Nafs al-Mutma'inna: The Soul at Peace

The Quran names three states of the soul: the soul that commands evil (Surah Yusuf 12:53), the soul that reproaches itself (Surah al-Qiyama 75:2), and the soul at peace (Surah al-Fajr 89:27). The Sufi tradition calls this third state nafs al-mutma’inna. The word comes from the Arabic root of itminan: to settle, to come to rest, to grow still. The soul at peace is a soul whose turbulence has ended, a soul that has found its place by binding itself to God.

This article looks at the fourth station on the map of the seven stages of the soul. It is the middle of the road. The struggle of the first three stages bears its fruit here, and the last three stages begin from here.

The Soul at Peace in the Quran

Surat al-Fajr ends with this address:

“O soul at peace! Return to your Lord, well pleased and well pleasing. Enter among My servants, and enter My Garden.” (Surah al-Fajr 89:27-30)

The commentators say this address will be spoken to the believing soul at the moment of death and on the Day of Judgment. The Sufis do not reject that reading; they add something to it. In their view the call also reaches the servant in this life. A person who has turned the soul back toward God begins to taste this address without waiting for death. Al-Qushayri’s Lata’if al-Isharat is one of the classical commentaries that reads the verse in this light.

The order of the verse deserves attention. First peace (mutma’inna), then being pleased (radiya), then being pleasing (mardiyya). The masters of tasawwuf read this sequence as the fourth, fifth, and sixth stages of the soul. The map comes out of the Quran’s own words.

The Quran also tells us where the peace comes from:

“Those who believe, and whose hearts find rest in the remembrance of God. Truly, in the remembrance of God do hearts find rest.” (Surah al-Ra’d 13:28)

This verse is the key to the soul at peace. Peace does not come from outward circumstances improving; it is the fruit of dhikr. The heart settles through remembering God, and the soul follows the heart.

The Quran shows itminan in the Prophet Ibrahim as well. He asks to see how the dead are brought back to life. When asked “Do you not believe?”, he answers: “I do believe, but so that my heart may be at rest” (Surah al-Baqara 2:260). Itminan is not a lack of faith. It is faith settling fully into the heart, the end of doubt and unease.

What the Soul at Peace Is

The commanding soul wants what is wrong and follows its wanting. The reproaching soul still wants what is wrong but then blames itself; it falls, rises, and repents. The inspired soul receives an inspiration that tells right from wrong, but it is still unsteady; it wants the good and still leans toward the bad.

In the soul at peace this turbulence ends. The bad desires have not vanished; a human being remains a human being. But they no longer hold the reins. The soul has come under the command of the heart, and the heart is bound to God. In an image the masters often used, the horse no longer drags its rider; the rider guides the horse.

The peace here is not what the world calls comfort. The soul at peace still grieves, tires, falls ill, and loses those it loves. When the Prophet lost his son Ibrahim he wept and said: “The eye weeps and the heart grieves, but we say only what pleases our Lord” (Bukhari, Jana’iz 43). That is the soul at peace. There is sorrow, but no rebellion. There are waves, but the sea does not move from its place.

Three things measure this stage:

• Doubt has ended. Faith has settled into the heart, and the voice of “what if” has fallen silent.
• Fear and greed have ended. Provision, the future, and what people will say no longer shake the heart.
• Worship has become easy. It is no longer a burden but the soul’s own wish.

Its Signs

The masters recognized a person’s stage not from their words but from their states. The signs of the soul at peace are these.

Less complaint. The soul at peace knows that whatever comes, comes from God, and meets it with an easy heart. This is not laziness. It takes precautions and works; it simply does not let the outcome trouble the heart. Tawakkul becomes natural at this stage.

Sweetness in dhikr. In the earlier stages dhikr is a duty, and the soul wants to escape it. In the soul at peace, dhikr becomes the soul’s food. The servant feels hungry when not remembering God.

Peace with people. Resentment, envy, and rivalry withdraw from the heart. The soul at peace competes with no one, because it knows that God has made the division of all things. Husn al-zann, thinking well of others, is its natural gaze.

The hidden and the open become one. The person is the same alone and in company. The struggle with riya is not over, but riya no longer rules.

Steadiness. The great trouble of the inspired soul is its ups and downs: fervor one day, coldness the next. In the soul at peace this swinging settles. The state has become a station; not a passing feeling but an established quality. The distinction between hal and maqam takes on its full meaning here.

