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Prof. Mohyuddin Hashimi*
Physical and biological nature of man is, although, not the main
concern of the Holy Qur’an, it does provide significant insight
about man and his nature. A brief description of Islamic thought on
the subject is mentioned below:
Islam
does not presuppose any inherent wickedness of human nature. Any
negative representation of man's basic nature as a source of evil
and wickedness is clearly rejected. According to Islam, the human
being is born in the state of fitrah, the original inherent
nature of the human being. At birth, the baby is totally innocent
and is not responsible for the sin of his parents or any of his
ancestors. Environmental and other external influences keep on
modifying his blueprint. The Holy Prophet (PBUH) said:
“Every
child is created in the state of fitrah, it is the parents,
culture, and society that make him a Christian, a Jew, or a
fire-worshipper.”
Islam is the first religion to declare man as the most
superior of the creatures and the masterpiece of the Creator.
According to Islam, man
is potentially capable of rising higher than the angels, that is why
Allah has commanded angels to bow down before Adam. But, at the same
time, he is equally capable of sinking lower than the animals.
The Holy Qur’an says:
"We have indeed
created man in the best shap, then We reduced him (to be) the lowest
of the low, except those who believe and do righteous deeds: for
they shall have a reward unfailing." (95:46)
These
verses indicate that Allah has given man the purest and best nature
while man's duty is to preserve the pattern on which God has made
him. However, when he neglects his duty and goes in the wrong way,
he will be reduced to the lowest possible position.
The
Holy Qur’an asserts that inclination and attraction towards faith
and virtue and repulsion from disobedience and corruption exists in
man’s nature.
“But God has
endeared to you faith and has beautified it in your hearts and has
made disbelief and lewdness and rebellion hateful to you.” (49:7)
To sum up the
point, man comes into the world with a pure and wholesome nature.
Whereas sin and corruption in human being are merely accidental and
violation of his original nature. The role of prophets and the
scriptures is just to help human nature to flow in its true channel
and to guide human nature to its ultimate goal of eternal felicity.
This Qur’anic theory of human nature also implies the fact that if
man consciously decides to submit himself to the will of Allah, he
experiences no conflict in his personality. (10:62) while, on the
other hand, if he misuses his freedom of choice by denying God and
not submitting to His will, would be in a state of inner conflict
and his personality gets disintegrated.
Man has been given
the freedom of choice to do good or evil. This freewill gives him
independence of intention, choice and action in various situations
of moral conflict. Man
is the only creature
in
this universe who has been given choice and discretion which
accompany him through his life span. (The Qur’an, 15:36)
Man has also been granted potentialities to acquire knowledge
of how everything else in the universe functions as well as the
knowledge required for his felicity. (al-Qur’an, 2:33). This
knowledge along with the faculty of reason and intellect, are man’s
primary guide that distinguishes him from other animals and help him
recognize the path of his ultimate felicity.
Man’s hopes are often related to various comforts and joys of
physical and worldly kind while Islam does not deprive him of these.
Islam, however, redirects him from false and transitory joys and
values to real values and everlasting joys. The Holy Qur’an says:
“This life of the world is just a pastime and a game. And,
indeed, the home of the Hereafter is the real life, if they know.”
(29:64)
Since the topic of human nature and personality development is
the central issue in the sufi thought, it would be unfair to
avoid mentioning their views in this regard. According to the Sufi
theory, man is the microcosm and a copy made in the image of God.
Since man cannot know what is not in him, he could not know God and
all the mysteries of the universe unless he founds them in himself.
So God-consciousness and self-consciousness are interdependent and a
true knowledge of one’s own self necessarily leads to the knowledge
of God. According to Ibn Arabi, God’s breathing of His spirit
into man, as described by the Holy Qur’an, (15:28-29) is of immense
metaphysical significance. He believes that man is the perfect
manifestation of divine attributes and names. (Nasr, Sayyed Hossain.
(1988). Three Muslim Sages. Lahore: Sohail Academy.) He also refers
to the saying of the Prophet (PBUH): “God created Adam in His form.”
This conception of human nature reveals that man is inherited with
unlimited capacity of development and perfection.
After mentioning
the position of human nature in its basic and the pure form, it is
necessary to point out how man’s nature gets corrupted.
