The Purification of the Self (Tazkiyat al-Nafs)

The Meaning of Tazkiyat al-Nafs

The purification of self (Tazkiyat al-Nafs) is an extremely important approach to perfecting the human condition and actualizing the state of being God’s vicegerent on earth.

The term tazkiyah in the Arabic language means purification of something from impurities, and its growth, development and perfection. Imam al-Ghazali developed the practice or art of tazkiyat al-nafs based on the Quranic verse (91:7-10):

“By the soul/self, and the proportion and order given to it; and its enlightenment as to its wrong and its right; truly he succeeds that purifies it [zakkaha], and he fails that corrupts it!”

In this sense, tazkiyat al-nafs can be defined as the purification of the self from all evil inclinations and its beautification with good values and virtues. 

In our modern day and age rife with moral confusion and temptation, it is extremely important we are equipped with a method or process that we can use to re-gain mastery over our self and purify it from negative influences. This will then allow us nurture our own individual growth and development as better Muslims. Ghazali is a very helpful guide on this quest because he uses very clear terms and concepts geared towards individual growth and development. For Ghazali, a human being is both, body and soul, matter and spirit. It is the unique balance between the two that makes humans what they are, the highest creation. The original condition of the human being is that of fitrah. According to al-Ghazali, a human being is born in a natural state of purity (fitrat al-Islam). The potential to do good or bad exists. It is the early developmental stages and influences that determine how those potentials are enhanced. If the child’s early environment is good, the good potentials are promoted. If it is bad the bad ones are.

The Divinely revealed law is crucial for knowing what is right and what is wrong. However, even when we know what is right and wrong, we may be under the influence of compulsions and temptations that control us or skew our judgment. Therefore, there is an important element in tazkiyat al-nafs, namely, a conscious decision to changes one’s self in the direction of that which is better. As a spiritual-moral term, tazkiyat al-nafs denotes our self-imposed effort of eradicating those tendencies within the human self, which form obstacles in the path of our moral and spiritual development.

To this end, it is important to understand the structure of the self. Following the Quran, Ghazali explains that there are three levels to the self. There is the:

1. The Inciting Self (al-nafs al-ammarah): the part of our lower self that impels us towards doing wrong things. It overlaps with our passions, desires, ego, and instincts. 

2. The Reproaching Self (al-nafs al-lawwamah): the part of our self that reproaches us and takes us to task for committing wrong things. It overlaps with the function of reasoning and judgment. 

3. The Tranquil Self (al-nafs al-mutma’innah): the part of our self wherein the self has attained to a state of peace and serenity due to its purification and perfection. It overlaps with the spirit within us. 

An Islamic Psycho-Spiritual Model of You
Adopted from Toward a Framework for Islamic Psychotheraphy: An Islamic Model of Soul by Abdallah Rothman & Adrian Coyle (2018)

Purification of self is the struggle against the inciting self to actualize the tranquil self. This requires that we turn inward, starting with understanding our inner life. 

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The Science of Intention (Niyya)

The first hadith in the Sahih of Imam al-Bukhari is the hadith of intentions.

“Umar Ibn Al-Khattab relates that he heard the Messenger of Allah (SAW), say, ‘Verily actions are by intentions, and for every person is what he intended. So the one whose hijrah was to Allah and His Messenger, then his hijrah was to Allah and His Messenger. And the one whose hijrah was for the world to gain from it, or a woman to marry her, then his hijrah was to what he made hijrah for.’”

Every Muslim is taught this hadith and knows it off by heart. While its significance is well known, its deeper meaning and role in cultivating ethical thinking and spiritual purity is less understood. According to Imam al-Ghazali, quoting the great pious Muslim Sufyan al-Thawri, the early generation of Muslims “learned how to perform intentions for actions in the same way that you learn how to perform the actions themselves.” Today we seem to only focus on doing what is right. But Islam teaches us to intend what is right also! When students of knowledge used to ask the early generation about an action that one can perform constantly for the sake of Allah, they were told to always make an intention for the sake of Allah.  