The Road That Leads There

The soul at peace does not arrive in a moment; it is earned. The tradition has drawn the road clearly.

Dhikr. As Surat al-Ra’d says, what settles the heart is the remembrance of God. Dhikr begins on the tongue, descends into the heart, and finally spreads through the whole of one’s being. This is the main artery of the road to peace.

Holding to the obligations and the Sunna. In tasawwuf no stage rises above the Sacred Law. Prayer, fasting, lawful food, and keeping away from what is forbidden are the foundation of the soul’s training. As al-Qushayri records in his Risala, Junayd of Baghdad used to say: “This knowledge of ours is bound to the Book and the Sunna.” The soul at peace is not a soul freed from that bond, but a soul fully settled in it.

Self-reckoning and repentance. The self-reproach of the second stage is not wasted. The servant takes account of themselves every day, sees their faults, and repents. This repetition slowly softens the soul. Muhasaba continues in the soul at peace, but it is no longer accusation; it is care.

Companionship and a guide. Anatolian Sufism does not advise walking this road alone. Staying close to a master and joining a circle of sohbet makes it harder for the soul to deceive itself. A person tends to see their own stage as higher than it is; the guide corrects that illusion.

Contentment. The stage after peace is radiya: being pleased with God. But the seed of that contentment is planted here. The servant knows that the bitter side of destiny and the sweet side come from the same source. The line of Ibrahim Hakki of Erzurum, “Let us see what the Lord does; whatever He does, He does beautifully,” is the best-known Anatolian expression of this state, and his Tefviznâme is that state set to verse from beginning to end.

In a supplication recorded in the hadith collections, the Prophet prays: “O God, I ask You for a soul at peace with You, that believes in meeting You, is content with Your decree, and is satisfied with what You give” (al-Tabarani, al-Mu’jam al-Saghir). This prayer gathers every element of the soul at peace into a single sentence: faith, contentment, sufficiency.

The Soul at Peace in Anatolian Sufism

In Anatolia the stages of the soul form the backbone of the orders’ curriculum of spiritual wayfaring, above all in the Halveti order. The Halveti masters matched the seven stages to seven divine names (esma-i seb’a). In that scheme the dhikr of the soul at peace is the name al-Haqq, the Real. The meaning is plain: the soul settles by remembering the Real and by leaning on the Real.

These lines of Yunus Emre are the voice of the soul at peace:

I do not rejoice in having Nor grieve in having not Your love is my consolation It is You I need, only You

Here having and not having, wealth and poverty, do not shake the heart. The soul has bound itself to one thing; the rest comes and goes. Yunus says this not in the language of scholarship but in the language of the people. That is the mark of Anatolian Sufism: to speak of deep stations in words everyone can understand.

Rumi’s reed, too, laments the pain of being cut from the reed bed, and the commentators have read that lament as a longing to return to one’s origin. The Song of the Reed is the poem of that longing. The address in Surat al-Fajr, “Return to your Lord,” is the answer to it.

Not the End of the Road, but Its Middle

Two dangers wait for the person who reaches the soul at peace.

The first is stopping. Peace is sweet, and a person wants to stay there. But the map counts three more stages: radiya, mardiyya, kamila. The soul at peace is not a resting place but a waystation in the middle of the road.

The second is imagining oneself there. A person who finds a little inner calm may suppose they have reached the soul at peace. The tradition knows this trap well. The subtlest sickness of the inspired soul is ujb, self-admiration. A person who passes judgment on their own state is usually mistaken. That is why the masters wanted the stage to be measured not by the servant but by someone who knew the servant closely.

In the end, the soul at peace is also a gift. The servant works, remembers, and repents; but the One who gives peace is God. The address in Surat al-Fajr is both a command and an invitation: “Return to your Lord.” The whole journey of the soul is the answer to that invitation.

Sources

• The Quran, al-Fajr 89:27-30; al-Ra’d 13:28; Yusuf 12:53; al-Qiyama 75:2; al-Baqara 2:260; al-Shams 91:7-10
• al-Bukhari, al-Jami’ al-Sahih, Jana’iz 43
• al-Tabarani, al-Mu’jam al-Saghir (the supplication for the soul at peace)
• al-Qushayri, al-Risala (c. 1046) and Lata’if al-Isharat
• al-Ghazali, Ihya’ Ulum al-Din, “Kitab Sharh ‘Aja’ib al-Qalb”
• Süleyman Uludağ, “Nefis”, TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, vol. 32, 2006
• Yunus Emre, Divan