Controlling our Nafs

وَأَمَّا مَنْ خَافَ مَقَامَ رَبِّهِ وَنَهَى النَّفْسَ عَنِ الْهَوَى

(79:40) But he who feared to stand before his Lord, and restrained himself from evil desires,

فَإِنَّ الْجَنَّةَ هِيَ الْمَأْوَى

(79:41) most surely his abode shall be Paradise.

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Five ways to inculcate fear of the maqam of our Rabb in our nafs

1.Remember your sins; think how Allah swt looked at me when I sinned. At the same time Allah swt was looking at a real mo’min doing tawaf of Ka’aba and me sinning; or at the same time He Looked at another mo’min being bombed or muslim women being raped and me sinning. We showed to Him at that moment that we had no khauf, no fear of Him; no remorse; no regret; we didn’t even remember Him.

We should make dua: Ya Allah give me a heart that is terrified of you, that has the fear of your maqam always present inside it all the time.

2. Remember the severity of the Punishment of Allah swt – think of meeting Allah swt in such a state that He has ghazab for us, that we are displeasing to Him; He doesn’t want to Speak to us…RasoolAllah saw doesn’t recognize us.

3. Reflect on our weakness and inability to endure that punishment – we should think that I have the least ability to bardasht any of this on the Day. I cannot bear even a gaze of ghazab. Even one second of jahannam, one second of slowing down on pul-e-siraat

We just say: ghair-ul-maghdoobi when we recite Surah-e-Fatiha everyday unfeelingly ; we don’t think what would happen if we become misdaaq of that Ghazab of Allah swt!

4. Think of the Power of Allah swt – He has absolute ikhtiar to Call me to account at any moment in time; just like He is Ar-rahman Ar Raheem, He is zul Jalal; zu intiqam

5. Think one by one of the stages of Day of judgment – death; grave; reckoning ; book of deeds

When a human dies they are acutely aware of the extraction of their Rooh; just remembering this beginning, first step of the journey should inculcate enough fear in us.

[Extracted from a Talk on ‘Controlling Our Nafs’ by Shaykh Kamaluddin Ahmed db on 16th May 2010]

4 Comments

  1. facebook says:
    February 18, 2011 at 12:26 pm

    i love it

  2. Chris says:
    February 24, 2012 at 4:43 pm

    Great :)

  3. abdullah says:
    February 26, 2012 at 11:58 pm

    assalamualaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh. Zajakallah khair shaik. Pray to allah(swt) tht he forgive my sins. And guide me to d straight path.

  4. Mujtaba says:
    July 31, 2012 at 4:39 am

    Brother & sister. I am a Sinner my self. but I will say we should always say toba Astagfar and try to not repeat the mistakes. may Allah guide us inshalla. Think About the Kabba and Madina to fight back the bad taughts…

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