The italicised writing below is quoted/paraphrased from my insightful sister and friend Dr Hanan Dover, as understood by me. It was delivered to an eager audience last night at the In Pursuit of Happiness: Prophetic Guidance Towards Wellbeing workshop.
As she spoke so eloquently, I craved to share her words with the world. I wanted them recorded and broadcast to Muslim and non-Muslim alike, because they were so valuable, so poignant.
She said...
Know yourself.
The prophet Muhammad (pbuh) said: 'He who knows himself knows Allah'.
Human beings are born in a state of fitrah- the inherent, innate inclination to goodness. We are innately conditioned to submit to God.
It is our environment that steers us away from this.
The fitrah is one's moral compass.
Every soul has already made a covenant with God, before entering this world. Our souls were conscious and when they were asked about God, they responded with Tawhid.
Consequently, when our souls entered this realm of consciousness, they do so in this state of inherent fitrah.
It is vital, therefore, that we take time to reflect. We need to be self-aware in order to align ourselves with our fitra, to re-orient ourselves with God. We need to invoke and actualise our fitrah potential, not our fitnah potential.
Human beings are dynamic, but fitrah stays the same.
There are three levels of Nafs (soul/self):
- The soul prone to and inciting evil. This is the basest of levels, and one which is guided by the five senses, to one's biology. It commands one to do wrong.
-The self-reproaching soul. This is the second level and is described as the self-blaming self. It has self-awareness; it questions, reflects and is dynamic. This is the level that many of us are in.
-The tranquil soul. The highest level and the one which we must all aspire to. It is a state of satisfaction, contentment, tranquility. It is the attainment of harmony with God. It still requires effort to maintain.
We can all rise above our commanding nafs.
Sadly, rather than aspire to the highest level of nafs, many who are at the self-reproaching soul use it to justify the actions attached to the lowest level. They view shame and guilt as negative, when in actual fact they are positive emotions, motivating one to be good. It is when one feels no shame or guilt that anything goes.
Saying that, this does not mean that we need to have dysfunctional thoughts and live in a state of despair. On the contrary, we must meet hardship and trials with hope. We need to understand that hardship will inevitably befall each and every one of us at different points in time. The four reasons for hardship, as alluded to in the Quran, are to punish us for wrongdoing, to shield us from greater misery, to sift out the evil from within us and to give us an opportunity to earn reward by showing patience.
The way you think will effect the way you feel. Catch your thought- ask yourself if it is realistic/helpful or not. Negative thoughts (waswaas) are whispered from the shaytan (satan). Its aim is to bring you down. The more you entertain them, the more they will spiral out of control. Avoid waswaas; give people the benefit of the doubt.
Waswaas is a corruptor of sincerity, intention, patience, morals, cognition and behaviour.
It is important to remember that emotions come first, so we need to manage our emotions in order to control and manage our actions.
Human beings can only attain the highest level of nafs by being faithful to our nature- re-orient yourself and return back to God.
