Sunday, March 29, 2009

Mujahatun Nafs...

After taking an oath of the sky, earth and other great signs, Allah took an oath of the nafs. "I take an oath by the nafs and the One that corrected it."
"He inspired the nafs with evil and piety."
Allah has created the ability to sin as well as to be pious in man.Man now has a choice of accepting the slavery of the nafs and preparing his way to hell or he could muster some courage, become pious and thereby become a friend of Allah.He could either become Abdur Rahman (the slave of the Merciful) or Abdus Shaytan(the slave of satan).Allah has granted man a choice to either adopt the path of piety or the path of sin. Retribution and punishment will be based on this choice.Now the question arises why Allah mentioned taqwa after mentioning sin.Normally a good thing is mentioned first.When you enter the musjid, you step in with the right foot first. You eat with the right hand.Every good thing is placed first but Allah mentioned sin first in this verse. This has a very great secret and if one comes to know this secret,one will not be grieved by the urge to sin. The urge to sin is not harmful.Fulfilling the urge is however sinful. If you do not have the urge to sin, you cannot become pious. Allah has exhorted man to curb the urge to sin. Man has to obey Allah and become His slave because Allah has created man and not the nafs. This indicates that the urge to sin is essential. That is why He is commanding us to prevent the nafs. Had there been no urge to sin, taqwa would not have existed because taqwa means to subdue the urge of the nafs to sin and to endure the grief that follows.

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