The
Unrefined Human Nature
Although man has been created with a natural tendency towards the
righteousness, he (excluding the prophets) cannot be free from all
sins and mistakes since his declared enemy, Satan, tries to
divert his attention by all possible ways and means. He always
encourages man to satisfy his urges and desires in an uncontrolled
way, like animals, and to become submissive and a slave to these
urges. Therefore, the human instinctive tendencies, unless refined
and trained, could easily overwhelm any humanely cultivated
qualities conducive to spiritual enhancement. This is because the
uncontrolled and unrefined urges within him would weaken and
subjugate the forces of reason and conscience.
Describing some aspects of the unrefined human nature, the Holy
Qur’an says:
“Surely man was created anxious, fretful when evil visits him, and
grudging when (some thing) good visits him, except the worshippers.”
(70:19-21)
In
another surah it says:
“As
for man, whenever his Lord tries him by honouring and blessing him,
he says: ‘My Lord has honoured me.’ But whenever he tries him by
straitening his provision, he says: ‘My Lord has humiliated me.’
(89:15-16)
The Qur’an explains another weakness in human nature which
impedes self development, is the weakness of will. While narrating
the story of Adam, Allah informs:
And, indeed, long ago We made Our covenant with Adam; but he
forgot and We found no firmness of purpose in him. ( 20:115]
God tells us in the Qur’an that the most honorable trust, that
of knowledge of Allah the all Mighty, was offered to the heavens,
the earth and the mountains but they refused it, recognizing that
they could not take up such a weighty truth (33:72). Mankind,
however, took it on, but since weakness and forgetfulness are part
of the spectrum of human being, he sees himself at all times and
forgets his source. This weakness which Allah has placed within
human being is to make him remember Him who is Strong (al-Qawi).
Today
it has been established, scientifically as well as philosophically
that there does not exist an evil human being; there exist only sick
human being. This is extremely a significant discovery in the
history of humankind which has already been introduced by Islam.
According to this theory, bad manners like injustice, stinginess,
cunning, jealousy, greed, ingratitude and so on are considered as
spiritual illness and should be treated exactly like any other
disease. The Holy Qur’an considers the hypocrites as sick persons
saying:
There
is a sickness in their hearts. (2:10)
This
Qur’anic theory requires people not to consider any one as evil
person or show any hostility or resentment towards them. Instead,
they should look upon them as sick human beings who deserve their
sympathy.
The Components of Human Nature
While speaking about the nature of man, Qur’an uses words like
nafs, ruh, Qalb etc. Spirit is transcendent and the
center of man’s being. Whereas soul (nafs), in its downward
or corporeal tendency, is attached to the body and in its upward or
spiritual tendency, is attached to the spirit (al-ruh).
In order to understand the Islamic concept of human psyche and
nature, one must understand these terms and their relationship to
each other. These basic terms are explained here.
Nafs and its levels :
Nafs (pl. Anfus or Nufus) lexically means soul, the psyche,
the ego, self, life, person, heart or mind. Tajul Uroos writes that
this word is used normally to denote the total personality of a
person. It also means knowledge and intellect. (Taj: Ibn-i-Faris).
It is used for a person as well. It is further used to express
greatness, superiority, courage, resolution, and punishment. (Taj
and Lisanul Arab).
The term Nafs
has different uses in the Holy Qur’an as well, and in most cases, it
means
the human being in reality, his self
and his person.
(see 3: 61; 12:54)
It also means the human soul (see 6:93; 50:16 etc.)
The nafs is a basic element in the cosmology of
existence. Al-Ghazali mentions the two dimensions of al-nafs: the
upward dimension and the downward dimension. The upward dimension is
the uppermost limit of psyche which connects it the spirit, whereas
the downward dimension is represented by the sensory faculties which
connect it to the body.
According to the Sufi understanding, nafs is the
source the negative power of anger and sexual appetite in a human
being which blinds his intellect. Sufis take "nafs" as
the comprehensive word for all the evil attributes of a person. That
is why they emphasize on doing battle with it and to break and
inactivate it as it is referred to in the Hadith of the Holy Prophet
(PBUH):
“Your worst enemy is your nafs which lies between your
sides.”
The
nafs needs to be nourished and developed in the Divine guidance.
The nafs starts its career in an undeveloped form but
equipped with immense potentialities of corruption as well as the
development and getting closer to the Most Perfect Self, Allah (SWT),
Whose attributes serve as an objective standard for the human self.
