The Self That Commands Evil in the Qurʾan

A study of a description that occurs only once in the Qurʾan, yet became the title of an entire chapter of spiritual purification (tazkiyah). By Dr. Ahmed Muhammad Ali Abouseif, President of the American Imams Academy (AIA).

After Joseph's innocence had come to light, and the women and the wife of the Aziz had admitted the truth, a short phrase appeared in the Qurʾan that has become one of the most frequently cited in the chapter on purifying the self: ﴿وَمَا أُبَرِّئُ نَفْسِي ۚ إِنَّ النَّفْسَ لَأَمَّارَةٌ بِالسُّوءِ إِلَّا مَا رَحِمَ رَبِّي ۚ إِنَّ رَبِّي غَفُورٌ رَّحِيمٌ﴾ ("And I do not acquit myself. Indeed, the self is ever inclined to command evil, except those my Lord has shown mercy to. Indeed, my Lord is Forgiving and Merciful") (Yūsuf 12:53). It is remarkable that this form, ammārah, appears nowhere else in the Qurʾan but in this single place, and yet because of it the word has become the name of a condition every self knows: a voice rising within you that pushes you toward what you know is not right.

Delimiting the Term: A Single Form and a Unique Context

The description ammārah, in the intensive pattern faʿʿālah from the root amr (to command), occurs once in the Qurʾan, in the verse cited above. This pattern signifies repetition and habit: it is not a self that commands evil once, but a self whose nature is to command it often. The Qurʾan uses the same root elsewhere in the sense of commanding and ordering affairs, but this particular attribute of the self occurs only here.

Yet the meaning is not confined to this verse. The Qurʾan describes the influence of the self on conduct through other, closely related terms. Among them is taswīl (embellishing, making an evil seem attractive), in the words of Jacob: ﴿بَلْ سَوَّلَتْ لَكُمْ أَنفُسُكُمْ أَمْرًا﴾ ("Rather, your own selves have embellished for you something") (Yūsuf 12:18, repeated in 12:83); taṭwīʿ (making pliant), in the story of Adam's two sons: ﴿فَطَوَّعَتْ لَهُ نَفْسُهُ قَتْلَ أَخِيهِ﴾ ("Then his own self made the killing of his brother seem easy to him") (al-Māʾidah 5:30); and waswasah (whispering), in the verse: ﴿وَنَعْلَمُ مَا تُوَسْوِسُ بِهِ نَفْسُهُ﴾ ("And We know what his own self whispers to him") (Qāf 50:16). The commanding self, then, is the comprehensive name for what the self does when it adorns what is ugly, makes it easy, and pushes toward it.

Before the Definition: Who Is the Speaker?

The commentators differed over who speaks this verse: is it Joseph, peace be upon him, or the wife of the Aziz? A number of verifying scholars, among them Ibn Taymiyyah and Ibn Kathīr, held that it is her speech, because the context runs on from her words: ﴿ذَٰلِكَ لِيَعْلَمَ أَنِّي لَمْ أَخُنْهُ بِالْغَيْبِ﴾ ("That is so he may know that I did not betray him in his absence") (Yūsuf 12:52), for she is confessing that she had solicited him and that she does not acquit herself. Others held that it is the speech of Joseph, out of humility and courtesy toward his Lord, after his innocence had become clear.^[1]

What matters for our subject is that the conceptual meaning stands on either view. Whether it is the confession of a woman who does justice to the truth against herself, or the humility of a prophet who refuses to praise himself, the verse establishes a general truth: that the self, unless it is shown mercy, commands evil. On the first view the meaning gains a further dimension: that the one who was captive to this self is the first to acknowledge its dominion over her.

The Linguistic and Technical Meaning

In Arabic, nafs is applied to the whole person, to the soul, and to the inner side from which intentions arise. Amr is a demand for action made from a position of superiority. The commanding self, therefore, is the self when it takes the place of the one who gives orders within a person, issuing commands that the body and the mind carry out. What is strange is not that the self has inclinations, but that it turns from an inclination into an authority.

Scholars of spiritual purification classified the self into levels, taking them from three Qurʾanic descriptions: "the self that commands evil" (Yūsuf 12:53); "the self-reproaching self" (al-lawwāmah), in the words of God Most High: ﴿وَلَا أُقْسِمُ بِالنَّفْسِ اللَّوَّامَةِ﴾ ("And I swear by the self-reproaching self") (al-Qiyāmah 75:2); and "the tranquil self" (al-muṭmaʾinnah), in His words: ﴿يَا أَيَّتُهَا النَّفْسُ الْمُطْمَئِنَّةُ ۝ ارْجِعِي إِلَىٰ رَبِّكِ رَاضِيَةً مَّرْضِيَّةً﴾ ("O tranquil self, return to your Lord, well-pleased and pleasing") (al-Fajr 89:27-28). This classification is an interpretive effort drawn from the ordering of the descriptions, not a text stating that these are successive stages; some scholars said they are states that alternate within one and the same self, and others said they are attributes of different kinds of selves. In either case the methodological benefit remains: the self is not a single fixed destiny but a field of struggle and refinement.

