Purification of the Soul

Have you ever thought about how you could become a better version of yourself? Maybe you just want to become a better Muslim. Ever asked yourself “How is Islam relevant to my daily life?”, or “What do I have to do to just be happy?” Do you often hear from people that Islam is just a bunch of “do’s” and “don’ts” ? Do you sometimes think that life is just too busy to practice Islam? Feeling overwhelmed by social media feeds?

If you’ve ever wondered these things or had similar thoughts, then Purification of the Soul is for you.

What is Purification of the Soul?

Purification of the soul is a concept that is present in many spiritual and religious traditions.

Purification of the Soul otherwise known as Purification of the Heart, or Tazkiyat-un-Nafs, is the process of cleansing and beautifying one’s inner self, in order to achieve a higher level of spiritual enlightenment, and become closer to God.

In general, Purification of the Soul involves a commitment to living a virtuous and moral life, and to cultivating positive qualities and attitudes within oneself. It also involves letting go of negative thoughts, emotions, and behaviors that obstruct one’s spiritual growth, and habituating oneself to practices that cultivate good character, which results in a sense of inner peace and contentment.

Purification of the soul can be challenging, and is, a deeply personal process; therefore, it requires consistent effort to achieve. However, if you ask those who have taken this path, you will discover that by getting closer to God, they have in fact become better versions of themselves, are less distracted, and ultimately are happier in their daily lives.

On the practical side, Purification of the Soul is also very much an exercise in developing willpower or self-control: what could be more accurately called “nafs-control”. The APA defines willpower as the ability to avoid short-term temptations and override unwanted thoughts, feelings or impulses. This is in fact the essence of the process of Purification of the soul.

What is the Process for Purification of the Soul?

It doesn’t matter where you are in your own personal practice of Islam, you can use the Purification Cycle, or Tazkiya, to move yourself forward and improve. As a process, it is relatively simple:

What do I need to Know?

The process described above is pretty simple, but where do we begin? How do we know what to intend, and what areas we need to improve? Well, before we begin anything we need a basic understanding of what we are dealing with. In this case, since Purification of the Soul is about cleansing and beautifying our inner self, these are the things we need to focus on.

Formally in Islam all, sciences have always been introduced by looking at their 10 defining characteristics, what in Arabic are called “The 10 Principles” (al-mabaadi al-ashara). They are:

1. Name
2. Definition
3. Subject
4. Topics
5. Classification
6. Fruits
7. Virtue
8. Legal Value
9. Codifiers
10. Sources

In the case of Purification of the Soul a.k.a. Islamic Spiritual Psychology, or as it is classically known, Tazkiyat-un-Nafs, these 10 characteristics or principles tell us exactly where we need to start.

The 10 Characteristics of Purification of the Soul

What is the Nature of the “Self”, “Soul” or “Heart”?

As we see from the 10 Characteristics, the subject matter of Islamic Spiritual Psychology (Tazkiyat-un-Nafs), is the inner dimension of the human being and consists primarily of the following 3 things: the Self (Nafs), Heart (Qalb), and the Soul (Ruh).

The overall relationships are shown here in this diagram. Note the direction of the arrows – they indicate what affects what.

It’s important to mention here that things do get lost in translation. For example, we are talking about Purification of the Soul, because that is the most commonly used translation of the Arabic term تزكِيَّة النفس (Tazkiyat-un-nafs). However, in Arabic the word “nafs” is definitely not what we would normally call the “soul”. So let’s go through some quick definitions before we dive deeper.

Heart – قلب (qalb)

• This is the most important part of the human being. It is the “spiritual heart” through which we gain deep insights.
• The heart is what must be protected from bad influences, because it is where our impulses to act first originate.
• As we live our lives and commit various sins, openly or in secret, large or small, we darken our hearts, and this prevents us from getting close to Allah.
• Through various techniques we can cleanse our hearts
• we know that only a “sound heart” can reach Allah
• we must remove the various diseases of the heart

Soul – روح (ruh)

• This is our original form, as we were first created before we were born into this world.
• It was our Ruh or Soul, that testified in front of God, that “yes, You are my Lord”
• Our Soul is pure, and so is a source of positive impulses to our heart
• The “Ruh” is what is put into the flesh of the fetus at approximately 40 days, after which a heartbeat is discernable
• Allah has said that the “Ruh” is a matter of His concern, and that He has given us but little knowledge of it

Intellect – عقل (aql)

• The Intellect is what we reason with
• It is connected to the heart, in that it receives impulses from the heart, as to what to think, but also influences the state of the heart.
• The intellect is what commands the body to act
• As we act, speak, and see, these activities in turn affect our thoughts, and so these activities in turn also affect the state of our heart

Body – جسد (jasad)

• Our physical body
• has 5 input points: sight, hearing, taste, touch, and smell
• We have our hands, feet, and tongue through which we act and affect the world around us
• All these elements are fully under the control of our intellect
• We are in control of what we see, hear, touch, taste, smell, do, and say
• When we use our senses or act in any way, we directly affect our Intellect, which in turn affects our heart
• So we must be careful to control what we see, hear, do, and say

Stages of Purification

As we go through the purification cycle, we will progress towards a more clean and pure heart, and ultimately become more and more beloved by God. We will go through several stages, and it is important to recognize them so that we can understand where we are on the journey of purification, and where we need to go next. Keep in mind that the majority of humanity functions in the first 2 states, and only a few advance beyond:

Learn more about these Stages or Types of Nafs