60:1 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 your guard against it."
Muṣ?afā 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. Muṣ?afā 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 Kha?rūya Balkhī said, "I had severely put down my soul with various sorts of discipline 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 be break its fast while traveling. I said to the soul that if I traveled I would not put aside the fasting. The soul said that it accepted that. I thought that perhaps it was not able to put up with standing in prayer all night. It wants to be able to sleep when traveling. I said that I would not decrease my standing in prayer, just as if I were not traveling. The soul said that it accepted that. I thought that perhaps it is because it does not mix with people when not traveling, for I kept it in solitude and seclusion. Its desire was to have companionship with people. I said to the soul that wherever I went in this traveling I would stop at ruined way stations so it would not see any people. It accepted that. I was helpless at its hands.
"I wept to God and pleaded with Him to make me aware of its deception. In the end I brought it to attestation. It said, 'When not traveling you kill me a thousand times every day with the sword of struggle, going against my desire, but people are not aware of that. At least let me go to the war so that I may be killed once and for all. I will be a martyr, and all the world will know that Aḥmad Kha?rūya was martyred in the war.'
"I said to myself, 'Glory be to the Lord who created a soul so defective that it is a hypocrite in this world and wants to be famous after death! It does not want the reality of the submission in this world or the next.' Then I said, 'O commanding soul, by God I will not go to the war until you bind the belt of obedience.' So I did not travel and I increased the acts of discipline and the various sorts of struggle with which I was busy."