The Result of the “Liberation of Spirit” & The Disciplining and Purification of the Nafs

 

The Result of the “Liberation of Spirit”

For the ruh that has become animated, activated, and liberated from the shackles of nafs, the logical result is the commencement of a journey. This journey has been succinctly described by Plotinus as “the flight of the alone to The Alone.” Without suggesting anything more than a partial and imperfect resemblance between the two, we say that our ruh is solitary and lonely and so is Almighty Allah (SWT). The ruh  is not related to anyone, it has no father, it is nobody’s offspring, and it has no spouse; all these relations are linked to the material body of the human being and not to the spiritual soul. In modern philosophy, the term “alienation” has come to be widely used to describe this sense of loneliness and solitude. Indeed, these are the feelings experienced by any person who begins to develop intellectually and/or psychologically. In other words, the more an individual moves above the merely animal level, the more will be his or her consciousness of loneliness and solitude. Consequently, on the one hand there is the unique individuality of the ruh and, on the other hand, there is The One Who is absolutely Alone. There cannot even be an inkling of the slightest contamination in the “Oneness” of The One. 

Now it is an established law of nature that everything has an inherent urge or tendency to return to its real source and origin, and therefore the direction of the spirit’s journey is towards its source — Almighty Allah (SWT). The ruh has been likened to a bird that has been imprisoned in the cage of the physical body. This bird is agitating to free itself and rise towards the heavens, and this has been symbolized by Plotinus as the “flight of the alone to The Alone.” We can add a little something to this symbolism by noting that it is the flight of “the finite alone” to “The Infinite Alone.” Two couplets from Iqbal’s Gulshan-e-Raz-e-Jadeed (The New Garden of Mystery) are instructive regarding this discussion:

My heart burns on the loneliness of God!

In order, therefore, to maintain intact His Ego-Society

I sow in my dust the seed of selfhood,

And keep a constant vigil over my “I.”

Summarizing the discussion thus far, the basic point to note is that the cultivation and strengthening of the ruh is an absolute must for every individual. The means for attaining this goal is dhikr or remembrance of Allah (SWT). The most potent means of attaining remembrance is the Qur’an — which describes itself as “The Remembrance” — then prayer, and finally the various Prophetic supplications. Remembrance of Allah (SWT) helps to enlighten the ruh, with the result that the depth and intensity of faith continue to develop until a stage is reached where the believer attains the level of Ihsan.

The Disciplining and Purification of the Nafs

The process of disciplining and purifying the nafs must accompany the efforts to nourish and strengthen the ruh. One has to engage in various exercises in order to culture the nafs so that it moves from craving libidinal gratification to being content and satisfied in the pursuit of higher ideals. Just as various exercises are required for training the vocal chords of the singer, the reflexes of the athlete, and the eyes of the physician, the disciplining of the nafs also requires certain exercises. Indeed, it is not possible to culture the nafs without undertaking intense effort and steely determination.

Foremost among the exercises to discipline the nafs is the establishment of prayer. In general, prayer is a means of remembrance of Allah (SWT) and therefore it helps in strengthening the ruh. To establish regular prayer in a collective setting, on the other hand, is a very effective means of disciplining the nafs. Establishing the prayer five times a day in a masjid  requires that a specific timetable be followed so that, in spite of all the distractions and difficulties of everyday life, one still manages to show up for the prayers regularly. In addition to the five obligatory prayers, there is the most esteemed of the supererogatory prayers, tahajjud. Here one has to get up in the middle of the night, although the nafs craves rest and sleep. Secondly, there is the exercise of fasting in which one must abstain from two of the most potent physical needs, food and sex, from dawn to sunset. The third exercise is spending one’s hard earned money for the sake of Allah (SWT). Since the nafs wants to hold on to this wealth and lavish it on itself, it pains the nafs seeing this wealth being “wasted” in charity. 

The establishment of prayer, fasting, and spending for the sake of Allah (SWT) are all exercises that counter the demands of the nafs and thereby serve to weaken its hold on the heart. Note that the same goal is further achieved through two other religious obligations, each of which combines the features of the aforementioned three obligations. First, there is the obligation of Hajj. In Hajj there are specific requirements regarding dhikr and prayer, restrictions of ihram, the spending of wealth, as well as the risk and discomfort of a long journey. Second, there is the mission of spreading the word of Islam and struggling to establish it on the earth (Iqamah Al-Deen). This mission also brings with it a great deal of trials and tribulations that require the believer to control the demands of the nafs.

A believer undertaking this mission has to face abusive language and insults, endure malicious propaganda, suffer the taunts of street urchins, and bear the pain of being described as charlatan or insane. The Prophet (SAW) himself had to listen to people calling him a liar, a mere poet, a possessed individual, a sorcerer, a demented person, a magician, and other such things, all because he was calling the people towards Islam. In the face of this abuse, the command from Allah (SWT) was to remain patient and steadfast, and not to respond to any insult, provocation, or physical harm. Just like the Prophet (SAW) and his Companions (RAA), every believer must face these insults during the course of the struggle to establish Islam — the patient endurance of which serves to control and discipline the nafs. Similarly, there can be no struggle for Islam without the expenditure of money, time, and capabilities. At the same time, one endangers not only one’s own well being but also that of one’s family by condemning tyranny and injustice. When, during the course of this mission, the stage of open conflict arrives one has to put one’s very own life on the line. At this stage the two most fundamental biological instincts — preservation of the self and preservation of the species — have to be curtailed for the sake of a higher, spiritual ideal.

