If the heart is the spiritual organ through which the human being can know God, the nafs · نَفْس is that which, in the human being, prevents him from doing so. It is the carnal soul, the ego, the self — the seat of desires, of fears, of pride, of the illusions of absolute autonomy. The Sufi work upon the nafs is probably the most demanding part of the way.
A word of many faces
The Arabic word nafs, like the Greek psyché or the Latin anima, is polysemous. It can designate:
- The soul in general — the principle of life, that which makes a being living and conscious.
- The self — the person in his own identity. “I came in person” is said in Arabic jiʾtu bi-nafsī.
- The breath or the respiration — a root common with nafas, the breath.
- And above all, in the Sufi vocabulary: the unpurified ego, the set of tendencies that draw the human being away from God.
It is this last sense that dominates in the way. The nafs, here, is the inclinations downward — toward possession, power, enjoyment, recognition, the fear of lack. It is that which, within us, always says “me.”
The great jihād
A famous prophetic saying — often cited but of an authenticity contested by certain ḥadīth scholars — fixes the stake:
We have returned from the lesser jihād to the greater jihād.
— What is the greater jihād, O Messenger of God?
— The struggle against the carnal soul. Widely transmitted ḥadīth
This saying — whatever its historical authenticity — expresses perfectly the Sufi position. The outward combat, on the battlefields, is only a lesser combat — it has an end, it knows truces, it can be resolved by negotiation. The inner combat, against the ego, is without truce. It lasts a whole life. It begins again each day. It is, for the Sufis, the only true jihād.
The seven stations of the soul
The Sufi tradition has elaborated, from Quranic indications, a typology in seven degrees of the nafs. Each degree corresponds to a state in which the soul finds itself, and which the way seeks to surpass:
1 · An-Nafs al-Ammāra bi-s-Sūʾ — the soul that commands evil
The lowest degree. It is the soul entirely dominated by its passions and its appetites — which wants to possess, to enjoy, to dominate, without restraint. The Quran evokes it through the mouth of the prophet Yūsuf (Joseph):
And I do not acquit myself — the soul is much commanding to evil,
save the one to whom my Lord shows mercy. Quran 12:53
2 · An-Nafs al-Lawwāma — the soul that blames itself
The first threshold of lucidity. The soul begins to see itself act, to recognise its faults, to reproach itself for its basenesses. It is not yet virtuous — but it has ceased to be unconscious of itself. The Quran mentions it in 75:2: “I swear by the soul that blames itself.”
This station is essential: without the consciousness of the fault, no transformation is possible. It is the virtuous suffering that prepares the work to come.
3 · An-Nafs al-Mulhama — the inspired soul
The soul begins to receive inspirations (ilhām). It perceives, at times, what it is fitting to do. But it still hesitates — between the low solicitations and the calls from on high. It is the station of the struggle properly speaking.
4 · An-Nafs al-Muṭmaʾinna — the soul at peace
A major turning point. The soul has reached a state of inner peace. The passions are not dead, but they no longer dominate — they have become servants. The Quran evokes it in one of the most beautiful divine sayings:
O you, soul at peace!
Return to your Lord, satisfied and accepted.
Enter among My servants.
Enter into My paradise. Quran 89:27-30
It is the station that every Sufi aims to reach. Many, says the tradition, stop there.
5 · An-Nafs ar-Rāḍiya — the satisfied soul
Beyond peace, the soul reaches contentment. It no longer desires anything but what God desires for it. It is satisfied with the qadar — the divine decree — whatever it may be: prosperity or ordeal, health or sickness, presence or absence.
6 · An-Nafs al-Marḍiyya — the soul that is accepted
Symmetrical to the preceding. Not only is the soul satisfied with God — God is satisfied with it. The divine grace distinguishes it. It is the degree of the walī, the saint, the friend of God.
7 · An-Nafs al-Kāmila — the perfect soul
The summit. The soul reaches the fullness of walāya (sainthood). It has become, according to Ibn ʿArabī, an Insān al-Kāmil — a Perfect Man, the integral mirror of the divine Names. This degree is extremely rare — reserved for the greatest figures of the tradition.
The cunning of the ego
A fearsome difficulty of the way: the ego is capable of imitating all the virtues. It can feign humility, patience, compassion, wisdom. It can even use spiritual practice itself as a new territory of expansion.
The nafs, the Sufis noted, can disguise itself as spirituality. A man prays much — his ego draws pride from it. A man fasts at length — his ego rejoices at being considered an ascetic. A man accedes to mystical states — his ego claims them as his possessions.
The further you advance on the way, the more subtle the nafs becomes.
At the start, it tempts you with the gross vices;
then, with the subtle vices;
in the end, with the virtues themselves. Classical adage
This is why the spiritual master is indispensable. He alone, looking from the outside, can distinguish between true transformation and its imitation. He alone can name what the disciple does not see, and bring him back to greater modesty.
The methods of combat
How does one work upon the nafs? The tradition proposes several complementary methods:
- The mujāhada — the active effort against the low inclinations. To refuse what flatters the ego, to choose what thwarts it.
- The murāqaba — inner vigilance. To observe constantly what arises in the soul — desires, thoughts, intentions — in order to distinguish what comes from the nafs and what comes from the heart.
- The muḥāsaba — the daily examination. Each evening, to take stock of the day: where did the ego gain the upper hand? what signs of transformation?
- The adab — courtesy. To regulate each gesture, each word, upon the ideal of spiritual behaviour. The form shapes the substance.
- The dhikr — the continual invocation, which digs a furrow in the soul and deposits there, little by little, the memory of God.
- The khidma — service. To put oneself at the service of others, without calculation, without expectation of recognition. It is one of the best means of detaching the nafs from itself.
Neither to deny nor to worship
An important precision: Sufism does not ask one to deny the nafs nor to hate it. The carnal soul is also, in its way, a creature of God — it has legitimate needs (to eat, to sleep, to love, to reproduce), which are to be ordered, not eradicated.
The goal is not to destroy the nafs, it is to elevate it, to educate it, to bring it from the first to the seventh degree. At the arrival, it is not a man without a soul — it is a man whose soul is at peace, satisfied, and finally perfect.
My Lord, grant to my soul its God-fearing and purify it.
You are the Best of those who purify. You are its Master and its Guardian. Quran 91:9, a saying invoked by the Sufis
The work upon the nafs is therefore, in the last instance, the work of a whole lifetime. No Sufi has ever declared having finished it. The further one advances, the more one discovers the extent of what remains to be done. But this very discovery is a grace: it delivers us from the illusion of having succeeded and places us, endlessly, in the just posture — that of the servant on the way.