The central gesture
Classical Sufism always spoke of the heart as an organ that can be sound or sick. Khaled Bentounes takes up this ancient intuition and makes it the subject of a book: Sufism is presented here as a true medicine of the soul — with its diagnosis, its maladies, its remedies.
The approach is concrete. It is not an abstract theory of virtue, but a lucid look at what, within us, causes suffering and prevents us from living: pride, fear, greed, envy, forgetfulness. And, set against each ill, the work that undoes it.
The key concepts (made plain)
- The sick heart — The Quran speaks of a heart that can be "veiled," "hardened," "sick." These words are not images: they describe real states, that anyone can recognise within himself.
- The maladies of the soul — Bentounes reviews the great inner ills — pride, anger, greed, envy, dispersion. Each is named, described, understood in its root.
- The remedies — To each ill, a work: the examination of self, invocation (dhikr), patience, generosity, the return to God. Sufism does not merely diagnose — it heals.
- Healing as return — To heal the soul is not to "repair" it like a machine: it is to bring it back to its original state, at peace, in tune. The health of the soul is its peace.
To read it
A practical book, which speaks directly to experience. One can read it in order, or stop at the chapter that concerns the ill one is passing through. It naturally prolongs The Inner Man in the Light of the Quran: one describes the soul, the other heals it.
Resonances
- The author: Khaled Bentounes
- The states of the soul — see the Nafs page
- Invocation as a remedy — see the Dhikr page
- His other books: Sufism, the Heart of Islam, The Inner Man in the Light of the Quran