Although some scholars have classified the Nafs up to 7
stages, the Qur'an has described 3 main types of nafs which are:
Nafs ammarah bi al-su’, (the self urging evil)
This nafs
surrenders itself to
lusts and allows itself to be seduced by
the devil. This is
the raw self of an untrained person. Al-Nafs
al-Ammarah has Shaytan as its ally who falsely promises him
great rewards and gains and always invites him and attracts the soul
to do evil. He presents falsehood to him in a form that he accepts
and admires it.
By its very nature,
Al-Nafs al-Ammarah directs its owner towards every
wrong action. Allah says:
“Surely the human self urges evil.” (12:53)
Al-Nafs
al-Ammara paralyzes the cognitive process of human being.
Describing this fatal effect of
Al-Nafs
al-Ammarah, the Holy Qur’an says:
“They have hearts wherewith they do not understand; have eyes
wherewith they do not see; have ears wherewith they do not hear.
These are like cattle – no, but they are worse! These are the
neglectful.” (7-179)
Al-Ghazali has mentioned the following negative tendencies of
this nafs naming tem with ‘spiritual diseases’:
1-
Nifaq (hypocrisy)
2-
Pride and arrogance
3-
Hawa or desire
4-
Self-beholding
5-
Greediness
6-
Negligence
7-
Restlessness
8-
Ri’a
These are the most harmful tendencies of al-nafs and greatest
barriers to the growth of man. When these dominate the self, man
loses his insight and his total energies are diverted towards
unnecessary activities. As a result, he starts believing deception
as truth, fiction as reality and self-glorification as his highest
goal in life.
Nafs al-lawwama,
(the blaming self)
The second level of
nafs is nafs al-lawwama, the blameworthy self which blames
its owner for his own shortcomings. At this level, nafs is in a
state of constant awareness, self-observation and self-criticism. It
recognises his shortcomings, his wrong actions, his disobedience and
the neglect of his duties. It is
referred to it in Sura Al-Qiyamah when Allah says:
"And I do call to witness the Nafs that blames" (75:2).
Nafs al-lawwama
is the one which cannot rest in one state. It often changes and
alters, remembers and forgets, submits and withdraws, loves and
hates, rejoices and becomes sad, accepts and rejects, obeys and
rebels. Actually nafs, at this stage, is in the mid of its journey
towards its growth and perfection.
Nafs al-mutma'inna,
(the Self at Peace)
Nafs
al-mutma'inna
is the third and the highest stage of nafs. A person when advanced
to this stage,
he achieves full rest and satisfaction
while his personality gets equipped with the qualities of quietness,
mildness, tolerance, forgiveness, and understanding of all beings.
This stage of nafs ultimately leads to resolution of one’s inner
conflicts and attainment of harmony with God. His personality is now
dyed with His universal
Colour
while his behavior reflects the Absolute being and the Ultimate
Reality. (Haq, Manzurul. (1984). Concept of personality development
in the light of Islamic thoughts. The Bangladesh journal of
Psychology, 7, 118-128.) (An abridged quotation)
This is the soul to whom it is said at the time of death:
“O soul at peace, return to your Lord, well pleased and
well-pleasing. Enter with My servants, enter into My Garden.”
(89:27-30)
Al-Qatadah says abut this stage of nafs: "It is the soul of
the believer, made calm by what Allah has promised. Its owner is at
rest and content with his knowledge of Allah's Names and Attributes,
and with what He has said about Himself and His Messenger (PBUH),
and with what He has said about the Hereafter…. So much so that a
believer can almost see them with his own eyes. So he submits to the
will of Allah and surrenders to Him contentedly, never dissatisfied
or complaining, and with his faith never wavering. He does not
rejoice at his gains, nor do his sufferings make him despair."
(Al-Tabari: Jami' al-Bayan fi Tafsir al-Qur'an, vol. 13, Bulaq 1323)
Ruh
Muslim theologians are divided on the issue that whether the
terms “nafs” and “ruh” signify one and the same thing or are they
two different entities and whether they are interchangeable?” (Ibn
Al-Ālusi’s Jala’ al-‘Aynayn, pp. 142-143) Although these terms may
be used interchangeably in relation to their essence, each one has
clearly separate and restricted applications in certain contexts.
While the ruh spans the entire spectrum of existence - the
seen as well as the unseen - the nafs is restricted to only that
which may be experienced in the creational world. We may speak of
the nafs as being greedy or unjust in some situations only because
the light of the ruh highlights these qualities within the nafs.