The early generation used to have a science for learning how to craft a good intention. 

Let us take a look at a helpful diagram of the relation between our inner life, including our intentions, and our outer life or our actions performed by our body.

Diagram of Relation between our Inner Life and Outer life

Look at the diagram above. Intention is something that we do when we are just about to perform an action. It means that an intention happens at the moment that an action is about to be performed. But an intention is the result of a long internal process that begins with what the scholars call a prompting (khatir). What is a prompting?

A prompting is a faint idea, passing thought, or suggestion that pops into our head quickly and pops out as quickly as it came. It happens extremely fast. We have these ‘faint ideas’ all the time. A prompting is an urge to do something right or wrong and is characterized by the speed by which it comes to us and leaves us.

There are two types of promptings: 

1. Good promptings

2. Bad promptings

There are five sources of a prompting: 

1. Allah

2. The Angels

3. Our higher Self

4. Our lower Self 

5. Shaytan

Five Source of Prompting

Good promptings come to us either from Allah, the angels, or our higher Self. In either case, we experience an inclination and thought to do something good. It might be the faint suggestion to get up and do fajr early in the morning or the inclination to help someone or forgive them. The scholars tell us that Allah sends his emissaries or ambassadors to suggest good thoughts to us to do good things, these ambassadors are the promptings. 

Sometimes bad promptings come to us. These are either from our lower self or shaytan. It might be a faint suggestion to mention something bad about someone to someone else (back biting) or to cheat someone. If we dwell on it and entertain the idea long enough it transforms into an intention to do it. We must not encourage this. We should be able to ward it off as soon as it arrives so that we do not dwell on it. Otherwise, it will transform into an intention to do wrong. 

Look at the diagram above again. The scholars teach us that if we think about the prompting or entertain it a little in our mind it transforms into a will (irada) or desire to do it. If we still think about it, it becomes stronger and transforms into a determination (‘azm) and then an objective (qasd) or goal. At this point we have thought about it long enough that it becomes a purposeful thing we intend to do. This process is very fast, faster than the blink of an eye sometimes. Hence the importance of cultivating the growth and crystallization of a good intention. 

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The Seven Characteristics of a Good Intention

Once a good intention is crystalized, its effects are quite remarkable. There are seven unique characteristics of a good intention. These are: 

• A good intention is a complex and multifaceted phenomenon. Most people assume it is just something we say before an action. But as we have already seen, it is the result of a long internal process that starts with a prompting. An intention, therefore, is something that:

1. Starts in the heart
   This means that an intention is something that emerges from within us. It is the result of a process of focusing our heart on doing something for a good reason. Ultimately, the best reason we can do something is for the sake of Allah (li wajhi-llah). However, there other lesser reasons like doing good acts for the sake of others, community, or our loved ones. 

2. Is articulated by the tongue.
   While some schools of Islamic law say that you don’t have to articulate the intention with your tongue, many agree that articulating it out loud helps strengthen and focus it. It is always stronger to articulate something with the tongue because that further strengthens it in the heart. Take for example trying to make the intention to help someone. We might just intend it in our minds but if we verbalize it or even write it down it further strengthens it and our determination to do it. 

3. Confirmed by the mind
   When the intention is articulated by the heart and is heard out loud, it is further confirmed by the conscious mind that is now hearing and processing it. This means that our mind or rational decision making is involved in making an intention and by verbalizing it out loud we help the conscious mind confirm the action itself. 

4. Manifested by the body
   An intention is incomplete without following through and doing that which is intended. So the last aspect of an intention, its full realization so to speak, is actually doing it or carrying it out with our feet, hands, eyes, ears, etc. 

• A good intention flows through the entire action. An intention is often thought of as something that we just do before an action and once we start the action then an intention comes to an end. However, this is not accurate. The scholars tell us that an intention is something that flows from the heart through the body and limbs and through the entire action itself for the duration of the action. One can imagine it like the blood that flows through our veins or a river that flows through a river bed, an intention flows through the entire action from beginning to end. That is why the scholars compare an intention to a spirit. An intention is to an action what a spirit is to a body. Without a spirit, the body is a dead hallow husk; without an intention, an action is dead. We can think about it in the following way. We might perform an action that helps someone but we may not have intended it to help them. While it is still beneficial to the other person, it is not beneficial to us because we did not intend the goodness so we cannot think about it as something good that we did but merely something good that happened through us.

