al-Raghib al-Isfahani #29 – Control This and Attain Nobility

have the three sorts of drives or capacities that we have are all about fun. He said, We have thought we have urge or impulse. However, we want to translate that. And we have anger, which one is the hardest to control? Which one is the hardest to master? So honey, he says, no doubt, the urge, no doubt, it's the urgent impulse. And by this, we're usually we're talking about shadow. We're talking about desire for things such as foods such as sex, these sorts of things. Why is it the most difficult one to control? The author identifies three reasons First, because it's tied to the perpetuation of our species, okay, it's like in a in a very immediate way. So a lost power to Allah

gave us the desire for food, so that we satisfy our hungry and can stand up right, and so that we can live, you know, more than a couple of days. If we didn't have that internal hunger and experience food as delicious and tasty, then our survival might be in jeopardy, or it might at least be in doubt. Okay, well, sex is the same thing, right? sexual arousal, how are we going to survive as a species? Okay? What if Allah created us without any sexual desire whatsoever, right, maybe we would just die out maybe we people would be busy with other stuff. And they would just forget about that need entirely. So Allah subhanaw taala created in us, these two desires to push us to meet our

needs, our individual needs, our individual survival and our collective survival. And so because they are so immediate to our survival, they're the strongest, right? They're stronger than your capacity for thought they're stronger than and more immediate than your ability to get angry, right? So that's the first reason. The second reason is because this type of capacity, the capacity for shadow for desire for urge, it's in every single creature, okay, whereas you look at animals and look at plants. Okay, do plants get angry? I don't know, maybe they do. But I'm not aware. Like, maybe they don't. Okay, we kind of have this sort of that is sort of special to us. Okay, do

mountains think, again, maybe they do. But we don't know, we haven't been able to discern that. And it seems like they might not right, they might have other qualities that prophesized that I'm talking to a hood. And he talked to me, he said that I had to calm down and things like that, and we love her and her loves us. So we're not depriving these sorts of creatures of their do, right. But it seems like shafa the need for food and the need for reproduction as something that is way more widespread across across creatures than necessarily anger for orthos. So that's the second reason and you know, a lot of us for HANA, he says, Even plants turn towards the sun. So he gives us a an

as an example of how plants have this sort of Chef, where they for them, their food is from the sun. And so even a plant that we think of as not moving, it's stuck where it is, it turns towards the sun, that's how strong its desire for for food and survival is. And the final reason is because indulging in your urge and indulging in your desire for food and your desire for sex is more enjoyable than your indulging of the other two capacities, okay? Nobody really enjoys indulging in their anger, okay, you don't get angry, and you know, flip out at somebody and say, Oh, that was great. You know, I really enjoyed that, or even thought, Okay, some people, they might really enjoy

a book or some intellectual discussion, but it's not the same. It's not as tasty as delicious. It's not as attractive. It's not as satisfying as engaging in the urge. And so all of this leads us to conclude, says the author of robots for honey that The urge is the most difficult one to control, which is why the Prophet alayhi salatu salam said that whoever is able to control what's between his his lips are between his teeth, meaning his tongue and what's between his legs. And this is something that is an amazing virtue. And he indicated that he set out to set out that this is fundamental, right, and this is kind of the mouth on what's between the legs, this is kind of the

source of, or the location of these two urges and desires. So if you're able to control and master these sorts of things, then you're going to become elite, you're going to be in rarefied air, you're going to be on the vanguard of humanity, because very few people think about this. Whereas if you leave it unchecked, then you're opening yourself up for all sorts of problems. One of those problems is that you're going to be very, very easy to control, you're not going to be independent, because you're you can easily be manipulated, you can easily be bribed, you can easily be seduced, right, you can be subjected to the threat of having these things removed, or you can be kind of influenced

and bought by the promise of getting these sorts of things. And if we look at the history of social movements in the United States or in other places, often what happens is that social movements peter out because the leadership is not disciplined enough, and they get involved in drugs, or they get involved in women or they gotta get involved in these sorts of things. They don't have the discipline, they haven't mastered this urge. And so they're very easily to undermine, to infiltrate to subvert to buy out. So mastering these two things, is something that actually sets us free. Mastering the urge is something that sets us three free, we become self sufficient and independent.

And we're able to be as the author said earlier, we're able to be generous with what we have, and through that generosity become much more noble.