What the Verse Indicates in Its Structure

Consider how the verse is built: an affirmation, then an exception, then a justification. The affirmation: "Indeed, the self is ever inclined to command evil," reinforced by inna and the emphatic lām. The exception: "except those my Lord has shown mercy to." The justification: "Indeed, my Lord is Forgiving and Merciful." The meaning of the exception is that leaving the dominion of the commanding self does not come about by a person's strength alone, but by the mercy of his Lord. It does not mean that effort is worthless; rather, effort is a means that helps, while deliverance is a grace. This is what brings the verse close to the supplication of the Prophet ﷺ: «يا حيّ يا قيّوم برحمتك أستغيث، أصلح لي شأني كلّه، ولا تكلني إلى نفسي طرفة عين» ("O Ever-Living, O Self-Sustaining, in Your mercy I seek relief; set right all my affairs for me, and do not leave me to myself for the blink of an eye").^[2]

The same thing appears in the words of God Most High about success: ﴿وَنَفْسٍ وَمَا سَوَّاهَا ۝ فَأَلْهَمَهَا فُجُورَهَا وَتَقْوَاهَا ۝ قَدْ أَفْلَحَ مَن زَكَّاهَا ۝ وَقَدْ خَابَ مَن دَسَّاهَا﴾ ("And by the self and He who proportioned it, and inspired it with its wickedness and its righteousness: he has succeeded who purifies it, and he has failed who corrupts it") (al-Shams 91:7-10). The self is created ready for both paths; success depends on purification, and failure on corruption. Here the Qurʾanic balance appears: the self is not pure evil, so that it should be despised, nor pure good, so that it should be left to its natural bent.

The Qurʾanic Method of Resisting It

The verses reveal three approaches to treating the commanding self. The first is striving (mujāhadah) by restraining the self from desire: ﴿وَأَمَّا مَنْ خَافَ مَقَامَ رَبِّهِ وَنَهَى النَّفْسَ عَنِ الْهَوَىٰ ۝ فَإِنَّ الْجَنَّةَ هِيَ الْمَأْوَىٰ﴾ ("But as for him who feared the standing before his Lord and restrained the self from desire, then Paradise will be his refuge") (al-Nāziʿāt 79:40-41). The second is protection from miserliness, one of the roots of commanding evil in matters of wealth: ﴿وَمَن يُوقَ شُحَّ نَفْسِهِ فَأُولَٰئِكَ هُمُ الْمُفْلِحُونَ﴾ ("And whoever is protected from the stinginess of his own self, it is those who will be successful") (al-Ḥashr 59:9). The third is the seeking of mercy, which is where the verse of Joseph itself ends.

Among the prophetic evidence for striving is his saying ﷺ: «المجاهد من جاهد نفسه في طاعة الله» ("The true mujāhid is the one who strives against his own self in obedience to God").^[3] Commonly repeated on people's tongues is "Your worst enemy is your self which lies between your two sides"; this is not a ḥadīth authentically reported from the Prophet ﷺ, and the scholars of ḥadīth have graded it weak, although its meaning is sound in that the self, if left to desire, is more dangerous to its owner than an external enemy.

Part of the Prophet's ﷺ etiquette in the sermon is that he taught his Companions to seek refuge in God from the evils of their selves, saying in the Sermon of Need (khuṭbat al-ḥājah): «ونعوذ بالله من شرور أنفسنا وسيئات أعمالنا» ("And we seek refuge in God from the evils of our selves and the wrongs of our deeds").^[4] The principle of seeking refuge from the self itself is thus established at the opening of every sermon, not only in the chapter on asceticism.

A Reading Through the Higher Objectives (Maqāṣid)

The purpose of this concept is to protect the human being from the most dangerous source of deviation, the one that comes from within. Satan's way in is the whisper, but the whisper finds no path except where it finds a self that responds. In this way the Qurʾan joins two enemies: Satan from without and the self from within, and makes the protection from both one: the remembrance of God and His mercy.