The most important point to note in the context of this discussion is the following: Only one of two conditions can be present in a given society: either Islam is established and dominant as a politico-socio-economic order, or it has been relegated to the private affairs of the individual. If Islam is dominant, then Salat, Zakat, Saum, and Hajj would be the primary means of disciplining and purifying the nafs, and one should also engage in supererogatory practices to further attain this goal. In the latter case, however, the mission of calling people to Islam and striving to make it dominant takes precedence over all supererogatory (nafl) acts of worship. When Islam is weak and overpowered by forces of disbelief, primary attention has to be given to Jihad as a means of disciplining and purifying the nafs and not to supererogatory acts of worships.

The importance of engaging in the struggle to establish Islam as it relates to the culturing of the nafs on the individual level is quite clear — this struggle is an exercise in disciplining the nafs  so that the ruh may be enlightened and liberated. There is, however, another important and collective dimension to this struggle. The ultimate goal of the struggle for Iqamah Al-Deen is to establish a just and equitable society so that the opportunity is afforded to the greatest number of people to adopt the path of self-purification and spiritual enlightenment. 

Imagine the selfishness and self-centeredness of an individual who has spent years roaming in the deserts, isolated on mountain tops, or living in the jungles — all for the sake of his own spiritual enlightenment. This person undertakes all sorts of difficult exercises and risks in order to cleanse, purify, and refine his own self, while the vast multitudes of his fellow human beings are condemned to an oppressive, wretched, and inhuman existence due to the tyranny of men who have set themselves up in the place of God. This multitude of humanity will not even be afforded the opportunity to ponder over ideals any higher or nobler than their empty stomachs and tin-roof shacks. Whether the individual seeker actually attains spiritual enlightenment or not, that point is totally irrelevant for the vast majority of human beings — the wretched of the earth. The efforts on the part of this individual to reach the heights of spiritual enlightenment are self-centered and totally divorced from the altruistic struggle to establish justice.

Whatever may be the ultimate outcome of this effort in the eyes of Allah (SWT), from a sociological point of view we can state with absolute confidence that selfishness and self-centeredness negate all higher spiritual values.

It has been detailed in my tract The Objective and Goal of Muhammad’s Prophethood (SAW) that the advent of the Last Prophet (SAW) took place at a critical juncture in human history. From his era onwards, the domain of individual liberty and freedom began to shrink and the domain of the collective system began to expand dramatically. In other words, it became progressively more difficult for the individual to shape his or her own life, free from the influence of the collective system in place. This tyranny has reached its absolute climax in the modern secular society where the very hopes, fears, and dreams of the individual are engineered by a corporate system over which he or she has no control. For the masses of humanity who are not privileged to enjoy the fruits of the modern corporate-consumer culture, political tyranny combines with economic destitution and a grossly unjust social stratification to produce a society where no individual can possibly assert his or her individuality. The hadith of the Prophet (SAW) — “Poverty leads towards disbelief” — has a direct bearing on this subject. Indeed, if the scrooges of hunger, indigence, and despair do not actually produce disbelief, they definitely have the effect of making the individual heedless and forgetful of Allah (SWT). This idea is expressed by Faiz Ahmad Faiz in an Urdu couplet thus:

Life has alienated me,

From the remembrance of your beauty;

More entrancing than even you,

Are the sorrows of this world.

Shah Waliullah Delhvi (RA) has offered a very penetrating analysis regarding the relationship between extreme wealth, grinding poverty, and the condition of religion in society. He says that the unjust distribution of wealth in society eventually leads to its concentration in the hands of a tiny elite. The elite possessing this wealth indulge in luxury, extravagance, and opulence; it becomes immersed in all the vices that inevitably accompany such a lifestyle. The impoverished masses, on the other hand, find themselves trapped in a life of destitution and desperation, a life in which the procurement of the next meal becomes their central concern. Consequently, most of the people living in such a society begin to merely exist at the levels of animals — the rich because they choose to, the masses because they are forced to. In both cases, human beings become oblivious and forgetful of Allah (SWT). How can there be any hope of spiritual growth under such unjust socio-economic conditions?

There is a very critical point to note about the religious concept of “service to humanity.” This concept has three different levels. 

• On the most basic level it is the feeding, clothing, and sheltering of the poor and tending to the needs of the indigent. For an individual who is calling people towards Allah (SWT) and towards the light of truth, it is of great importance that he or she not only have sympathy and empathy for the poor and the needy, but that he or she actually serves them. 
• The second level of “service to humanity” is to help human beings regarding their fate in the Hereafter. What good is it to temporarily allay the suffering of an individual in the worldly life, if he or she will not benefit from the Grace of Allah (SWT) in the Hereafter? Consequently, calling people to Islam so that they may benefit from Divine Grace in the Hereafter is a more noble level of “service to humanity.” 
• The third level in this regard is to struggle for the freedom of the creatures of Allah (SWT) from bondage to the tyranny of despots, and to establish a just and equitable order in which all are free to develop their spiritual potential and to love, adore, and obey their Lord. This is the noblest of the three levels of “service to humanity” because it produces benefits in this world as well as in the Hereafter. Reducing the concept of “service to humanity” merely to the first level betrays a limited and distorted conception of religious obligations. 

Source: The Reality of Tasawwuf

To be continued....