Indeed the nafs only exists because of the ruh which energizes it.
Ruh or
spirit is the core of man’s being, yet it remains hidden.
During human
life on earth, the spirit and the body are united but then there is
a temporary separation during death with the final union to take
place in the life thereafter.
According to Muslim
scholars, Ruh is the reflection of the Divine presence in man. The
Holy Qur’an declares that Allah (SWT) has blown His spirit into
human body:
“When I have made
him and have breathed into him of My spirit, (I ordered the angles
to) bow down, prostrating yourself before him. (15:29 also see 38:72
and 32:8)
The status of
being the recipient of Divine spirit elevated man from his humble
origin, enabled him to overcome the baser part of his nature, and
made him worthy of being the vicegerent of God.
Since human body is
from the earth while the spirit is from the heaven and Divine, it
always longs to be united with Whom it was separated from. It is
stated in Qur’an “to God we belong, to Him is our return.”
Rumi says in his
book, Masnavi that the reason why a child cries the first moment
after it is born on earth is because it realizes its exile from the
higher place. It is unhappy because it seems captive in this worldly
body. Explaining the idea of the captivity of the spirit, Rumi
narrates a Qur’anic story. It says that God made a statue of Adam
and asked the Ruh to enter into the body but it refused saying,
‘Lord, I do not want to be imprisoned in this physical body’. Then
God told the angels to sing and dance, and on hearing their song and
with the rhythm of the dance the soul went into delight, and in that
condition it entered the body. Rumi says that the reason why every
soul is longing to attain something is that it is in exile and a
captive in this physical body.
Due to the
captivity of the spirit and limitation of his physical body, man’s
vision remains small and narrow. Man’s innermost being can not be
satisfied except for a short time by outside factors. There always
comes a time when every one finds that nothing pleases him even if
he possesses all what he wants. His lack of freedom causes a
continual longing for spiritual achievements. And when man reaches
the stage of spiritual attainment and gets closer to its origin, he
gets inner satisfaction, he develops the outlook of God and his
manners become the manners of God.
Qalb
The qalb (heart) is
an immaterial and formless spiritual entity or basic subtle
element which has got connection with the material heart. The qalb
has the capacities to acquire
comprehensive
intuition,
to retain real knowledge,
the gnosis
(ma’rifa) of God and the Divine mysteries, (‘ilm al-batin)
and to gain far greater insight than that of human intellect.
The Qur’an considers al-Qalb as the seat of wisdom and
intellect. It says:
“Do they not travel
trough the land, so that their hearts may learn wisdom and their
ears may learn to hear? Truly it is not their eyes, rather it is
their hearts which are in their chests are blind.” (22:46)
The qalb
is nourished by dhikr (remembrance of God). Its health also depends
on its purity and freedom.
It is the organ of
a perception which is both an experience and a taste (dhawq).
Al-qalb is also the master of human body which controls its organic
and physical functions. All external behavioral acts of man are
actually the reflection of states and conditions of al-qalb.
According to a Hadith of the Holy Prophet (PBUH) the heart is
owned mutually by an angel and a shaytan:
"There are two impulses in the soul, one from an angel which
calls towards good and confirms truth; whoever finds this let him
know it is from God and praise Him. Another impulse comes from the
enemy which leads to doubt and denies truth and forbids good;
whoever finds this, let him seek refuge in God from the accursed
devil." Then he recited the verse: "The devil shows you fear of
poverty and enjoins evil upon you" (2:268) (Sahih Tirmidhi)
The mutual resistance of the angels and the devils remains
constant in the battle over the qalb, until it is conquered by one
of the two.
The same position of al-qalb and its relationship with al-ruh
and al-nafs has been interestingly explained by Maulana Thanwi:
“The spirit (al-ruh) and the soul (al-nafs) engage in the
battle for the possession of their common son, the heart (al-qalb).
This is a symbolical way of expressing the nature of the spirit,
which is masculine and the nature of soul, which is feminine.”
(Thanvi, Ashraf Ali, al-sihhat hukm al-waswasah, (Deoband
1365 A.H.), 225)
According to another writer, if the spirit wins the battle,
the heart will be transformed into spirit and, at the same time,
transmutes its soul, engulfing her with spiritual light. Then the
heart reveals itself; it becomes the lamp (mishkat) of Divine
Mystery (sirr) in man. (T. Burckhardt, An introduction to Sufi
Doctrine, trans. D. M. Matheson (Lahore: M. Ashraf, 1983) 27.)
