conscious self

When God joined the heavens and the earth and made the act of “binding” (qarn) a cosmic law, it became necessary for a creature to exist who could bridge these two realms: the elevation of knowledge and the depth of material, spirit and clay, inspiration and instinct.
That creature is the human being — created to be the conscious self (nafs) that carries the divine message and undergoes its trial.

In the Qur’an, the nafs is not simply the “soul” (rūḥ), nor merely the body — it is the aware entity that perceives, receives, and is held accountable. It is the inner self to whom the divine address is directed — and it was this self that stood at the center of divine responsibility from the very moment of human creation:
“When I have fashioned him and breathed into him of My spirit, fall down before him in prostration.” (Qur’an 15:29)

From that moment, the divine address to humanity began. The message flowed from heaven to earth through the human self itself. The nafs became the first site of revelation, the first battleground, and the first path to understanding divine law.
God says:
“By the self and the One who proportioned it, and inspired it with its way of wickedness and its way of righteousness…” (Qur’an 91:7–8)
Here, we see that the message begins from within — from inspiration, innate nature (fiṭrah), and primordial awareness that precedes written scripture and formal law.

Even though divine revelations later came through prophets, they were not introducing something foreign — they were reminders of what was already planted in the nafs, reawakeners of what lay dormant within.
God says:
“So remind, for you are only a reminder. You are not a controller over them.” (Qur’an 88:21–22)
The Qur’an brings nothing alien to human nature — it simply activates what is already present, reconnecting the self to its divine origin.

In this light, the human self is not neutral — it is primed for revelation, pulled between two poles: the heavens, representing knowledge and sanctity, and the earth, representing trial and realization.
And when the Qur’an addresses the nafs, it speaks in a language it knows deeply: with oaths, clarity, conscience, callings, and rational arguments.

Thus, we come to understand that all divine revelations were nothing more than a call for the human self to remember, to return, to find balance, to comprehend itself and its role — within the great act of binding meaning to matter.

In the next chapter, we will turn to the topic of the soul (rūḥ), the unseen connection that binds the self to God — a concept whose meaning often eluded interpreters, despite its centrality in the Qur’anic discourse.