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Giriş YapHow Sure Are We About Our Own Selves(Nafs)?
Are We realising the real enemy?
Answer to the first question above for a muslim trying to walk on the path of Islam, should be “I am always suspicious about my nafs”. When we start being sure of ourselves, when we do not question our nafs (Evil commanding spirit-ego-self) , we can not see the blemishes within ourselves. How much are we analysing our nafs and what degree are we analysing it to? Are We realy being objective to our selves while analysing our own blemishes? Or are we just deceiving our selves by thinking that we are being a good muslim?
Dear brothers and sisters, never trust your own nafs. Rasulullah (SAW ) called the struggle against someone’s nafs (self), “Jihad Ul Akbar:Greatest Jihad[1]”. This is a very important fact. This explanation of Rasulullah (SAW) must not be underestimated. It is the most difficult thing to fight yourself. When you go and do jihad outside, you know your enemy, you see your enemy but the enemy within you is in fact most difficult one to see, it is you, your self. It hides it’s self like a soldier putting black mud on his body not to be seen in the dark and hits you with your own weapons. Thousands of prophets and auliyah warned us by explaining this hidden enemy within us.
An auliyah from Anatolia , “Jalaladdin Rumi (K.S) said “ Nafs is the Mother of the all idols”. Because we are attached to the cravings of the world (Dunya) through our own nafs. That is why our nafs constantly gives birth to new cravings and attachments, which are like the idols we put within our hearts. That is why there were 360 idols inside the Kaabah in Mecca in pre-islamic period. Kaabah represents the heart of human being.
Brothers and sisters, when you think that you have beaten this enemy, is the moment you have lost the jihad. Do not trust this monster, it comes and tells you that
“You are performing salah very nicely”,
“You are even praying tahajjud over nights, you are surely very close to ALLAH”,
“You are saved now because you are fasting a few days every week”,
“You are generous because you gave alms to the mosque a few times this year”,
“Your hutbah in this Friday prayer was perfect, surely You are the best imam in the world”,
”Your islamic article is great, people will love that and praise you for your writings then you are one of the best servants of ALLAH ”,
”MashALLAH your voice is so nice and you are reciting Qur’an beautifully. You are best Qur’an reader in the world”,
”You have read many Islamic books and surely you could start giving fatwas to people now, this way you will get close to ALLAH more”,
“You are this , you are that!”. Lets wake up! Lets not be deceived by your nafs! We should not only count our good actions. We must analyse our evil actions as well.
Because a day comes and Nafs becomes stingy again, becomes lazy for prayer and becomes greedy for the worldly(nafsanic) desires. It tells you how great you are in what you are doing but contaminates your deeds with riyah, blinds you with praises and self esteem. When You fight with one of your bad habits within your self and become successful in breaking this bad habit, know that it is not completely gone. It is only waiting for an opportunity to hit at a moment of heedlessness.
Jalaladdin Rumi(K.S) expresses the nafs as a sleeping frozen dragon. It is sleeping and frozen now, but when it finds the heat and thaws out, it may wake up and cause your destruction.
Imam Al Ghazali(K.S) is mentioning a sahabi in one of his books, “Ihya”. His name is “Huzayfa(R.A)”.
He was explaining in his book that while everybody was asking Rasulullah(SAW ) about the actions, bringing the person close to ALLAH and causing him earn good deeds and leading him to Jannah, Huzayfa was asking Rasulullah(SAW ) about the actions ,causing person to be far from ALLAH and earning evil deeds, losing good deeds and leading him to Jahannam. Al-Ghazali says that “Huzayfah had special knowledge about the hypocrisy”[2].
So seeing only our good actions and being blinded to our evil actions is not good enough.
Think about a man filling water in to his pot from a tap but the pot has 68 holes under it.
Does this pot hold the water?
Of course not , because it is like a sieve. Huzayfa was learning blocking the holes(blemishes of Nafs) so that water (good deeds) could be held in the pot. Remember, wasting water is not good in Islam!!!To be able to save the water, first one should know where the holes are on the pot (Nafs). We should check our actions against good and evil actions mentioned in Qur’an and the examples of our beloved prophet Muhammad(SAW ). We should evaluate our actions constantly to find the holes in the pot and be always suspicious about our own nafs .
Hadrat Omar(R.A), "Call yourselves to account before ye be called to account"
It is said that Grand Shaikh M. Ibn Arabi(K.S) was so stringent in accounting his actions that he was even analysing and evaluating his thoughts as well as all his actions.
Shaikh Omar Ziyauddin Dagistani(K.S) is explaining a short story about Hadrat Omar (R.A) and Hadrat Anas Ibn-i Maliq(R.A) in his book [3]:
One day, Hadrat Omar Al-Faruk(R.A) kneeled down and sat on the floor humbly in presence of Anas Ibn-i Maliq(R.A) and asked him:
Yâ Anas! You have been in the service of Rasulullah(SAW) for years.
You have spent your life within his presence.
Therefore, you could understand the states of the munafiqun(hypocrites) to see whether they have nifaq(riya) within their heart or not, easily.
Could you look, if there is any sign of nifaq(riya) within my heart?
When Hadrat Anas heard this from Hadrat Omar, He started weeping and continued crying incessantly.
When Hadrat Omar saw the state of Anas, crying, He thought Anas was crying because he saw the signs of nifaq within his heart, then He started to cry louder than Anas by dominating the weeping of Anas.
Anas realised this and answered him:
Ya Omar! Please calm down and be quiet. Even a person like you, who is faruq(the one who can differentiate good and evil), is getting afraid of the test of the nifaq. I am crying by looking at your great sensibility and being afraid about my self and crying for my own self.
When Hadrat Omar heard this he said to Anas:
Ya Anas ! Only the munafiqun(hypocrites) becomes sure of nifaq and examination.
Never be sure of the plot(Maqr) and test of ALLAH.
Now , brothers and sisters, will we still be sure about our selves ? Will we still be furious at our friends, family members or relations when they saw a bad habit within us and informed us politely (without hurting ) about our evil actions? How many of us will say “Thank you for informing me brother/sister/mother/my husband/my wife/ even my child, I would not realise this otherwise” . How many of us will save time to himself to analyse and evaluate his/her actions objectively everyday?
When we recite Surah Al fatiha as a dua. We say “Keep us on the right path” to Rabb ul Alamiyn. Why do we need to recite this , if there is no possibility of our feet sliding of the right path? Why do we wish from ALLAH this , If we are already sure of our own selves? My brothers and sisters lets think about these !!! May ALLAH guide and keep us all in the right path (Sirat Al Mustaqiym).
Barbaros Sert
Basildon
References :
[1] Mujahadat al-`abdi hawah
[2] Imam Al-Ghazali,”Ihya ulumuddeen”,Translated by Fazlul Karim, Volume 1 page 47.
[3] Omar Ziyauddin Dagistani , Beyanat –i Fetava –yi Omerriye Fi’t-Tarayki’l-Aliyye
