Al-Albānī: How to Fight against One’s Own Soul
Shaykh Muḥammad Nāṣir al-Dīn al-Albānī
Categorized under: Advice, Explanations, Ḥadīth, Jihād, Matters of the Heart, Tests and Trials
Shaikh Muḥammad Naṣir Al-Dīn Al-Albānī, may Allāh have mercy on him, said:
My opinion is:
وجَاهِد النَّفْسَ والشَّيطانَ واعْصِهِما
وَإنْ هُما مَحَضاك النُصْحَ فَاتَّهِمِ
Fight hard against [both] soul and devil, and disobey them both;
And were the two to advise you truly, cast doubt upon [that].
The devil never gives true, sincere advice to his enemy, Man, and because of that, it is an obligation on every Muslim to do his utmost in fighting against himself and his desires. It’s because of that he ﷺ said: “The mujāhid [one who fights for Allāh’s sake to make His word uppermost] is the one who fights his own soul for Allāh’s sake.”
It’s not allowed for [a Muslim] to surrender to the desires of his soul because this surrendering will take him to destruction. Accordingly, a Muslim should always keep in mind the final outcome, [always] keep in mind [his] final home in the Hereafter:
وَلَلْآخِرَةُ خَيْرٌ لَكَ مِنَ الْأُولَىٰ
And the Hereafter is certainly better for you than the present (Al-Ḍuḥá, 4)
And the final place of the Hereafter, as you know, has Pleasure [Paradise] there and has a Blazing Hot Fire there, and this Blazing Hot Fire, that is to say, has within it various kinds of torment that the human mind cannot conceive of. From that, for example, is his ﷺ saying: “This fire of yours [in this world] is [just] one part of 70 parts of the fire of the Blazing Hellfire.”
[A Muslim] lives with the awareness that Allāh, Almighty and Majestic, is watching Him, [keeping away from what displeases Him accordingly]; in that, is protection for him from straying to the right or to the left or having his inclinations and desires play him for a fool, he ﷺ having said: “Paradise has been surrounded on all sides by things [the soul] doesn’t like, [while] the Fire has been surrounded on all sides by things [the soul] desires [or leans to].”
So whoever yearns to be among the people of Paradise, it’s incumbent upon him to fight hard against his own soul because of this ḥadīth and whatever [else] is along [the same] meaning.
O Allāh, it’s only Your mercy that I hope for.
Source: Silsilah Al-Hudá wa-l-Nūr, tape no. 488, 00:29:33.