Nafs
The soul or the self: the part of man that asserts itself, which the path educates from incitement to evil to peace.
Nafs denotes the soul, the breath, the self: everything a man calls ‘me’. The word is common in the Qur’an, and that is where tradition draws its map of the soul, in three degrees: the nafs ammara, the one that incites to evil (XII, 53); the nafs lawwama, the one that blames itself and turns back on itself (LXXV, 2); and the nafs mutma’inna, the appeased soul to whom it is said: ‘Return to your Lord, satisfied and accepted’ (LXXXIX, 27-28).
The murid’s work is this education of the nafs. Not its destruction: the masters are clear that the soul is the mount that carries man, and one does not cut down the mount. It is disciplined through practice, invocation, self-examination, until it stops commanding and becomes the seat of peace. Suhrawardi makes knowledge of the ‘diseases of the nafs’ the guide’s first science.
That is the precise sense of the ‘greater striving’ (jihad an-nafs) which tradition ranks above outward combat. See also qalb, the centre the nafs veils.