In the Sufi tradition, the mystical side of Islam, moral healing is the basis for spiritual development. In this tradition, the human being is born in a pure state. By aging, a person moves from virtue toward vice.

Only through undertaking the greater struggle (jihad al-akbar) against the ego or morally impaired self, is one able to overcome negative traits or vices. This, the first stage of Sufi psychology, is called spiritual chivalry (futuwwah, javanmardi), and the struggler is known as a spiritual warrior (fata, javanmard). It is imperative that one go through this first stage toward mental well-being. If God wills, the struggler enters the second stage, where the spirit is enhanced through the development of intuition. The eventual goal of this path is to become a fair and just person, one closer to God.

Sufis who undertake the greater struggle are successful and effective people, traditionally relied upon by Islamic communities for their moral sense of balance, fairness, and justice. They are, more often than not, nameless people—spiritual warriors who do not make the history books.

Qushayri (d. 1072), an early spiritual warrior, writes:

The root of spiritual chivalry is that the servant strive constantly for the sake of others. It is that you do not see yourself superior to others. The one who has spiritual chivalry is the one who has no enemies. Spiritual chivalry is that you be an enemy of your own soul for the sake of your Lord. It is that you act justly without demanding justice for yourself. It is to manifest a beautiful character.

The word chivalry in the Western Christian context refers to the medieval knightly system with its religious, moral, and social code. In contrast, the Islamic chivalry embraced all levels of society and formed the basis for guilds to which artists, craftsmen, and calligraphers belonged. Today, the idea is carried forward as a code of conduct—a way of behaving ethically and morally. Ansari (d. 1088) says that spiritual chivalry is:

To live in moral goodness and freedom. It is of three kinds: a kind with God, a kind with creatures, and a kind with oneself. To be chivalrous with God is to strive in servanthood with all one's strength. To be chivalrous with creatures is not to blame them for a defect that you know comes from yourself. To be chivalrous with oneself is not to accept the temptations, embellishments and adornments of your own ego.

The spiritual warrior, then, is characterized by moral goodness. Indeed, one of the earliest texts on spiritual chivalry, Sulami's (d. 1021 AD) Book of Spiritual Chivalry, includes tales of moral people. In this text, when a spiritual warrior was asked about the nature of spiritual chivalry, he said:

Spiritual chivalry is knowing that others can be forgiven for their misdeeds, but that you yourself are always at fault; that everyone and everything else is complete, while you yourself are lacking. Spiritual chivalry is showing understanding and compassion equally to what appears good and what appears bad. The highest form of spiritual chivalry is when nothing occupies you but God.

Another said, "Anyone who claims to be on this path must show these three signs: total loyalty without fear; generosity without any demand or hope for praise; and the desire to give without being asked."

The soul is described as consisting of the passions: anger or irascibility, avoidance of pain, and concupiscibility or attraction to pleasure; the mind, in contrast, is the basis of reason. Each is part of the nature created by God. One perfects irascibility by developing courage, concupiscibility by developing temperance, and reason by developing wisdom. Once one holds these three virtues and all their subcategories in moderation, one becomes a fair and just person. On another level, however, irascibility helps preserve the individual, concupiscibility helps preserve society, and reason helps preserve the eternal possibility of self—of life hereafter. Once a person undertakes the greater struggle with the ego and eliminates vices—such as inappropriate anger, lust, excessive love for this world, hypocrisy, jealousy, envy, and lack of self-esteem—and also develops the virtues of wisdom, temperance, and courage, then he can claim to be a fair and just person. This claim must then be confirmed by someone who has benefited from his justice and fairness.

It is a psychological model that works inwardly. According to Sufi Muslims, we have been given all the tools we need to heal morally. This is done through the greater struggle to return to our true nature, originated by God—a point somewhere deep inside ourselves where divine grace illuminates the innermost recesses.

The model of the self that produces spiritual warriors is called the Presence of God. It emphasizes moral goodness and moral balance achieved through self-examination. Traditionally, each night before going to bed, one reflects upon one's feelings, thoughts, and actions of that day to overcome vices with virtues. The question becomes: How do I perfect myself as a human being?

There are two basic causes of the need for this greater struggle within the self: Either a person is ruled by passion rather than reason, or a person does not know God. According to spiritual chivalry, one needs to observe the moral balance in nature and learn to read the "Signs upon the horizon and within themselves until it is clear that it is the truth" (Qur'an 43:51). The language of the Signs may be letters of the Arabic alphabet, words such as the verses of the Qur'an, numbers, and/or geometry. Traditional Islam, of which spiritual chivalry is perhaps one of the highest achievements, sees these signs as so many symbols of the presence of God (wajh Allah).

In a divine tradition, we learn from Forty Hadith Qudsi that God says, "Neither the heavens nor the earth contains Me but the heart of My believing servant does." Knowledge of God, in the case of spiritual chivalry, is experiential and leads to the sensing of the presence of God in all that one does. In this state, the heart of the spiritual warrior becomes the throne of God. The tradition tells us: "One who knows self, knows Lord." It is a path that is open to all.