Chapter Seven: On the Purification of the Soul and the Cleansing of the Spirit

Gate Seven: On the Purification of the Soul and the Cleansing of the Spirit

Know — may God strengthen you — that the soul (nafs) of man is a soul in which God gathered what He dispersed among souls entire. In it there is one description from the soul of the angel, and from the souls of beasts, predators, insects and creeping things there are descriptions. For in it there is the capacity for obedience to God and the possibility of worshipping God, as in the soul of the angels. Then the angels: some of them are bowing and some prostrating, a company of them seated and a company standing; one party glorifies and a group proclaims God’s oneness; and among them is he whom God, exalted be He, has charged with provisions, and among them is he whom He set over the spirits. So God gathered these good things in mankind: among them are those who bow, who prostrate, who praise, who remember, who spend, who take vengeance for God. And in it there is also the capacity for busying oneself with base occupations and for turning to bodily works, as in the souls of beasts, predators, birds and creeping things. In it is the greed of the dung-beetle and the pig, the ruinousness of the wolf and the leopard, the harmfulness of the scorpion and the snake, the lust of the cock and the ass, and the craving of the camel and the ox in eating; and he falls upon base matters like the creeping things and the insects, and he strives in seeking what is absent from him like the bird in flight. Then, when God, exalted be He, created the beasts and the angels, He made the earth for the cattle and the heaven for the noble angels; and just as He gathered in man what is in the angels and the cattle, He joined for man the earth and the heaven, making the earth the dwelling of his body and the heaven the ascent of his spirit (rūḥ). So just as man joins the two descriptions, He likewise set him between the two places. And if man makes what is in him of the attributes of the angels outweigh what is in him of the attributes of the beasts, he wins and prospers, and at the end of his affair he passes wholly to the highest abode, which is above the seven heavens and is the loftiest Garden. And if he makes what is in him of the attributes of predators and beasts outweigh what is in him of the attributes of the angel, he is disappointed and loses, and after his lifetime has run out he passes wholly to the lowest depth, which is beneath the earths and is the Fire.

And when you know this, there is no doubt that the intelligent man does not choose the state of dogs and the pig over the deeds of the angels brought near, nor choose the lowest depth of the Fire over the highest abode in the abode of permanence.

Then the soul, if bestiality prevails over it, is worse than the beasts. For the beast, when you turn it out to pasture, grazes by day and returns to the stall by night; but the soul, when you leave it, rushes headlong and does not spit evil out. And the scorpion, the snake, the wolf and the leopard do harm only upon encounter, whereas man harms the near by striking and reviling and the far by backbiting and talebearing. So he is worse than beasts and predators.

And at another time it worships God in hunger and thirst, and busies itself with obedience to God, exalted be He, along with the need of family and child; and the angels are not so. Thus he is at one time better than the angels, and at another worse than the beasts.

So if you wish to purify your soul, look to what predominates in you: whatever you see in yourself of the bestial, purify your soul of it; and whatever you see in it of the angelic, make your soul firm upon it.

And know that God joined the intellect (ʻaql) and the soul, and the two do not part from one another save for a little. So when the intellect inclines to something, the soul opposes it for a little and then returns to it.

And when the soul inclines to some matter, the intellect opposes it for a little and then returns to it; and victory goes with endurance. If the intellect is the more enduring, the soul follows it and keeps it company; and if the soul is the more enduring, the intellect follows it and agrees with it. So when a man chooses the worship of God by his intellect, his soul opposes him and calls him to eating and drinking and diversion and play; and if the intellect holds firm against it for a time, the soul keeps it company. And when he inclines to eating and drinking and diversion and play, the intellect opposes him; and if he persists in it, the intellect keeps him company, until it makes the satisfying of appetite and the works of anger seem fair to him. So if a man wishes to subdue his soul and to place it under the disposal of his intellect, his road is gradualness: lessening what habit requires and increasing the offices of worship. So if he eats a mudd in a day, let him reduce it on the first day by two dirhams’ weight or three and keep to that for two days or three; then let him reduce from what remains two dirhams or three and keep to that for two days or three, until he becomes accustomed to eating little. And if his habit is the wearing of soft cloth, let him wear for some days what is a little coarser than it, then pass to what is lower still.