The Healthy Heart
It is
a heart purified from any passion that challenges Allah’s commands
and safeguarded against the worship of anything other than Him. It
seeks the judgement of no one other than him and His Messenger. Its
services are exclusively reserved for Allah, willingly and lovingly,
with total reliance, relating all matters to Him, in fear, hope and
sincere dedication. When it loves, its love is for the sake of
Allah. If it hates, its hate is for the sake of Allah. When it
gives, it gives for Allah. If it withholds, it withholds for Allah
(SWT). The Holy Qur’an uses adjectives such as ‘healthy’,
‘wholesome’ ‘contented’ and so on to describe this kind of heart.
Allah (SWT) has declared that on the Day of Resurrection, only
those would be saved who come with a healthy heart:
"The day on which neither wealth nor sons will be of any use,
except for whoever brings to Allah a sound heart. (26:88-89)"
According to an
authentic saying of the Holy Prophet (PBUH):
“Inside the
human body there is a piece of flesh which, if it is healthy, the
whole body is healthy and if it becomes unhealthy, the whole body
gets unhealthy. That is al-qalb.” (Sahih Bukhari)
The
heart can not be healthy i.e. successful, righteous, contented,
pleased, assured except by the worship of Allah, love of Him and
repentance to Him as it has an inherent need for its Lord. According
to the Holy Qur’an, the
heart will remain restless until it rests in God:
“For sure it is
in the remembrance of God that the heart finds rest,” (13:28)
The Dead Heart
The dead or sealed heart is that which is veiled from higher
inspiration for example the hearts of the hypocrites. There is
little or nothing one can do to heal such hearts. This is the
opposite of the healthy heart. It does not know its Lord and does
not worship Him. It clings instead to its lusts and desires, even if
these are likely to incur Allah's displeasure and anger. It worships
things other than Allah, and its loves and its hatreds, its giving
and its withholding, arise from its whims, which are of paramount
importance to it.
The Sick Heart
A large number of Qur’anic verses describe the ‘sick’ heart.
The sick hearts are those that find whatever they do, attractive to
them. These hearts dislike what turns them away from the course they
are on. They are wrapped up in fantasies, they are contemptuous, and
they follow routines and old patterns, doing ‘what their forefathers
practiced’. The sick heart is also proud and hardened. It lacks real
understanding because it is engulfed in desire.
This is a heart with life as well as illness in it. It has
love for Allah, faith in Him, sincerity towards Him, and reliance
upon Him. These are the qualities that give it life. It also has
longing for lust and pleasure; it prefers them and strives to
experience them. It is full of self-admiration, which can lead to
its own destruction. It listens to two callers: one calling it to
Allah and His Prophet; and the other calling it to the momentary
pleasures. It responds to whichever one of the two happens to have
most influence over it at the time.
A Hadith of the Holy Prophet explain the process of heart
getting sickness. It is as follows:
“When a believer commits a sin, a dark spot appears on his
heart. If he repents and seeks forgiveness (of Allah), his heart
becomes spotless again. But if he persists in sin, the dark spot
increases. This is the spot that has been mentioned in the Qur’an:
“But on their hearts is the stain of (the ill) which they do.”
(83:14) (Ibn Majah)
Other Ahadith mention that if the sinner does not
repent, and instead keeps on committing sins, the stain on his heart
increases and gets more darkened until it overwhelms the whole
heart. Ultimately, the heart of sinner is sealed and he becomes
spiritually dead.
For the purpose of simplification, nafs can be thought of as
the outer man,
ruh
as the inner man, and qalb, the composite faculties of reasoning and
decision-making, and a bridge between the two.
Conclusion
Man, being the vicegerent of God on earth and the theater
wherein the Divine qualities are reflected, can reach felicity only
by remaining faithful to his nature or by being truly himself. And
this in turn implies that he must become integrated. Man is composed
of body, mind, nafs and spirit, and each needs to be integrated on
its own level. The integration of man, according to Syyed Hossain
Nasr, (Sufi Essays, 51) means the realization of the One and the
transmutation of the many in the light of the One. Integration and
unity of man himself as well as of the whole humanity has always
been the highest goal of Islam. It is also an essential part of
basic Islamic belief of Tawhid. The same concept has been
highlighted by a sufi poet as:
“See but One, say but One, know but One,
In this, the roots and branches of faith are summed up.”
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