Yasir Abbas

For a long time I wanted to write about the nafs (the Self / the Soul) and the endless struggle it wages. I imagined I could study its inner workings understand its mechanisms and devise a strategy to defeat it.

But I quickly found myself lost. Its arsenal was vast beyond comprehension. Every time I thought I had grasped even a fragment of it I glimpsed its depths and they stretched farther than my mind could follow. The nafs was bottomless and I felt myself sinking into its dark magnitude.

It had layers that shifted like storm clouds over a restless sea. It had faculties that controlled every corner of my existence. It was an elixir capable of transforming a man into pure gold or reducing him to ash and soot if he failed to rise to its challenge. It demanded change toward purity or decay. It offered no respite. It gave no breaks. Its war was constant.

Every battle left me bruised and raw. Each defeat struck deeper than the last. My body trembled with exhaustion and my spirit burned with humiliation. Yet in the pain I learned something terrible and magnificent. The more I engaged the nafs the more I understood its nature. Its attacks grew sharper only to teach me how to endure them. Its cruelty was a teacher and its victories were lessons carved into my very bones.

This battle is far from over. It will not end as long as I draw breath. It is the soil from which my existence grows. It is the force that will determine what I become.

I do not claim to have understood the nafs fully nor to possess the strength to defeat it. What I can share are the experiences of my journey the bruises the stumbles the moments of anguish and despair. What I can share is the story of what it feels like to confront a force that lives within me and yet towers above me a force that is as merciless as it is essential. This is the truth of the fight and the only way I have found to write about my nafs.

Imagine the battle with the nafs as a real war. Not metaphorical. Not poetic. A war where you stand on the frontline with a trembling shield and a blade worn dull from constant use. Across the field waits an enemy whose army is endless and whose weapons shift shape every time you learn how to defend yourself.

You face an adversary that studies you with the intelligence of something primeval. Its soldiers are made of your desires. Its generals are your fears. Its champions are your habits, each one stronger than the last. In this war of attrition the nafs evolves faster than you do. It grows while you avoid it. It trains while you sleep. It sharpens its claws every time you surrender. When you stand against it you either submit or fight with weakness, and both paths lead to defeat.

The real terror is time. The war has a limit and you feel it slipping away. You know you are losing the battle and losing time itself.

There is no respite. The enemy refuses to let you breathe long enough to prepare. If you engage without strategy you bleed out. If you retreat you lose ground that will take years to reclaim. There is no safe corner of this battlefield. There is no neutral zone.

Yet something strange happens when you fight long enough. In the chaos of combat you begin to learn. You start creating strategies while the blows rain down on you. You gain a sense for the rhythm of the enemy. Your feet adjust. Your hands respond before you think. You begin to understand the nature of the war.

That is when the nafs reveals something new.

The terrain itself becomes its weapon.

The ground shifts the moment you step on it. Hills rise and collapse as if alive. Valleys stretch and contract like the lungs of a beast waiting to swallow you whole. You look around and realize this is not a battlefield where two armies stand in noble formation. This is a living arena designed to break you. It knows your weaknesses. It remembers every fall. It has watched you lose a thousand times and has grown familiar with the shape of your surrender.

When you gather the courage to rise you feel the soil thicken into mud that clings to your ankles like chains. When you attempt to move forward the air sharpens. The wind turns harsh enough to peel the skin off your cheek. Dust slashes your vision until you cannot tell whether you advance or move in circles. Lightning cracks overhead each time you gather resolve. Thunder responds each time you take a determined step.

The storm is not the sky. The storm is the nafs. Every cloud forms in reaction to your will.

Yet somehow you keep fighting. With rage and desperation you push through the mud and winds. You swing your sword until your knuckles bleed. You roar until your voice breaks. Slowly you begin to gain a fragile sense of control.

Then the nafs changes weapons again.

Your body falls sick. Your strength drains. Your health collapses. You are struck by a weakness that feels crafted with surgical precision. You lie on the ground gasping, unable to lift your shield. The enemy watches you with cold patience, knowing this strike is the most effective so far.

Defeat seems certain. You stay in your sickness and wonder if the battle is already over.

But then something inside you whispers that death on the battlefield is better than death in bed. So you rise again. Weak. Wounded. Dizzy. Barely alive. But standing.

The nafs attacks with a new tactic. It sends doubt into your skull like poisonous arrows. You begin questioning the purpose of the war. You ask yourself if the struggle has any meaning at all. You wonder if surrender is the only logical choice. Captivity promises rest. Defeat promises peace. The battle feels pointless because every victory births a new enemy with sharper teeth.

You look back and see how far you have come, and the thought stings. If you stop now everything you endured will turn to dust. So you gather whatever strength is left and hurl yourself into the fight with a ferocity you did not know you had.

For a moment the tide shifts. You win a few skirmishes. You cut through some of the enemy’s ranks. The victories feel intoxicating. You begin to believe you have turned the tide.

That is when you make your mistake.

You lower your guard. You breathe too deeply. You relax in the warmth of triumph.

The nafs was waiting for this.

It springs from the shadows and wraps itself around your throat. You are thrown onto the ground. Your heels scrape against the stones and the earth drinks your blood. Pain erupts through your entire being. You choke. You claw at the invisible hands crushing your windpipe. You want the agony to stop. You want the darkness to take you so the suffering ends.

This is the moment of reckoning. You must choose.

Submit and rot into ash and soot.
Or rise and continue the struggle that may one day turn you into gold.

Because this enemy will not quit. It is an elixir that will either decay you or refine you. It will destroy you or transform you. It will break you or purify you.

It waits for your decision. And each time, you decide whether to rise or fall.