Psychospiritual Conceptualization of Nafs from the Perspectives of Muhammad Iqbal

Muhammad Iqbal (d. 1938) was an intellectual who aimed to revive the status of the human self within the context of post-enlightenment shifts in society. He posited a model of the human self, known as Khudi, which, through continuous efforts and action, has the capacity to obtain the status of divine vicegerency. This process, requiring self-discipline and awareness, focuses on overcoming the demands of the lower self, or the nafs. Iqbal presents a conceptualization of the nafs, similar to his predecessors in the Islamic tradition, with the goal of taming it, overcoming its natural demands, and perfecting it to serve as a vehicle towards the ultimate goal of divine vicegerency. This paper builds on a previously published paper by Khan and Malik (2021) that presented Iqbal’s model of self-development by further expounding on the conceptualization of the nafs.