Disciplining the soul

Mohammad Mehedi Hasan

A believer's faith becomes complete and strong when he keeps himself from falling prey to the
trial of doubts and base desires. One with a content mindset must discipline ones’ soul to resist
anything that negates faith. This includes all the various manifestations of disbelief, hypocrisy,
sin and transgression.

Envy, greed, uncontrolled lust, arrogance, gluttony, anger, stinginess, extravagance, vanity and
attachment to this world are the spiritual diseases and the souls affected with the diseases vastly
harm faith and lead to major sins if they are not controlled and carefully treated.

Know that all facets of humanity's dispositions are for their benefit – either directly, such as the
desire for food, or indirectly through the prevention of harm, such as the capacity for anger.
However, when these natural impulses are not tempered, it culminates in damage.

Love, self-discipline, humility, self-criticism, improvement of character, patience and

truthfulness are the qualities of the seekers of Allah and the wayfarers must acquire the necessary
qualities for their journey to the Almighty.

Allah says, “He who purifies himself, who remembers the name of his Lord and prays, shall
indeed be successful." (TMQ, 87:14-15) and Prophet Mohammad (SAWS) told us that purifying
our souls through prayer is just like purifying our bodies with water.

Just as it is necessary to follow all routes that lead to strengthening faith, it is also necessary to
remove or repress all barriers that obstruct this goal. This is achieved by feeling remorse for any
sins committed and seeking forgiveness for them, preventing the limbs from sinning, combating
doubts with knowledge and base desires with the desire for faith.

The core desire that a person has is for good, and that is what he loves and strives for. But this
can only truly come about by abandoning the desire of the soul towards evil and by fighting the
propensity of the lower self towards sin.

Allah has sent one hundred and twenty-four thousand prophets to the earth to teach the people
the recipe of how to purify their hearts from baser qualities in the crucible of abstinence. The
components of this method are four -- knowledge of self, knowledge of God, knowledge of this
world and knowledge of the hereafter. Only when a human being has liberated his or her soul
completely from its corporal existence, it arrives at what is called "active intellect".

In ‘The Alchemy of Happiness’, Imam al-Ghazali (RA) said, “He who knows himself is truly
happy.” Self-knowledge consists in realizing that we have a heart or spirit that is absolutely
perfect, but which is covered with dust by the accumulation of passions arising from the body
and its animal nature. The essence of oneself is likened to a perfect mirror that, if polished,
would reveal one's true divine nature. The key to this polishing is eliminating selfish desires and
adopting an opposing desire to do what is right in all aspects of one's life. As he writes, “The
purpose of moral discipline is to purify the heart from the rust of passion and resentment until,
like a clear mirror, it reflects the light of God.”

“Like a garden on a hillside, when heavy rain falls on it, it doubles in produce; and if heavy rain
does not fall, there is dew. Allah sees what you do.” (Q2:265)

The writer is a senior sub-editor at the Daily Sun