ভূমিকা

Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books Provisions for the Journey (Mishkat), Volume 1 Lesson 13: The Insignificance and Minuteness of the World and the Importance of Perceiving the Hereafter The Differences of Perception and Conduct between an Intelligent and an Unintelligent Person The previous discourse was concerned with the fact that if man commits sin and becomes regretful and fearful afterwards, Allah grants him forgiveness as a result of that regret and anxiety.

It is likely to falsely imagine that every person who commits sin and repents afterwards will be forgiven and this in itself gives birth to more sin and contamination. In order to put an end to this false illusion, the Noble Prophet states that a smart and clever person is one who is always contemplating about the best way of making use of his life and performing commendable works.

He tramples the carnal desires of the soul underfoot and does not act according to the dictates of his appetitive heart, which consequently leads to getting afflicted by negligence: “O Abu Dharr!

Smart and wise is a man who disciplines his soul and strives for the life after death and stupid is a person who follows his soul and its carnal cravings and in spite of that has hope in Allah.” Man has an intellect and an appetitive soul; sometimes his intellect is triumphant over his craving soul and at other times the longing heart is victorious over his reason.

Both types have been portrayed in this section: At times, the soul becomes weak and its yearnings do not have [any] influence on the intellect. This is in regard to a sagacious man who is on the path of edification of character and unceasingly reflects upon the everlasting life after death. In contrast, from time to time the soul and its carnal desires triumph over reason and man becomes weak in the face of the appetitive soul and cannot resist the animal instincts [of the flesh].

This interpretation is based on the copy of “ Bihar al-Anwar ” in which has been recorded “whoever debases his soul”, [ man dana nafsah ] that is to say wise is a man whose carnal desires have become weak but the other copies have recorded “whoever disciplines his soul” [ man adabba nafsah ]. Perhaps, the second expression is better than the first, and in this case the denotation of the sentence will be thus: wise is a person who endeavors to discipline his soul.