Naeem's Blog

Yesterday in part 1 of this three part series, I introduced a balanced three-pronged approach to purifying the nafs and cleansing the heart. I discussed the importance of *regular* Taubah and how it parallels the physical effects of cardiovascular exercise.

Today in part 2 we'll look at weightlifting.

The essence of lifting weights is to strengthen the muscles. How is this accomplished? By lifting heavy weights that require an exertion of great force, the muscle fibers are actually broken down and made to rebuild themselves.

The key is to shock the muscles by exposing them to an effort that they are not normally attuned to. This effort (or struggle, if you prefer) in turn causes the muscles to breakdown. Then when they rebuild, the new muscles fibers are stronger, larger, and healthier.

Additionally, weightlifting progress is sustained by continually increasing the resistance (i.e. the weight). As you slowly increase the strength of your muscles, you must slowly increase the weight in order to maintain your desired rate of growth. If you choose to lift the same weight over and over, your muscles will cease to react and thus stop growing.

This process is similarly required for our spiritual development. Our inner self (nafs) is that part of us which continuously seeks to fulfill its wishes and desires, contrary to our heart (qalb) which, if healthy and revived, is trying to inspire us to put aside our personal lusts in pursuit of doing whatever pleases our Creator.

We need to lift weights with our nafs by exposing it to 'heavy' acts of worship. We must struggle with acts of mujahadah (inner struggle). This includes the obligatory acts (such as prayer, fasting, obeying parents, etc.) as well as the nawaafil (optional).

If the nafs is not used to this increase in effort, it will become sore and will try to convince you that you are doing too much. However, the nafs must be rejected and the struggle must be made to break it down. It must not be allowed to control you. Rather you must control it. By constantly resisting the nafs with more and more acts of obedience, the worship of the self will be replaced by the worship of the Lord.

However, we must keep close tabs on our progress. If you have achieved a certain level of internal mujahadah and have sustained it for a period of time, then you must augment it with extra acts of worship. This can include tahajjud, eating less, talking less, extra dhikr, and so on. You must constantly monitor your progress or else you will stagnate and eventually begin to regress. This is where some would strongly recommend an experienced 'weight-trainer' who has already gone through the steps and can help you monitor your progress - in the spiritual world, this trainer would be analogous to a sheikh or a pir.

Additionally, its very common in the weightlifting world to have a workout partner. A good partner is key in motivating you and keeping you from slacking in the gym. Similarly, in the struggle against the nafs, good company fulfills the role of the good workout partner. Being in the company of strong individuals who have spiritual goals aligned with yours is essential.

Finally, in weightlifting, you must keep increasing the weight in order to continuously shock your muscles into growth. As we increase the weight, we are tearing the weaker muscle fiber in order to allow it to re-grow as a stronger muscle.

The same applies to the nafs. We must tear down the inner callings of our nafs, destroy the satanic whisperings within us, and overcome our carnal desires by exposing them to sincere acts of worship, such as waking up in the middle of the night, implementing every sunnah of our Beloved (saw), reading (and comprehending) the Quran everyday, fasting the weekly sunnah fasts, keeping our tongues *constantly* busy with the remembrance of Allah, and so on.

This will cause our nafs to crumble in front of Allah and enable our qalb to become our righteous guide on this journey back to Allah.


Part 1 - Cardiovascular

Part 3 - Healthy Diet