Picture of my math equation: http://imgur.com/RHZAHvR

In this post I wanted to bring light to a concept that I found very interesting in the Week 11 readings and that was the idea of “the self”. More specifically, the khudi and the nafs. Before I begin explaining my creation, I will briefly describe the difference between the khudi and the nafs just in case some of you have never heard of them (If so you’re not alone, I hadn’t before taking this course).

The khudi is defined in the reading Iqbal and His Message by Ralph Russell as “our full potentialities for positive action”. Thus it is a more outwardly understanding of the self in contrast to more common understandings. The khudi was first defined by the early-20th century pakistani poet Muhammad Iqbal in his poem Asrar e Khudi (Secrets of the Self). Iqbal’s notion of the khudi was motivated by a couple of verses from the Quran, the main one being chapter 23, verse 14 in which God is described as ahsan ul Khaliqin – ‘the best of creators’. Although most scholars have interpreted the word “best” as simply meaning “supremely good”, Iqbal concluded from the use of the word “best” that there must be other creators besides God Himself (since He isn’t described as ‘the Creator’). And from this, Iqbal believes that God’s most important co-creator is Man (mankind). So in his poetry, Iqbal emphasizes this idea that we all need to discover our full potentialities for positive action and make full use of them, because only then will we be developing our khudi.

Moreover, another understanding of the “self” is the nafs. In contrast to the khudi, the nafs is a more inward spiritual perception of the self. It is commonly defined as the “psyche”, “ego”, or the “soul”. In Sufism, it is believed that there are three principle “stages of the nafs” which describe the process of development, refinement and mastery of the nafs. The ultimate goal for Sufis is to completely let go of their egos to the point where they become one with the divine and only experience love with all of God’s creations, and so the “three stages of nafs” reflect this journey. The first stage is known as “the inciting nafs (an-nafs al-ʾammārah)” which is the most primitive stage describing someone who is egotistical and as a result commits evil actions. The second stage is “the self-accusing nafs (an-nafs al-luwwāmah)” and this is where “the conscience is awakened and the self accuses one for listening to one’s ego. One repents and asks for forgiveness.”(1). Lastly, the final stage and the goal for all Sufis is “the nafs at peace (an-nafs al-muṭmaʾinnah)” in which the soul reaches a state of tranquility. At this point, Sufis are able to let go of all worldly problems and are satisfied with the will of God. Therefore we can see that the nafs is a much more inwardly understanding of the self in contrast to Iqbal’s notion of the khudi.

In my opinion, both the khudi and the nafs are essential for maintaining our well-beings on this earth because they both provide us with purpose and inner peace respectively. Therefore I believe that they are both equally important to all of us. So for my creation, I decided to highlight the importance of these two ideas through a math equation (see picture above). As a Statistics concentrator this came naturally. In my math equation x represents the khudi, y represents the nafs, and z represents the distance away from maximum well-being on this earth. So the objective is to have z be as close to zero as possible. X and y can only take on the values of 0 or 1 indicating whether or not the individual is striving to develop their khudi or to attain a nafs at peace. In addition, both x and y cannot be 0 simultaneously because we will assume that everyone who’s reading this blog post is either striving for x or y. And so as shown in my equation, the objective is satisfied when x and y are both equal to 1 (z=0) suggesting that a person who strives to develop their khudi AND attain a nafs at peace will maximize their well-being on this earth. When someone strives for either one or the other, they will either lose sight of God (in the case of khudi) or lose sight of the earth/worldly matters (in the case of nafs). And just to make it clear, this is merely a reflection of what I personally believe. Nevertheless, I thought this was a simple and creative way of combining and highlighting the importance of both Iqbal’s khudi and Sufism’s nafs.

 

I hope you enjoyed this post and learned something new!

 

Best,

Aly

 

(1) Al-Haqqani, Shaykh Adil; Kabbani, Shaykh Hisham (2004). The Path to Spiritual    Excellence. Islamic Supreme Council of America (ISCA). pp. 102–103.