The Internal Strife of Good and Evil-The Basic Grounds for Accountability

The Internal Strife of Good and Evil

Being a composite of baser animal ego (nafs) and the Divine spiritual soul (ruh), man can rightly be characterized as a “microcosm” of the whole being — possessing in, and reflecting from, the innermost recesses of his selfhood both evil tendencies and higher spiritual aspirations. He experiences within himself the lowest drives of evil and vice, as well as the noblest urgings for moral righteousness and spiritual excellence. Man’s inner personality thus is an arena of a long and perpetual pitched battle between the forces of evil and goodness.

The Basic Grounds for Accountability

Almighty Allah (SWT) has not sent man in this world without giving him any capacity and potential to cope with the inner strife of good and evil. On the contrary, man has been endowed with numerous faculties that help him in fighting out the blind and irrational promptings of evil. 

Even the lowest element of his personality — the animal self or Latifa-e-Nafs — is equipped not only with the capacities of sight, hearing, and reasoning, but also with an acute moral sense. There is a world of qualitative difference between the sensory and mental operations of human beings and brute animals. Logical reasoning through induction and deduction, abstractions and thoughtful reflections, as well as metaphysical speculations are only the prerogatives of human beings. Moreover, the human self has been equipped by Allah (SWT) with a moral sense that discriminates between virtue and vice, between moral rectitude and immorality. That is why man’s own inner moral self, or nafs-i-lawwamah in Qur’anic terminology, is the most authentic judge within. Slightest departure from the path of moral rectitude activates this “self-accusing soul” and the pricks of conscience are immediately experienced by the evil-doer. The following verses of the Holy Qur’an categorically state these truths:

Indeed, We created man from a mixed sperm-drop in order to try him, and therefore We made him capable of hearing and seeing.

(Al-Dahr 76:2)

Nay, I call to witness the Day of Resurrection! But nay, I call to witness the accusing voice of man’s own conscience

(Al-Qiyamah 75:1, 2)

And (by the) human self, and how it is formed in accordance with what it is meant to be; then inspired it with its moral failings as well as with its God-consciousness.

(Al-Shams 91:7, 8)

The connotation of the verb sawwa, used in the Arabic text of the last quotation above, is that Almighty Allah (SWT) has endowed the human self with an inner coherence and with qualities consistent with the functions which it is meant to perform, and thus has adapted it a priori to the exigencies of its terrestrial existence. Moreover, Allah (SWT) has implanted a keen moral sense in him; thus, the fact that man is equally liable to rise to great spiritual heights as well as to fall into utter immorality is an essential and primordial characteristic of human nature as such. In other words, it is this inherent dichotomy of tendencies which gives to every right choice a value, and, thus, endows man with moral free-will.

The Holy Qur’an speaks of three types of human self, or three stages or states of the spiritual development: 

• Nafs-e-ammara (Yousuf 12:53) is prone to evil, and, if unchecked and uncontrolled, leads to perdition and eternal damnation; 
• Nafs-e-lawwama (Al-Qiyamah 75:2) which feels conscious of the evil and resists, asks for God’s grace and pardon after repentance and tries to amend;
• Nafs-e-mutma’inna (Al-Fajr 89:27), the highest stage of all, when it achieves full peace and satisfaction in obeying Divine commands. 

According to the Qur’an, a man is always cognizant, because of his inborn moral sense, of the morality or immorality of his actions, irrespective of the rationalizations or excuses that he may offer. Thus, the Qur’an says:

Nay, but man is a witness against himself, even though he may veil himself in excuses.

(Al-Qiyamah 75:14, 15)

On the Day of Judgement, one’s tongue, hands, feet, and skin will bear witness against him as to his actions. It is not what a man will say about himself, or what others say of him, that determines the judgement upon him. It is what he is in himself. His own inner personality will betray him and condemn him.

The above cited Qur’anic verses and the brief explanatory notes make the truth crystal clear that man is not, like animals, merely a sentient or instinctive being; rather, he has been made by the Creator into a full-fledged human person — a human being capable of discerning between right and wrong and thus of choosing his way of life. On the basis of this ingrained moral sense, every human being as such is answerable on the Day of Final Reckoning, and is fully liable to punishment or reward. Every individual will have to account for his own deeds personally, and face the trial and the judgement himself. The Holy Qur’an makes clear this point thus:

(Be conscious, then, of) the Day every human being shall come to plead for himself (alone), and every human being shall be repaid in full for whatever he has done, and none shall be wronged.

(Al-Nahl 16:111)

The Holy Qur’an categorically refutes the Christian doctrine of vicarious redemption as well as the Jewish idea that “the chosen people” — as the Jews consider themselves — would be exempt from punishment on the Day of Judgement. On that day, nobody would be able to help another, nor will there be any possibility of ransom or intercession, as the Qur’an says:

And remain conscious of (the coming of) a Day when no human being shall in the least avail another, nor shall intercession be accepted from any of them, nor ransom taken from them, and none shall be succoured

(Al-Baqara 2:48)

Source:The Objective and Goal of Muhammad (SAW)

To Be Continued ....