• A good intention preserves us in a state of purity. The reason the scholars tell us that it is important to purify the intention is because once we have made a pure intention, it preserves us upon this original purity for the duration of the period of time we are performing the action. It acts like a protective shield from negative or bad promptings or thoughts that may pollute the action itself. Imam Ghazali often reminds us that if in the middle of an action, like salat, we lose focus and get distracted from the action, all we have to do is re-new our intention.

• A good intention purifies our unconscious mind. Once a pure intention is made it works wonders. Every good intention sinks deep within our unconscious mind and purifies it of its impurities. The more good intentions we make, the purer will be our unconscious mind. Take a look at the diagram below.

Diagram of iceberg

While we pride ourselves on being conscious individuals who make conscious choices, the reality is that most of the choices we make are driven by hidden reasons, motivations, impulses, and compulsions. These are formed within our unconscious mind and influence our decisions all the time. In fact, most of our decisions are made unconsciously.

Many of these hidden reasons or compulsions that come to us from within are formed by our lower self, social expectations, media, social pressure, and all sorts of other external influences that mold us in ways we are unaware of and eventually determine many of the decisions we make. How do we rid ourselves of their negative influences? How do we prevent them from making bad promptings and suggesting bad actions? One way is to constantly make pure intentions to do good and these good intentions sink deep within our unconscious mind and purge it of so much of the filth of these bad ideas. One way of thinking about it is like when we put chlorine in swimming pools. Chlorine is added because it purifies the water and kills several types of germs and bacteria that may infect us. 

• A good intention re-configures our lives and presents new possibilities.  The more good intentions we cultivate in our lives, the purer our inner life becomes. However, something else quite remarkable happens too. Something happens in our external life also. We begin to notice things we did not notice before. For example, good people enter our lives we did not think of befriending before. In our previous circle of acquaintances we may not have thought twice about talking to certain people. But as we change, our perception of others changes. The better we become, the more we seek out good people. We also begin to think about good things more often. Suddenly, it’s as if we have been put on a new trajectory or path in life and we discover a whole new set of possibilities (people, ideas, ways of living) that we were not aware of before. 

• A good intention is emancipatory. When we make intentions we exercise a certain degree of self-observation (muraqabah) and self-examination (muhasabah). This means that making an intention is a space within our hectic lives where we seize back control of our lives from the unconscious compulsions and reclaim our freedom to choose what to do. Think about it. When we exercise mastery of our self through muraqabah and muhasabah and when we constantly purify the intentions for the sake of Allah, and when we purge our unconscious mind of negative influences, what we are effectively doing is reclaiming the freedom that Allah gave us to choose to be what we are destined to be: humble beings aware of our earthly origins and illuminated by the Divine light of His guidance. Therefore, intentions help us be free in two ways: free from and free for. Intentions help us become free from the negative impulses and compulsions so that we may be free for our spiritual journey to Allah. If the pressures of modern life force us to do things in certain ways that are detrimental to our spiritual wellbeing and colonize every moment and space in our lives with its demands, then intentions are our means of liberating ourselves from its clutches. 

• A good intention brings us closer (qurb) to Allah. Every good intention made is a step in the direction of Allah. In a famous sacred tradition, Allah (SWT) says: 'I am sitting with the one who remembers Me.' This means that an intention is not only something that affects us in the Seen World but it also reverberates in the Unseen World. This is quite a remarkable power that we potentially possess. By merely making a good intention, we have moved in the direction of Allah in the Unseen, or ascended upwards, even though we have not physically moved. 

We can now better understand why the early generation learned the science of crafting an intention as much as they learned about how to act. The key now is to combine the art of crafting an intention with the art of doing the action.