkey that kicks when its load is removed.
When things go well, he forgets his previous weeping and lamenting. (Mathnawī, IV, 644)
The nafs is a vaporous, subtle substance that carries the power of life, sensation, and voluntary movement. The philosopher has called it the animal ruh. It is an intermediary between the qalb (the heart), which is the nafs al-nāṭiqa, and the body. In the Qur'an, to show the degree of man and that he is not from the east of the world of abstract ruhs nor from the west of the world of dense bodies, it is alluded to by the olive tree described as neither of the east nor of the west (Qur'an, al-Nūr 24:35).
The nafs al-ammāra (commanding nafs) inclines the body toward nature, commands pleasures and sensual desires. It pulls the qalb toward the lowly direction, being the refuge of evil and the source of bad akhlāq (akhlaq, character) and behaviors. The Exalted Allah says: "Indeed, the nafs commands to evil." (Kāshānī, 95; Jāmiʿ, 101)
The nafs al-lawwāma (self-reproaching nafs) is the nafs illuminated by the light of the qalb enough to awaken from the sleep of heedlessness. It begins by correcting its state as it oscillates between lordship and createdness. Whenever, due to its dark nature, an evil arises from it, the divine light prevents it, and thus it begins to blame itself. It turns to Allah, the Forgiving and Merciful, in tawba (repentance). For this reason, Allah draws attention to it by swearing by it: "But nay! I swear by the self-reproaching nafs." (al-Qiyāma 75:2) (Kāshānī, 95; Jāmiʿ, 102)
The nafs al-muṭmaʾinna (the tranquil nafs) is the nafs that, having rid itself of evil traits and adorned itself with good character, is fully illuminated by the light of the qalb. This nafs turns entirely toward the qalb, striving for obedience and purification from evil, ascending to the Exalted, the All-Knowing, the Holy, and walking the path to the highest maqām (spiritual station). Eventually, its Lord addresses it: "O tranquil nafs, return to your Lord, well-pleased and pleasing [to Him]. Enter among My servants and enter My Paradise." (Kāshānī, 96; Jāmiʿ, 102)
The Aquila constellation (ʿuqāb) is sometimes expressed as the First Intellect, sometimes as the Universal Nature. They have called the nafs al-nāṭiqa the dove (warqāʾ). The First Intellect, like the ʿuqāb, lifts the nafs al-nāṭiqa from the lower world to the summit of the higher, sacred realm. Nature, on the other hand, brings it down to the lower world. (Kāshānī, 131; Jāmiʿ, 90)
Regarding tawba (repentance), people are of four ranks: The first rank is the penitent who lives according to his tawba until the end of his life. He recognizes his excesses, resolves not to return to sin except for errors possible to a human. This is steadfastness in tawba. Its possessor is among the foremost in good deeds (sābiq bi'l-khayrāt). This is called sincere tawba (tawba-i naṣūḥ), and such a nafs is called nafs al-muṭmaʾinna. Among them are those whose desires are calmed under the power of maʿrifa and whose nafs have ceased to struggle. Others still struggle tooth and nail, with the nafs resisting.
The second rank is the penitent who follows the path of uprightness in the fundamentals of obedience and major sins. However, though he does not wish to commit sins, he cannot avoid them. Even if he does not intend to commit them, he is tested with them in various states. Whenever he commits one, he blames himself, regrets, and resolves to remove its causes. This is the nafs al-lawwāma, for it reproaches its owner for pursuing evil states. Though lower than the first rank, this is still a lofty station. This is the most common state among penitents. For evil was kneaded into Adam's (the Prophet Adam's) clay. Whenever he distances himself from sin, his good deeds outweigh his bad. The aim of his striving is only that his good deeds outweigh his evil ones on the scale. It is unlikely that the pan of evil deeds will be empty. Such people attain Allah's good promise. They avoid major sins and indecencies except for minor faults. Their Lord's forgiveness is vast. The Prophet indicated this rank by saying: "Allah loves the oft-repentant sinful believer."
The third rank is the penitent who is steadfast for a time, but then his desires overcome him regarding certain sins, and due to the strength of desire, he falls into sin. Nevertheless, he continues in obedience and tries to avoid sins, but one or two desires dominate him. He wishes that Allah would dominate him and help him against evil. When this ends (when he sins), he regrets it, but prepares himself to repent. This nafs is called nafs al-masʾūla (or musawwila?). Its owner is among those about whom Allah says: "And others have acknowledged their sins. They mixed a righteous deed with another that was bad." (al-Tawba 9:102) Because he continues in obedience and dislikes being occupied with sin, Allah commands him to be hopeful with the words: "It may be that Allah will turn to them in forgiveness." His fate is in danger due to delaying repentance. Sometimes, before repentance, he is dazzled by sin. Deeds are judged by their conclusions. Thus, fear is the conclusion. Death may come to anyone. Therefore, everyone should watch themselves and avoid prohibited acts!
The fourth rank is the penitent who is steadfast for a while, but before becoming accustomed to repentance or feeling remorse, immediately plunges into sin again. This person persists in sin. This nafs is the nafs al-ammāra bi's-sūʾ (the nafs that commands to evil). For such a one, there is fear of a bad end (dying in kufr). If he dies upon tawhid (the oneness of God), it is hoped that he will be saved from the Fire, even if he is kept from Paradise and its blessings for a time. It is not impossible that he may be included in the general pardon for some hidden reason he does not understand. But it is not right to rely on this. Allah is Generous, His treasures are vast; you may see someone who says, "My sin does not harm Him," later setting out on a sea journey to earn money. (Qudāma, 278)
Just as gold, water, and wounds are all called by the same word 'ayn, so too is nafs a common term for various things. In language, the reality of a thing is its very existence. You say: "Zayd himself came to me." A poet said:
He himself loved Usama
In the language of the people of Sufism, it is used to mean: the nafs is the essence that contains the evil traits of the human being. Therefore, they have said: The struggle against the nafs is very necessary...
In the language of the early and later philosophers, it is used to mean a living, divine, luminous substance whose powers do not perish or cease. Philosophers have differed as to whether it is particular or universal. The universal is the whole world itself. Its powers do not perish, and its acts do not cease. For it proceeds from the greatest existent. It is the first intellect to appear from Allah's creation and has received the chain of effusion from the sea of Allah's light. It is encompassed by the encompassing sphere (falak-i muḥīṭ).
Its power operates in all parts and individuals of the world by governing, creating, and ruling. Its rule is effective in all bodies it encompasses. It has two powers: the first is that it can bring hidden sciences, correct opinions, and sound arts from potentiality to actuality, and through it, its essence is perfected.