I will appreciate if any of you can contrast the Philosophy of Hedonism with the concept of Tazkiah-e-Nafs
Thanks for asking a good question; I will not go into the details of hedonism because a lot has been said already though the difference of opinion does exist pertaining to its perception as good or bad.
Tazkiah-e-Nafs is a compound word comprising “Tazkiah” and “Nafs”, we probably can not understand the true meaning of this word without understanding meanings of individual words.
Originating from an Arabic root “Tazkiah” means “purify” while “Nafs” is our physical self with all the ingrained animal instinct, desires legitimate or illegitimate and immense propensity of getting entangled into quagmire of desires. A human being is a complex life form with three distinct identities, a physical being, an intellectual being and a spiritual being. What distinguishes a man from an animal is his intellect and his ability to use that intellect in good or in bad way.
Hedonism is a philosophy that appeals our intellectual being to follow blindly our animal instinct in the name of pleasure or in the name of happiness and unfortunately with out any inbred moral values whereas Tazkiah-e-Nafs is an effort to purify your intellectual being from the stains of following animal instinct.
In other words both Takiyah-e-Nafs and hedonism both appeal to same devil of desires while one tries to tame it other keeps appreciating it.