"He harmed his soul": Reflections on Qur'an 13:35

In Surah Al-Kahf, we encounter the parable of two men and the gardens. One, we learn, has a highly abundant yield from his garden, but the character of the other fellow’s possessions goes undescribed. The first man boasted about his wealth and social status, and in the course of the confrontation, denied the Resurrection and claimed that Allah would give him increased wealth in the hereafter. Allah says about the boastful man that he entered the garden “in a state unjust to his soul (18:35).” Allah exposes the crux of this man’s kufr: every assault we make against another has a reflexive negative impact on our souls. As we know from hadith: our transgressions earn us black specks on our spiritual hearts that damage them and impair their vision. When Allah decimates the first man’s gardens, he sulks, saying: "Ah me! Would I had never ascribed anyone as a partner to my Lord! (18:42)" The man’s remorse is a welcomed turn, but what he reveals in his statement is worth a pause. The boastful man had not verbally denied the existence of God up to this point, instead, he denied God’s promised resurrection and claimed to be confident of his standing with God despite his poor conduct. We find a troubling connection between claiming to know Allah’s will and being engaged in shirk. He arrogated himself to a position to know Allah’s will and challenge the revealed truth: the resurrection. In a clear demonstration of the need to combat the worst excesses of the nafs, we see a man who places himself in a position of lordship alongside Allah. His dance with shirk is not that he believes in multiple external gods, but that he applies the qualities of lorship to himself. And thus Allah says “He had no forces to help him outside of Allah–he was even unable to help himself (18:43).”