Signs from Allah: History, Science and Faith in Islam 202. Khudi of Allama Iqbal - 7
By Professor Nazeer Ahmed
Concord, CA

 

The Kashaf of the Nafs

The susceptibility of the Nafs to evil makes the Nafs the biggest barrier between the Light that comes with the Ruh and its perception. Properly trained, this barrier can be removed and the Nafs can become the carrier of that Light. The progression of the Nafs from an obstructer of Light to a carrier of Light is a continuous process. Four stations of the Nafs are identified in the Qur’an:

Nafs e Ammara : This is the dark side of man, prone to whisperings from the evil one. Nafs e Ammara stands steeped in darkness, cut off from the light emanating from the Spirit.

Nafs e Mulhama : This is the aspiring Nafs, the state when a person starts questioning the evil tendencies of his own Self and tries to rectify them.

Nafs e Lawwama : This is the blaming Nafs, the station from where the Self, having overcome the evil inclinations of the Self, reaches out to a higher station, to find the Light that comes from Divine presence.

Nafs e Mutmainna : This is the highest station of the Nafs and the closest to Divine presence. At this station, the Nafs has overcome its Ego and has shunned whisperings of the evil one and has turned with complete surrender to Divine presence. It is the station of satisfaction, tranquility and peace.

Tarmidhi tabulates the stations of the Nafs with respect to the stations of the heart: Nafs e Ammara corresponds to Sadr; Nafs e Mulhama corresponds to the Qalb; Nafs e Lawwamma corresponds to the Fu’ad, and Nafs e Mutmainna corresponds to Birr.

 

Translation, Conceptual Mapping and Cultural Constraints

Translation from one language to another often introduces inaccuracies and misconceptions. Language is culture bound. What is expressed in one language cannot exactly be mapped onto another language because words are colored by the historical and cultural experience of a people and they have a semantic connotation. It is important to keep in mind the differences in terminology and their semantic nuances when we approach the nature of knowledge and its classification in the Qur’anic paradigm.

 

The Interconnectivity of Knowledge

Truth is one. Its origin is the Light from the ruh (the Spirit). It is the spirit that suffuses the heart, the mind and the body to acquire knowledge. It follows that the various categories of knowledge are interconnected.  

The primal origin of knowledge from a divine source establishes the interconnectivity between different forms of knowledge. Ilm ul ibara and ilm ul ishara both have Divine origin. What is learned through the senses springs from the same Source as what is learned through the mind and what is perceived by the heart.  And all of them point like arrows (symbols) towards that divine purpose in creation, namely, to serve and worship Him. Unlike the secular framework where the body and mind stand as antagonists to the heart and to each other, in the Qur’anic paradigm, the body, mind and the heart are partners, each contributing its share to the acquisition of knowledge that enables humankind to discharge its divinely established responsibility to serve and worship.

There is interconnectivity in nature. There is interconnectivity between the perceived world that the world beyond perception. This interconnectivity is through the Creator, who creates everything, every moment, with sublime beauty, complete perfection and supreme majesty.

 

The Purpose of Creation

The various categories of knowledge are also interconnected through their shared functionality.

Does the universe have a purpose? As opposed to the secular view of a purposeless world, the Qur’anic view holds that there is a moral purpose to creation, that is, to serve and worship God:

I created not the Jinns and Humankind except to serve (worship). The Qur’an (51:56)

The word that is used in the Qur’an to describe this purpose is “’abd” which may mean worship or unqualified servitude.  Thus humankind and jinns (another forms of intelligent creation made of formless energy) are enjoined to acquire knowledge so that they may know God and serve and worship Him.

 

The fossilization of knowledge

Knowledge is fossilized because of the assumptions made by man about the secular nation of the cosmos. By dissociating the material and the rational from the heart and the soul, secular man ends up in a blind alley where the heart and the Nafs (soul) are absent from his worldview. History, science, philosophy, mathematics, good and evil, passion and emotion each are pigeon holed into separate compartments with no interconnectivity. Secular man sees no grand purpose in creation and hence he sees no purpose in his own creation.

 

What is Iqbal’s Khudi?

We are now in a position to understand Allama Iqbal’s Khudi. It is the essence of the Self. It is not seen but it makes itself felt through the body, the mind and the heart. It increases in its brightness the more the Self is effaced, until when the Self is completely effaced, Khudi becomes a mirror that reflects, like a brilliant star, the Light of its essence from its Life Source, the Spirit. Khudi is not the Ego of the psychologists. It is more than the Self of the philosophers. Indeed, Khudi becomes stronger as the Self becomes weaker. It is the Se Murgh of Fareeduddin Attar. It is the rapture of Rumi when he writes: “Not Christian or Jew or Muslim, not Hindu, Buddhist, Sufi, or Zen. Not of any religion or culture, I am not from the East or the West, not out of the ocean or brought forth from the ground. Not natural or ethereal; not of elements. I do not exist, am not an entity in this world or in the next, did not descend from Adam and Eve or any story of origin. My place is placeless; I am a trace of the traceless. Neither body or soul, I belong to the Beloved, have seen the two worlds as one, and the One who calls you to, the first, last, outer, inner. (I am) only that breath-breathing human.”

Allama Iqbal captures this sublime thought with the simile (ilm ul ishara) of the mirror (a’eena):

Tu bacha bacha ke na rakh ise

Tera a’eena hai woh a’eena

Ke shikasta ho to ‘azeez tar

Hai nigahe a’eena saz meiN.

Conserve it not and keep (Your Nafs, O seeker!),

Your mirror is that mirror,

The more it is humbled,

The more it is loved

By He who made the mirror.

(The author is Director, World Organization for Resource Development and Education, Washington, DC; Director, American Institute of Islamic History and Culture, CA; Member, State Knowledge Commission, Bangalore; and Chairman, Delixus Group)