O you who have faith, take not My enemy and your enemy as friends. “O you who have faith, who have seen the Messenger as truthful, and who have accepted My message with spirit and soul, do not take My enemy and your enemy as your friend. No enemy of yours is greater than the commanding soul. Beware lest you feel secure from it. Always be on guard against it.” MuṣṬafā said, “Your worst enemy is your soul that is between your two sides.” Your worst enemy is the disobedient soul. It always wants that in which is your loss. Anyone who lets the soul have what it wants is planting the seeds of his own remorse. Among the reports from David is this: “O David, be the enemy of your own soul, for no one in the empire contends with Me except it.” The soul [nafs] is dust-dwelling, terrestrial, and dark. It is a treacherous and deceiving enemy. Its root is from “rivalry” [tanāfus], and rivalry is the beginning of rancor, envy, hatred, and enmity. MuṣṬafā was not exaggerating when he said, “We have returned from the lesser struggle to the greater struggle.” He called war against Byzantium the smaller war and war against the soul the greater war. For, you can take Byzantium from the emperor with a small army, but you cannot take the soul from someone with all the friends on the face of the earth. This is because an unbeliever in Byzantium struggles face-to-face and shows impudence and wrath against the warriors and calls them to do improper acts. But the soul does not struggle face-to-face. It shows him affection and kindness and calls him to do honorable acts. This is why the men of religion's road leave aside many of the obedient acts, for they know that those are the decoys of the soul; a hunter catches birds with birds. AḤmad Khiẓrūya Balkhī said, “I had severely put down my soul with various sorts of disci- pline and struggle. One day it became elated by war. I was surprised, because the soul does not become elated by obedience. I asked myself what sort of deception was hidden there. Perhaps it could not put up with hunger, for I was always commanding it to fast. It wanted to travel so as to break its fast while traveling.