The verse contains another evident purpose: humility and the closing of the door to self-admiration (ʿujb). Whoever grasps that his self is a commanding one does not say "I am fine," and does not feel safe from trial for himself. This explains why Joseph, peace be upon him, at the very height of his innocence and protection from sin, says (on the preferred view of those who attribute the words to him): "And I do not acquit myself." True innocence is not achieved by self-praise, but by attributing it to the grace of God.

The Contemporary Practical Dimension

In an age when applications are built on an understanding of the self's weak points (desire, boredom, comparison, the love of being seen), commanding evil has become easier and swifter, and embellishment arrives in the form of a notification on the phone. The person who thinks that "my self is good" and has no need of barriers falls captive to the first temptation of the screen. But whoever has grasped the Qurʾanic concept builds practical barriers for himself: he is not content to say "I will not fall," but keeps away from the places of falling. Joseph said at the most intense moment of trial: ﴿وَإِلَّا تَصْرِفْ عَنِّي كَيْدَهُنَّ أَصْبُ إِلَيْهِنَّ﴾ ("And if You do not turn their plot away from me, I might incline toward them") (Yūsuf 12:33); he did not rely on his strength alone, but sought help through supplication, and established for himself righteous companionship and disciplined times.

In the family and in upbringing, we should not raise our children to think that the self is absolute good, so that it is left to what it desires, nor that it is absolute evil, so that they come to hate their own selves. Rather, we should raise them on what the verses of al-Shams outlined: a self inspired with both wickedness and righteousness, which needs someone to purify and nurture it, not someone to despise it, nor someone to praise it without measure.

Neighboring Terms: Embellishment, Facilitation and Whispering

These three terms are not identical, though they agree in attributing the act to the self. Taswīl is adorning a thing and making it easy until it appears light and acceptable, which is what Jacob said to his sons: "Your selves have embellished for you something," that is, they made attractive to you what you did. Taṭwīʿ is making a matter pliant and compliant after it was found difficult, which is what happened to the son of Adam, who hesitated to kill his brother and then "his self made it easy for him"; it is as if within the human being there is an innate barrier against killing, and the commanding self works to remove it little by little. Waswasah is a hidden, repeated speech cast into the heart.

In this there is an ordering that benefits upbringing: the fall does not happen all at once, but begins with a whisper, then embellishment, then facilitation, then the deed. Whoever knows this gradation can cut off the road at its beginning, where resistance is easiest.

Self-Accounting and Vigilance: Practical Tools

The scholars of spiritual conduct built on this chapter two practical rules: vigilance (murāqabah) before the act, and self-accounting (muḥāsabah) after it. It is related of ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb, may God be pleased with him, that he said: "Take yourselves to account before you are taken to account." Its basis in the Qurʾan is the saying of God Most High: ﴿يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا اتَّقُوا اللَّهَ وَلْتَنظُرْ نَفْسٌ مَّا قَدَّمَتْ لِغَدٍ﴾ ("O you who believe, fear God, and let every self look to what it has sent ahead for tomorrow") (al-Ḥashr 59:18). For a self to look at what it has sent ahead means that a person should have a sitting with himself in which he reviews his day and resolves to repair what has gone wrong.

In this setting the self-reproaching self appears as a friend, not an enemy: it is the one that rebukes its owner after a mistake and drives him to repentance. This is why God swore by it in Sūrat al-Qiyāmah. The feeling of remorse after sin is a sign of life in the heart, and the danger is that this voice should die, leaving nothing inside but the commanding of evil.

Between Despair of the Self and Security from Its Scheming

Some people, on hearing "Indeed, the self is ever inclined to command evil," fall into despair of reforming themselves, and say: this is my nature and I cannot change it. That is an understanding that contradicts the rest of the verse, "except those my Lord has shown mercy to," and the verse of al-Shams, "he has succeeded who purifies it." Others fall into false security about their selves, and sit in places of temptation on the pretext of trusting themselves, though we have seen that Joseph himself did not feel secure. The middle path is that a person works at reforming his self as though success were in his hand, and prays to his Lord as though all grace were from Him.

At times the commanding self hides in the garment of obedience: a righteous deed done to be heard of, or anger for God's sake mixed with the self's own portion. For this reason the scholars urged the scrutiny of intentions, and made sincerity (ikhlāṣ) the hardest thing a person strives against in himself.

Conclusion

One verse in Sūrat Yūsuf gathered affirmation, exception and justification together, and so became among the shortest and the most comprehensive things ever said about the matter of the self. In a human being there is a commander who does not fall silent, and only the one who seeks help in the mercy of his Lord and trains himself to restrain it from desire is delivered from it. Whoever learns this neither despairs of his self nor feels secure from it, but walks between fear and hope until it becomes tranquil.