During the second night of the solemn recital of the Burdah in Tivaouane, preceding the Mawlid celebration, the second chapter of Al-Busiri's (d. 1294-95) work, entitled "Warning Against the Passions of the Ego," is featured. This reflection aims to analyze how the Sufi poem Zajrul Qulûb (Admonition of Hearts) by the great Senegalese spiritual guide, Sheikh El Hadji Malick Sy (d. 1922), resonates with this chapter of the Burdah dedicated to the "nafs" (self). It also refers to the theses developed in our recently published work, "Sheikh El Hadji Malick Sy, a Sufism of Conscience and Hope" (Sirius Editions).

In the Sufi tradition, no adversary is ever as formidable as oneself. The "greater jihad," the one the Prophet placed above the struggle against others, targets an inner enemy: the nafs , that carnal soul which demands personal glory, compares itself to others, becomes proud, and constantly draws the heart back to itself rather than to its Creator. Two major voices in Islamic spiritual literature respond to each other on this subject with a striking convergence: that of the Egyptian imam Al-Busiri, author in the 13th century of the famous Burdah, and that of Sheikh El Hadji Malick Sy, founder of the Tivaouane school, in his long ascetic poem Zajrul Qulûb, the "remony of hearts." Although separated by several centuries and very different contexts, the two masters draw a remarkably similar map of the traps that the ego sets for the believer, for the aspirant to spirituality.

The warning of passing time

The second chapter of the Burdah opens with the figure of old age as an ignored sign:

"In truth, my evil-prone ego learned nothing from its ignorance in the face of the warnings of gray hair and senility."

This same intuition runs through Zajrul Qulûb, where the remembrance of death (dhikr al-mawt) constitutes the gateway to all teachings on the nafs (self ). The world is described there as a mirage in the desert, and life as a mere respite between two sleeps, the true brevity of which is rarely appreciated. Maodo's poem opens not with a thesis, but with a scene: that of the crow taking flight (a metaphor for black hair), that of the messenger of death (white hair) to remind each person, invited to the table of death, of their inevitable share.

“ Ha-l ad-dahru in târa al-ghurâbu yatîbu ” — “ Will time become pleasant again when the crow has flown away? ” — immediately challenges the illusion of an endless existence. However, in both Sheikh El Hadji Malick Sy and Al-Busîrî, this reminder is not a morbid fascination with finitude: it is an exercise in lucidity intended to restore the believer’s priorities to their proper order, before it is too late to act.

The ego: that difficult adversary to control

Al-Busiri describes the difficulty of containing the impulses of an ego, comparing it to a spirited horse:

"Who will help me rein in the impulses of my misguided ego, just as one tames the spirit of an untamed horse with reins?"

The Zajrul Qulûb, for its part, offers a concrete method for this mastery, summarized in a central verse of the poem: first, establish a pact with the soul; then, watch over it relentlessly; and finally, hold it accountable. This trilogy of prior commitment, constant vigilance, and accountability, which Sufi tradition associates with al-Muhâsibî, provides, in a way, the reins the Egyptian poet demands: a methodical and daily discipline, rather than a vague vow of virtue, to keep in check an ego whose natural tendency is to escape.

The ego, this "infant," this child that shouldn't be spoiled too much

The Burdah uses a striking image to describe the growth of the ego left to its own devices:

"The ego is like a child: if you let it be, it will grow up with the love of breastfeeding; but if you wean it, it weans itself."

Sheikh El Hadji Malick Sy, in a different vein but with the same aim, expresses the same demand for weaning oneself off self-satisfaction. " Never be satisfied with your actions and never become proud, " he teaches in the Zajrul Qulûb, making healthy doubt the best defense against self-indulgence. His entire pedagogy of self-effacement, with discretion far preferred to brilliance and service to recognition, can be interpreted as a concrete application of the weaning prescribed by the Burdah: depriving the ego of the constant validation on which it feeds, to prevent it from growing excessively.

"Honey that hides poison"

The third great peril to which Al-Busiri's Burdah draws our attention and vigilance is that of pleasures which present themselves as innocent when they are in fact deadly:

"Redirect your inclinations and beware of giving them power; for passion, when it dominates, kills or disgraces one."

"How many times has the ego embellished a deadly pleasure for man, without him suspecting the poison hidden in the fat of the meat!"

Cheikh El Hadji Malick Sy's Zajrul Qulûb develops an equally striking image of this same mechanism, borrowed from the tradition of Islamic ascetic poetry: that of the drinker of seawater, who thinks he is quenching his thirst but, in reality, only intensifies it with each sip. This comparison between the desire for worldly pleasures and the ambition to drink the entire sea accurately describes what contemporary psychology would later call hedonic adaptation. This is the vicious cycle by which the possession of the coveted good, far from appeasing desire, exacerbates it and traps the soul in a spiral with no way out. Two different images, that of poison beneath the skin and that of salt water, serve to denounce one and the same illusion: the promise of satisfaction that the ego dangles before it but never delivers.

Constant vigilance, distrust of oneself

The Burdah concludes, on this chapter, with a call for constant vigilance, including towards the deceptive advice of the ego, the nafs :

"Beware of the traps of hunger and satiety, for deprivation is sometimes more harmful than excess."

"And oppose the ego and Satan, disobey them! And even if they offer you sincere advice, remain suspicious of them."

This requirement of permanent self-monitoring finds, in the Zajrul Qulûb, a precise extension through the discipline of murâqaba , the inner vigilance of all moments, and of muhâsaba , the rendering of account to oneself.

Cheikh El Hadji Malick Sy's poem thus draws up a veritable map of the vices that this vigilance must combat: slander, compared to consuming the flesh of a dead person; unjustified suspicion of others; anger; and above all, vanity linked to wealth and social standing, that jâh which the ego seeks even under the guise of piety. The image of the scholar, thus, compared to a lamp that burns itself out to illuminate others without ever benefiting itself, illustrates, in its own way, the same warning as that of the Burdah against the deceptive advice of the ego: even clothed in the garments of knowledge or apparent religiosity, the nafs continues to seek its own interest and deserves to be treated with suspicion.

Two traditions, one compass

What is striking when reading these two texts side by side is not only the similarity of imagery, such as the untamed horse, the weaning child, the poison beneath the skin, and the insatiable seawater, but also the shared conviction that underlies them: the ego cannot be combated by mere goodwill, nor by fleeing from the world, but by a patient, methodical discipline renewed daily. In Al-Busiri of the Shadhuliyya order, as in Sheikh El Hadji Malick Sy of the Tijaniyya, the warning against the passions of the nafs never leads to despair or self-contempt; on the contrary, it opens onto the hope of a purified heart, capable of loving without straying and of acting fully in this finite world without ever losing its soul.

Dr. Bakary Sambe,

Center for the Study of Religions (CER) – Gaston Berger University of Saint-Louis