You Need to Read (Islamic Lectures Collection)

Action plan for purification of the self

How can I control my nafs? How to do tazkiyah? First thing is called Mukhalafat un Nafs. To go against wishes of nafs. Our Mashaik used to train people so intensely in this that they say we don't even do the lawful. For example, drinking cold water in the heat of summer is permissible. But the training of Mashaik was to drink tap water and not refrigerated water, in order to break the nafs. Just like a physical fighter stays away from halal permissible things to improve his physical performance, the spiritual training is to stop one's nafs from fulfilling any unlawful desire. Nafs e Ammara is like a wild dog, if you're holding it on a leash, if you let go of the leash, then you try to make tawbah (capture it on your leash again), now the dog knows, if it tugs and pulls you will let go, similarly your nafs gets wilder just like the wild dog. The nafs knows if I pull and I pull and I pull, you will let go. Eventually it becomes like an untameable wild animal which cannot be trained.

Mujahada tun nafs, second thing to control nafs. It means to push yourself in ibadah longer than you feel like doing it, because feeling like not doing it is from your nafs. OK, it happens, when you are reciting Quran, you don't feel like reciting after reciting a certain amount of time, but you push yourself to read on anyway. Now a person wakes up for tahajjud, they make niyyah to pray full Sunnah tahajjud eight rakahs, but they feel tired after praying two rakah. But mujahada tun nafs means you push on and pray the rest. Similarly in dua, usually people say ameen the moment they no longer feel like supplicating. But you must push on.

Students do mujahada to study. They want to sleep, but they splash themselves with water, they drink coffee, in order to study. We do mujahada to wake up early to go to work. Don't think, I can't do mujahada, it's too extreme. Do you do the same for dunya, you study only when you feel like it, work only when you feel like it. Can't you do ibadah when you don't feel like it anyway, just for the sake of Allah swt?

Third way of doing tazkiyah is through islah un nafs. To rectify the nafs. To get the nafs corrected. You need a trainer for this, a Shaykh. You write to Shaykh explaining your spiritual problems, you listen to bayan, you present yourself for correction.

Those people who really, really, really want it, they want out of Nafs e Ammara, out of Nafs e Lawwama, they make use of all three methods (mukhalifat, mujahada, and islah). In one night we can make this niyyah to make this effort of tazkiyah, to try to work to purify my heart and purify my nafs.

Allah says in Quran, if it were not for the fazl (grace and generosity) and mercy upon you, no single one of you would ever be able to get pure, to get this tazkiyah. Allah purifies whomsoever He wills. How do we get Allah to will our tazkiyah? Who tries to purify his nafs, Allah sees his effort and sends His fazl and mercy on them. Who wants to share their sins with someone, it's embarrassing, but they go for islah un nafs anyway, they seek help, even in just their act of seeking help, wanting guidance, Allah's fazl descends on them. The asal is what? That Allah does tazkiyah of whomsoever He wills.

So this is a mission that Allah gave Nabi Kareem s.a.w, and he s.a.w purified the hearts and lives of Sahaba. Every single generation of believers did tazkiyah, from Sahaba onwards to the present day. This is why we have our chain, sanad, silsila of mashaik, we connect ourselves to a line of Mashaik. If you are already connected to a line of Mashaik, keep on doing it, all the way until you hope, no one will ever know, that they have Nafs e Mutmainna. Those of you who have not yet started this, every day you must work for tazkiyah. If you're not doing it yet you must make niyah on this night, may He not let death overcome us until we are in the state of Nafs e Mutmainna.

(Traps of Shaytan and Steps of Tazkiyah, talk by Shaykh Mufti Kamaluddin Ahmed on 20th November, 2015).