“Nafs” connotes selfhood or individuality in Arabic and Islamic teachings. When applied to God, it is understood as God’s Essence or Selfhood, as in Qur’an 3:28, “And God biddens you to be wary of His Self (Nafs), and to Him is the journeying.” When applied to human beings, it can be understood in a variety of ways, depending upon the intended perspective of a given Qur’anic verse or Prophetic tradition (Hadith). In this context, Nafs can mean the human soul, psyche, mind, ego-self, or person, and to an extent, the human heart as the seat of emotivity. Nafs may even connote a mind that has found rest in its spiritual center. There are many examples of these connotations in Islamic and specifically Qur’anic discourse. On the one hand, the Nafs is the unique substance of all of humanity’s collective selfhood (Qur’an 4:1). Nafs is also our particular individuality, our particular soul that is accountable before its creator upon its return to God (Qur’an 2:48). The Nafs as our unique spiritual archetype or possibility in God’s Presence, as a spiritual entity (or pure consciousness/Ruh), is implicit in Qur’an 7:172. When this latter particular spiritual entity is superimposed upon a given human body and mind and born into this realm of existence known as Dunya (lower world), we manifest the individuality of a human Nafs. In this pure sense, the Nafs is related directly, or at least corresponds to, the psycho-spiritual center of our being: that is, our Qalb (Heart). In this sense, the nafs connotes a “soul.”
However, Nafs is also envisaged in the Qur’an as a level of human consciousness that affects, predominates, or overrides our central locus of conscious (or unconscious) awareness, which is the Qalb. In this regard, the Nafs is more of a subtle, mental activity, a thought, emotion, psychic force, or vital energy, all of which limit human consciousness to a given level of moral (or immoral) activity and spiritual development. In this sense, every level of Nafs addressed in the Qur’an is either an activity of the human individuality or, at best, a particular station or quality our human individuality has developed in our spiritual development, or in our journey back to our spiritual origin: “and to Him [God] is the journeying” (3:28).
There are essentially six to seven levels of human selfhood (Nafs) mentioned in the Qur’an. These are the Nafs al-Ammarah (the impulsive self), as found in Qur’an 12:53; Nafs al-Lawamah (the lamenting or blaming self), as found in Qur’an 75:2; Nafs al-Mulhamah (the inspired self), as in Qur’an 91:7-8; Nafs al-Mutma’inna (the contented or peaceful self); Nafs al-Radiyah (the self well pleased with itself); and Nafs al-Mardiyyah (the self well pleasing to God), as in Qur’an 89:27. The seventh degree is an implicit stage and is termed Nafs al-Kamilah (the perfected/completed self). This term is not explicitly used in the Qur’an but is implied by certain verses about the spiritual station or rank (maqam) before God of the Prophet Muhammad (s) and others.
These stages or levels of human selfhood are further clarified in their relation to the other dimensions of our human experience, known as the Qalb and Ruh. If we understand the Ruh to be the very essence or substance of our direct experience as human beings, then we begin to see more clearly the interrelation of the Qalb and Nafs with the Ruh. The Ruh is our spiritual nature. In its embodied and created dimension, it is our innate nature (fitrah) with God. The Ruh is our immortal presence with God’s Presence in “pre-eternity” as envisaged in the Qur’anic narrative of our primordial covenant with God (see Qur’an 7:127). Although an immortal substance whose nature is beyond the conditions of our physical time and space, the Ruh is ever present as the very core of our innermost Being (Sirr). If we set aside our perception of the world surrounding our bodies for a moment, the Nafs, which can be said to be a fusion of our body and our mind (or body-mind), is the most outer aspect of our direct individual experience of our presumed selfhood. It is the Nafs as body-mind that interfaces with the sensory perceptions of the physical world around us. And it is through the Nafs that we perceive the sensory input of the physical world and our inner world of psycho-emotional stimuli.
Yet, the world and its objects, as well as the objects of our mind, have an effect on the center of our consciousness, the Qalb, through how the Nafs interrelates with them and understands itself in the unfolding of our lives. This means that our individuality or unique and particular locus of awareness that is our Heart (Qalb) interacts with our nafsani elements and interrelates in a manner that either facilitates the discovery, unfolding, and radiation of our original Spiritual nature or tends to veil it, through its interaction, attachment, and identification with the world (Dunya) and our Nafs (body-mind). The Qalb can be understood as the subtle center of our psycho-spiritual being in which the conscious, unconscious, and supra-conscious dimensions of our being intersect.
When the Nafs displays a tendency towards self-indulgence, reinforcing its own quite limited nature, it displays the qualities of the Nafs al-Ammarah. When this is experienced by the human Heart (Qalb) as a state or activity (such as hunger and the impulse to eat), this level of Nafs is in harmony with its original intent of preserving the self-integrity of the human body and mind. However, when this Nafs goes beyond its limits of basic needs and increases in unrestrained self-indulgence, it transgresses its divinely intended limits and thereby limits human psycho-spiritual growth (and perhaps the wellbeing of others). When the Nafs becomes aware of this through the activity, command (amr), or Presence of the Spirit upon the Qalb via the Intellect (Aql), this Nafs develops into the Nafs al-Lawwamah. When this Nafs goes beyond its own limits and perceives its Spiritual dimension, it develops into a Nafs al-Mulhamah. Yet, even here, the Nafs, as a limitation of human consciousness, is prone to various forms of inspiration that can raise it to the level of spiritual presence with God, or lower it by the tendencies of its lower nature, and it can even be susceptible to intuitions, thoughts, and emotions deriving from a more pernicious and chaotic source, that of the devil’s influence. These are also known as the infernal possibilities of human reality. It is for this reason that the human possibility of self-realization is quite vast, ranging from discovering its spiritual presence with God (termed ahsani taqwim, or “more excellent stature” in Qur’anic discourse 95:4) or falling into its lowest, most base, and most infernal tendencies (termed asfala safilin, or “lowest of the low,” in Qur’anic discourse 95:5).
When the Nafs is more aligned with the center of our being (our psycho-spiritual heart), it is actualized as a contented self (Nafs al-Mutma’innah). Its mental activity is slowed and rests in its center of origin, the Qalb. Here, it is in harmony with its spiritual nature and facilitates the actualization of the spiritual heart, as it is in harmony with God’s intent for our original purpose: “Verily with the remembrance of God, do Hearts find peaceful rest” (Qur’an 13:28). This original nature, purpose, is termed fitrah, and its manifestation as human physical and psycho-spiritual wellbeing is termed afiyah in Islamic teachings. It is here, at this stage of development or possibility, that the Nafs is fully subordinate to human intelligence (Aql/Intellect) and sanctified by the Divine Grace (tawfiq) of revealed guidance (wahy) and/or spiritual guidance (irshad). When we as humans experience a sense of being fully gathered or attentive, clearly centered in our intention or inner orientation, and experience a sense of stillness and transparency of our outer and inner being, our Nafs is mutma’in, or at ease and at rest from its exteriorizing tendencies; our Qalb is fully open and illumined (in a state of fath), and we are more present to witness God’s Oneness as the Presence of Spirit (Hudur/Hadra). Such states, or stations of human experience, are usually realized through a given spiritual practice (such as meditation, a state of contemplative prayer, or the practice of selfless virtue), along with the indispensable facilitation of divine grace.
—Hasan Awan, MD
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