Monday, April 16, 2007

Introduction
Discourses of healing clearly have something to do with concept of health. In Islamic terms, in addition to word shihhat (healthy), word ‘afiat is also used which in Indonesian those two words are combined into sehat-wal-afiat. Shihhat has something to do with function, meanwhile afiat has something to do with creation. Healthy eyes are those which are used to see/read without any visual aid (functional), meanwhile afiat eyes are those suitable with their purposes(s) of creation which are to see permitted things and not to see forbidden things (values). Healthy ears are those whose hearing functions are well, meanwhile afiat ears are those which always hear words of truth and but are unable to hear misleading whispers. Those are meaning of healthy and afiat of ears, hands, legs, and most important body organs. Healthiness is matters of medicine, meanwhile things about afiat matters of values world, spiritual world, and tassawuf world.

Healthiness of Soul
Soul can be seen as a psychological organ whose principles and laws can be learned among others by Psychology. Hence, we know people who are mad or insane and those who are only suffering mental disorders. Mad people should be treated in mental hospitals; meanwhile people with mental disorders should be treated by psychiatrists or mental counselors.

In Islamic terms, soul (nafs) not only a mental organ but also a spiritual organ. Thus, we can observe and study its spiritual aspects, and there we will find its elements: qalb (heart), ‘aql (mind), bashirah (conscience), ruh (spirit), syahwat (lust or passion) and hawa (desire). Al Quran mentions qualities of soul in this perspective hierarchically: nafs zakiyyah (naturally holy self or soul). nafs lawwamah (soul trying to find identity), nafs ammarah (unhealthy soul), and nafs mutmaina (satisfied or calm soul)

We can achieve the level of calm-soul, by muhasabah and majahadah (calculating one’s self and training one’s self), and those are unable to do these may be assisted by spiritual guider (mursyid). The system is called tarekat. As we can see from prophets and from the disciples of Prophet Muhammad, there is a lot of way of achieving a calm soul, so there is also a lot of tarekats, a lot of mursyids, a lot of methods, but at the end we, especially Sufis, may find a very large spiritual field consisting of ridla (a kind of sincerity), makrifat, and love. From that level, a Sufi needs one more step to join the One and Only God.