By Sajid Holy
Human beings are born upon the fitrah. It is a natural pattern on which Allaah made mankind and urged them to follow so that they can be better and more perfect human beings. It is submission to the will of Allah subhanahu wa tala. It is a tendency of enjoining divine laws and divine powers of our Creator.
Fitrah is the original design of mankind. It is a natural and innate way to live every aspect of your life. It is the state of purity and innocence all humans are born with. It is our natural constitution. It is your love for Allah which will lead you towards unseen horizons of success, it will take you towards unlimited bounties and unexpected rewards in the hereafter.
Majority of human beings welcome the thought of being submissive to a supreme power, even though they don’t know who is HE. They are the seekers of truth. They may or may not know the direction which helps them to attain salvation but they will still strive for salvation. They know that worship is the essence of life, though they don’t know who is to be worshipped. This is the turning point where the concept of humanity comes from.
If an injured man is lying on the road, you will not ask his religion, you will move fast with maximum efforts you can and will take him to the hospital. Humans are thirsty, their thirst needs to be quenched with the mercy and knowledge of a true religion which is none other than Islam.
Deep down in the struggle of finding the truth, it may happen that people may turn imbalanced and violent. We need to explore the limits of human mind. We need to determine our own perseptional powers. We have vacuums in our heart. The emptiness of emotions, the diseases of selfishness and poison of jealousy may not allow us to convey the message of Islam to our fellow human beings.
We pamper the hypocrisy of feeling pain for the victims of Kashmir, Gujarat, Afghanistan, Palestine, Burma and so on.. but our relationships with our closest relatives are distorted. When things go wrong, it will obviously affect your heart. Don’t let your heart to turn black. We have to first deal with our own nafs. We should first strive to attain nafs al-mutma’innah. And that will not happen until our nafs al lawwamah will empower our nafs al-ammārah.
The sign that a person has nafs al-ammārah is that they sin willingly, blatantly, remorselessly, in any way that they ever want.
Lawwām means to blame oneself. A nafs which feels guilty. They feel guilt, they feel shame, they feel embarrassment, they wish they could take it back, they wish they never did it. The person leaves those sins because he feels guilty about them. So they are fighting a battle with their nafs.
Nafs al-mutma’innah: Ibn Abbas (radiyallahu anhu) said, “It is the tranquil and believing soul”. Mutma’in has reached a state of serenity. The serene, contented, tranquil, at peace nafs. Peace here means that it has aman (peace) and itminān (contentment) from doing sin or even from desiring to commit sin.
The main purpose for which Allah has prescribed religion is to discipline the nafs, purify it, and instruct it to do acts of worship and obedience.
Imam al-Aajurri (may Allah have mercy on him) said: “How bad is the situation of the one who neglects to discipline his nafs and train it on the basis of knowledge; and how good is the situation of the one who pays attention to disciplining his nafs and knows what Allah has enjoined upon him and what He has forbidden to him, and is patient in going against the whims and desires of his nafs, and seeks the help of Allah the Almighty in doing so.” (Adab an-Nufoos – p. 17)
Nafs is a specific part of our self that has desires, appetite, and some people call it ego. It has anger, passion, lust, desires, etc.
Ibn al-Qayyim rahimahumullah mentioned the states of Nafs: “The Nafs is a single entity, although its state may change: from the Nafs al-Ammara, to the Nafs al-Lawwama, to the Nafs al-Mutma`inna, which is the final aim of perfection….”
When someone asks us who you are, we are eager to present ourselves as a product, rather than as a character. We start narrating our success stories and achievements. Let us first discover our own selves and let us first bring a positive change in our own selves rather than roaring and marching towards instantly changing the world.
If Allah were to leave the servant alone with his self, the servant would be destroyed in negativity and evil of his nafs and the traps of shaytaan; but if Allah grants him success, help and hidayah, only then he will survive and will walk on siraat-al-mustaqeem. We seek refuge in Allah the Almighty, both from the evil in ourselves, from the evil of our actions and from the evil of shaytan.
“To the righteous it will be said, “O reassured soul, return to your Lord well pleased, and pleasing to Him.” (Surah Al-Fajr 89:27-28)
