The degrees of the human soul

The Sheikh opens the programme 'Wa Nafsin wa ma Sawwaha' by saying that the human soul is the most complex thing God created, and that it is not of one pattern, since gifts and mental, emotional, spiritual and intellectual aptitudes differ from person to person. ¹

He says God divided character as He divided provision, and divided souls: there is the soul that commands evil, the self-reproaching soul, the tranquil, the content, the well-pleasing and the inspired soul, and before all of these the perfect soul, which is the Prophet's. ²

He compares it with units of measure: lengths are measured in millimetres and centimetres, weights in grams and kilograms, earthquakes on the Richter scale, and human souls are measured by the Prophet's soul, because it is the perfect soul. ³ He holds that every great figure in history is great in one respect and less so in others, giving Napoleon as an example, a great military commander whose moral courage did not match his courage in war; this is his view. ^{4 5} He says a great man's aura lessens the closer you come to him, except the Prophet: the closer people come to his life the more they are amazed, and for all his gifts he lived as one among people, so that a Bedouin entering his gathering would ask which of them was the son of Abd al-Muttalib. ^{6 7 8}

In the tenth episode the Sheikh returns to the degrees of the soul, holding that it rises from state to state if its owner wills: the soul that commands evil inclines to what displeases God, rancour, hatred, envy, despair of God's mercy and feeling safe from His plan, and he cites Yusuf's words about it. ^{9 10} He quotes the likeness of the soul to a child that, if neglected, grows up loving the breast and, if weaned, is weaned, and to a mount that carries its rider home if he rides it and kills him if it rides him. ¹¹ When a person notices that his soul bids him sleep through prayer, withhold zakat and harm people, and blames it, it rises to the self-reproaching soul; when he sets himself a programme to reform it and strengthens his certainty that what struck him could not have missed him and that with hardship comes ease, it becomes tranquil, at peace with God's promise and grace. ^{12 13 14 15} Then it rises to the content soul, with no anxiety about tomorrow or about weak offspring; then to the well-pleasing soul with which God is pleased, because it has set itself to the Book and the Sunna, the lawful and unlawful, watchfulness over the limbs and sincerity; then to the inspired soul, which God inspires with what is right and with the sweetness of worship, and which he compares to what Westerners call a sixth sense. ^{16 17 18 19 20} He mentions that Umar was one spoken to and inspired, and that he memorised Surat al-Baqara over eight years because he memorised a verse, applied it, then moved on; and he quotes al-Hasan al-Basri: we are in a blessing which, if kings knew of it, they would fight us for it with swords, the blessing of contentment with God. ^{19 21 20}