God Most High said, “Part of His sign is that He created you from earth” (Q 30:20). He created man from humble earth and unclean sperm after pure non-existence so that he would recognize the baseness of his essence and thereby recognize himself. He perfected the sperm-drop for him so that he would recognize his Lord by it and know His immensity and majesty by it, and that He is the only one worthy of true greatness and pride. For that reason, He described him and said, “Have We not given him two eyes and a tongue and two lips, and guided him on the two roads?” (Q 90:8–10).
He first acquainted him with his baseness and said, “Was he not a sperm-drop extracted?” (Q 75:37). Then he was a blood-clot. Then He mentioned His favor and said, “He created and fashioned and made a pair from it, male and female” (Q 75:38–39), in order to perpetuate his existence by reproduction as his existence was acquired in the beginning by original formation. When you begin in this manner and your states are like this, how can you have arrogance, pride, glory, and conceit? Properly speaking, man is the lowest of the low and the weakest of the weak. Indeed, even if He had perfected him, delegated His command to him and made his existence go on by his own choice, he would still dare to be insolent and would forget his beginning and his end. However, during your existence, He has given illnesses power over you, whether you like it or not, and whether you are content or enraged. You become hungry and thirsty without being able to do anything about it. You do not possess any power to bring either harm or benefit. You want to know something but you remain ignorant of it. You want to remember something and yet you forget it. You want to not forget something and yet you do forget it. You want to direct your heart to what concerns it and yet you are caught up in the valleys of whisperings and thoughts. You own neither your heart nor yourself. You desire something while your destruction may be in it, and you detest something while your life may be in it. You find some foods delicious when they destroy and kill you, and you find remedies repugnant when they help you and save you. You are not safe for a moment, day or night. Your sight, knowledge, and power may be stripped away, your limbs may become semi-paralysed, your intellect may be stolen away, your ruh may be snatched away, and all that you love in this world may be taken from you. You are hard-pressed, abased. If you are left alone, you go on. If you are snatched away, you are annihilated. A mere slave. A chattel. You have no power over yourself or anyone else. What can be more abased? If you recognize yourself, how can you think yourself worthy of pride? If it were not for your ignorance—and this is your immediate state—you would reflect on it. Your end is death. It is indicated by His word, “Then He makes him die and buries him. Then, when He wills, He raises him” (Q 80: 21–22). The meaning here is that your ruh, hearing, sight, knowledge, power, senses, perception, and movement are all stripped away. You revert to the inanimate as you were in the first place. Only the shape of your limbs remains. Your form has neither senses nor movement. Then you are placed in the earth and your limbs decay. You become absent after you existed. You become as if you were not, as you were at first for a long period of time.
Then a man wishes that he could remain like that. How excellent it would be if he were left as dust! However, after a long time, He brings him back to life to subject him to a severe trial. He comes out of his grave after his separated parts are joined together, and he steps out to the terrors of the Rising. He is told, “Come quickly to the Reckoning and prepare for the Outcome!” His heart stops in fear and panic when he is faced with the terror of these words even before his pages are spread out and he sees his shameful actions in them. This is the end of his affair. It is the meaning of His word, “Then when He wishes, He raises him” (Q 80:22).
How can anyone whose state this is be arrogant? A moment of freedom from grief is better than arrogance. He has shown the beginning and the middle of his condition. If his end had appeared to him—and we seek refuge from God—perhaps he would have chosen to be a dog or a pig in order to become dust with the animals rather than a hearing, speaking man, and meet with punishment (if he deserves the Fire). When he is in the presence of God then even the pig is nobler than him since it reverts to dust and it is spared from the Reckoning and the punishment. Someone with this state at the Rising can only hope for pardon, and he cannot be at all certain about it. How then can he be arrogant? How can he see himself as anything to which excellence is attached? This is the knowledge-cure.
As far as the action-cure is concerned, it is to humble yourself to people in a constrained unnatural manner until it becomes natural for you.
The purification of the heart from false hope (amal)
False hope is one of the blameworthy qualities which it is forbidden to have. God Most High said, “Leave them eating and enjoying themselves. False hope diverts them from the outrage which they do” (Q 15:3).
Its reality is that your life-energy is directed to the moment, and you let things slide.
Its cure is to know that throughout your life, false hope will prevent you from hastening to repentance (tawba). You say, “I will yet turn in tawba. There are still many days ahead.” It also prevents you from hastening to obedience. You say, “I will act later. I still have many days left.” That continues to harden your heart because you do not remember death and the grave.
The purification of the heart from anger (ghadab) without grounds
Anger is one of the blameworthy qualities which it is forbidden to have. God Most High said, “When He put rage into the hearts of those who reject” (Q 48:26). The rage of the Jahiliya (Age of rash ignorance, before Islam) was from anger without grounds. He praised the believers since He bestowed some of the sakina (tranquillity) on them.
The reality of anger is the boiling of the blood of the heart to seek revenge. If a man is angry at someone below him, the blood expands and rises to his face and makes it red. If he is angry with someone above him, the blood contracts from his outer skin to his heart, and it becomes sorrow. For that reason, he becomes pale. If he is uncertain, the blood is between contraction and expansion.
There are three degrees of anger: Insufficient (tafrit); Excessive (ifrat); and Moderate (i‘tidal). Insufficient anger is blameworthy because you are not angry enough to protest in defense of that which is sacred (haram): with respect to your wife or mother, for example, or if you should have no jealous protectionism at all. Jealousy was created as a protection for man. Part of this failing is to be silent when you see objectionable actions. Part of it is also to be incapable of self-discipline, since self-discipline is made effective by bringing anger to bear on the appetite, even to the extent of being angry at yourself when it inclines to base appetites. Lack of anger is therefore blameworthy.
Excessive anger is also blameworthy. It is to be overcome by anger so that cool water goes out of the management of the intellect and the religion (din), and you no longer have insight, consideration, reflection, or choice. Whenever the fire of anger is intense, it will blind the one who is angry, and it will make you deaf to every warning. It may increase until anger invades the roots of the senses to the extent that you cannot even see with your eye. The entire world may become dark for you. Indeed, the fire of anger may become so intense that it burns up the moisture which gives life to the heart. The angry person then dies of rage.
Among the outward effects of excessive anger are: Change of colour, intense shaking in the extremities, confused speech, foam appearing at the corners of the mouth, redness, and an ugly mien. This is the effect of anger on the body.
As far as its effects on the tongue are concerned, it is that you speak with insulting language,