And know that the origin of the bestial attributes is ignorance and need, and the origin of the angelic attributes is knowledge and self-sufficiency. So no ugly deed is found save from one ignorant of its ugliness or from one in need of it. And the beasts, since ignorance encompasses them and poverty pervades them, you see committing ugly deeds — such as copulating without covering, and eating the property of Zayd and ʻAmr.

Then ignorance is of two kinds: ignorance of what is in the present state, and ignorance of what is in the final outcome. And need is likewise of two kinds: a present, known need, and an expected, imagined need. So the cock and the ass are ignorant of what is ugly in their act, and they have a present need to satisfy the appetite of the belly and the genitals, and so they perform their act before a throng of people. And the ant and the camel imagine a need in the future and so store up, while they are ignorant and do not distinguish between the property of Zayd and of Khālid, nor between the impure and the pure.

Then need carries one to anger and obstinacy, and to abasement and submission. For when the needy man sees another seeking what he himself needs, he repels him by force if he is strong, and by begging and abasement if he is unable. So the wolf and the leopard do harm in seeking what they need in the present, and the snake and the scorpion do harm for what they imagine they will need in the outcome, because they imagine something harmful and repel it. So when knowledge is attained of what is in the present — the ugliness of abasing oneself before one who is his like or below him, and the ugliness of haughtiness toward one who is his like or above him — and he knows what is in the outcome, of the evil of the reckoning and the pain of the punishment, and he attains independence of the superfluous need by abandonment and of the essential need by contentment, it becomes impossible that he should commit an ugly deed. So the knowing, self-sufficient man does not lie; the liar lies only when he does not know what he reports, or knows it and need carries him to conceal the truth. As for him who lies in jest, by it he repels a need: for seriousness has killed the soul in him, and when he enters into jesting he repels the hatefulness of tedium.

When you know this, then purification is by attaining knowledge of what is in base matters of present uglinesses and in bodily pleasures of final disgraces, and knowledge of the painful punishment that lies upon ugly deeds and the immense reward that lies upon abandoning them; and then by attaining independence of superfluous matters, by way of abandoning them, and of essential ones by contentment.

And what the people of retreat said is that a man ought to stir his soul by turning toward God; then to strive to abandon the good things of this world by looking to their outcomes, so that he becomes an ascetic in regard to them; then to do much worship, together with reflection upon the greatness of Him to whom the worship belongs and the nobility of that for whose sake the worship is. For it is in the measure of the greatness of the one served that service is found sweet, and in the measure of the wage that work is pleasant. So he who serves one that has no power to kill or imprison if the servant does ill, but has power only to cut off the wage, and the wage is then a paltry thing that the servant finds wherever he may be — such a man does not go to lengths to please the one served, nor exert himself in the service. But when the one served is such that he kills the offender and fears no reprisal, and such that if he cuts off the stipend the servant will find no other master to give him a tenth of what he used to give, and it is his custom to increase the ample wage in the measure of the increase of the work — then he goes to lengths in the service, and exerts himself in pleasing the one served, and shuns what angers him

So when a man knows that God is the Subduer above His servants, and that He is the One able to send upon them a punishment from above them and from beneath their feet; and that there is no repeller of what He wills and no averter, and no deliverer from what He has decreed and no intercessor; and that if He withholds the good, no one finds any who would send it upon him; and knows that He is aware of all that he does and hearing of all that he says — and this knowledge becomes for him of the order of the knowledge of certainty — he does not disobey God. For when the slave is in the presence of the king, and the slave is certain that the king is immense in reward and painful in punishment, and knows that he is looking at him and observing him, he is ashamed to oppose him and cannot bear to disobey him, save when he is heedless or constrained by need. So when he knows that his needs are warded off, there remains there no possibility of disobedience.

As for the people of retreats, they command the one under obligation to sit in a retreat and to withdraw for a time, and to remember much the word “There is no god but God,” directing the remembrance (dhikr) toward the negating of stray thoughts.

And the meaning of this discourse is that the one secluded with himself looks into the promptings of his thought. If the matter of amassing wealth enters his soul, he says: the outcome of wealth is to perish, and the affair remains with the Exalted King; and so he says, There is no god but God — that is, wealth has no result and there is no returning-place but God. And when the matter of high standing enters his soul, he says: the end of the affair is the perishing of him through whom high standing is had and the passing away of him through whom high standing is had, and none remains but God; and so he says, There is no god but God, meaning that there is no high standing save through God. And when he reflects upon the matter of offspring, he ponders death and passing away and says, There is no god but God; so that he is