I · The four parts
One soul, four aspects
Not four separate things, but four ways of seeing one soul. At its center is the heart, able to turn up toward the spirit or down toward the pull of the self.
Tap a part of the diagram
II · The stages of the nafs
A self that can rise
The nafs is always shifting. In Rothman’s model it moves through three stages named in the Qur’an, and the soul has a natural pull toward growth.
Some traditions count more stages, up to seven, adding al-mulhama (the inspired self), ar-rāḍiya (the content self), al-marḍiyya (the pleasing self) and al-kāmila (the complete self). Rothman’s model centers the three above.
III · The heart as a mirror
Light that is not our own
An image used by many of the scholars Rothman interviewed: the heart is a mirror. The light it shines is not its own; it reflects divine light when it is clear.
كَلَّا ۖ بَلْ ۜ رَانَ عَلَىٰ قُلُوبِهِمْ مَا كَانُوا يَكْسِبُونَ“No! Rather, the stain has covered their hearts of that which they were earning.”Qur’an, al-Muṭaffifīn 83:14 (Sahih International)
“When the slave commits a sin, a black spot appears on his heart. When he refrains from it, seeks forgiveness and repents, his heart is polished clean. But if he returns, it increases until it covers his entire heart. And that is the rān which Allah mentioned” (83:14).The Prophet ﷺ, from Abu Hurayra. Jāmi‘ at-Tirmidhī 3334, graded ḥasan ṣaḥīḥ by at-Tirmidhī; also Sunan Ibn Mājah 4244, graded ḥasan by al-Albānī and Darussalam. Translation: sunnah.com
The hadith speaks of sin. But a heart can also be dimmed by what was done to it. A wound is not a sin. Here the dark spots stand for both: the hurts we were handed and our own missteps. And the hope in the hadith is one we can carry to all of them: a heart can be polished.
IV · Dimmed, then polished
Clouding the heart صدأ القلب
A clear heart sends its light outward. Appetites clog its arteries; wounds leave black spots on the heart itself. Choose what dims it, then polish it clean.
بصيرةinsight
هُدىguidance
قربnearness to God
سكينةpeace
Appetites clog the arteries, and stain
Wounds leave black spots
Polishing the heart
Polish, gently جلاء القلوب
Rub over the dark spots on the heart above with your finger or mouse. As they lift, the light underneath comes back.
The heart at the center of you, the engine everything runs on, and the qalb the tradition speaks of.
أَلَا بِذِكْرِ اللَّهِ تَطْمَئِنُّ الْقُلُوبُ“Unquestionably, by the remembrance of Allah hearts are assured.”Qur’an, ar-Ra‘d 13:28 (Sahih International)
Ibn al-Qayyim wrote that the heart rusts through two things, heedlessness and sin, and is polished by two: seeking forgiveness and remembrance (al-Wābil aṣ-Ṣayyib).
“For everything there is a polish, and the polish of the hearts is the remembrance of Allah.” Reported by al-Bayhaqī (Shu‘ab al-Īmān 522) from Ibn ‘Umar as a saying of the Prophet ﷺ. Its chain is weak: al-Albānī graded it ḍa‘īf in Ḍa‘īf al-Jāmi‘ (1932), though he rated a similar report ṣaḥīḥ li-ghayrihi (sound through supporting reports) in Ṣaḥīḥ at-Targhīb (1495). The same words are also reported as a saying of Abu ad-Dardā’.
Wounds are not sinsread more
Trauma, abuse, neglect, grief and betrayal are things that happen to a person. They can leave dark marks on the heart, making it harder to feel safe, to trust, to sense God near. They are not that person’s sin, and not their fault.
The hadith above speaks of sin as a black spot. This page borrows the image for wounds only as a picture of what a heart carries. A wound is owed care, not blame. It can heal, gently and often with help, and the light underneath was never lost.
Arteries, spots and the mirrorread more
The clogged arteries and the black spots are this page’s own picture. The tradition’s image is the mirror: in The Marvels of the Heart (Book 21 of the Iḥyā’), al-Ghazālī describes the heart as a mirror able to reflect the realities of things, tarnished by wrongdoing and dimmed when it turns away from God, and polished by obedience and remembrance.
In Breaking the Two Desires (Book 23) he turns to the appetites of the stomach and of sex. He lists ten benefits of hunger; the first is a pure heart and sharper insight (baṣīra), while a full stomach brings dullness and a kind of blindness in the heart. Sexual desire has real goods, he says, but out of balance it can ruin both faith and worldly life. His counsel is the middle way, not hatred of the body.
Paraphrased from al-Ghazālī, Iḥyā’ ‘Ulūm ad-Dīn, Book 21, trans. W. J. Skellie, The Marvels of the Heart (Fons Vitae, 2010); and Books 22–23, trans. T. J. Winter, Al-Ghazālī on Disciplining the Soul and on Breaking the Two Desires (Cambridge, 1995).