To clean the nafs – the lower self – of the sixty-eight blemishes listed below is the beginning of good adab, which is the greater part of Islam and of Sufism.

• ‘Ujb - pride in your spiritual state
• Riya’ - show-offishness
• Kibr - arrogance
• Hasad - envy
• Bukhul - miserliness
• Kin -vengefulness
• Kufr - faithlessness
• Bid’ah - distortion of religion and tradition
• Kufr an-ni’mah - denial to the giver of gifts, or belittlement of gifts
• Dissatisfaction and complaints about your state
• Lack of hope for Allah’s Mercy
• Certainty of Allah’s punishment
• Condonement of tyranny and help to tyrants
• Speaking against decent people
• Maintaining the heart attached to this world
• Desire to be a leader
• Expectation of approval and compliments
• Fear of criticism
• Inability to prevent yourself from wanting
• Being an imitator, rather than wishing to learn the truth
• Fawning over people for personal benefit
• Joy over disasters that fall upon people, even your enemies
• Cowardliness
• Anger
• Tyranny
• Not keeping your word
• Belief in bad luck
• Unjust thoughts about people
• Love of property
• Excessive concern with the world and the worldly
• Ambition
• Leading an irresponsible life
• Mixing yourself into affairs that do not concern you
• Being undignified
• Avoidance of promptness of your devotions due to laziness
• Shamelessness
• Lamentation of the loss of things
• Gossip
• Stubbornness
• Egotism
• Hypocrisy
• Cheating
• Brutishness
• Dishonor in relations with others
• Lust
• Not accepting your error, and insisting on it
• Fear of poverty
• Disbelief in destiny, or talking about destiny
• Making yourself depressed
• Pleasure in belittling others
• Indiscriminate happiness
• Insincere kindness and fawning over rich people
• Disdain of the poor
• Boastfulness and pride of your past
• Exhibition of your physical prowess
  • Belittlement of others
  • Excessive talking
  • Self-centeredness in conversation
  • Forgetfulness about your own shortcomings, and preoccupation with the shortcomings of others
  • Exclusion from your heart of the fear of Allah and the shame and sadness of your state
  • In distress, to make excuses, to fall back on and encourage the nafs
  • Declining to help in a struggle for Allah’s sake
  • Pretending to be friends with your enemy
  • Dishonesty in your work
  • Setting traps for others
  • Identification with the world to the extent of forgetting Allah
  • Taking pleasure in people’s suffering
  • Lack of suffering because of your mistakes

These blemishes are like thorns growing in a barren field. They show you the ugly attributes of the heart, which surface and become visible. Avoid them and beautify yourselves with the opposite of every one of these faults, because the prayer which pleases Allah and which brings you closest to Him is to have beautiful adab.