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ISLAM AND SPIRITUALITY
By:
Mohd Sageer
The essence of every religion, fundamentally,
is aimed for the attainment of spiritual enlightenment, proximity to God,
love, compassion, and eternal peace in the life here after. Under such a
common definition and understanding, it becomes obvious that religion is
bound to be deeply a personal matter in every sense of the word. On the
contrary, if religion assumes the characteristics of a doctrine that is
primarily concerned with issuing laws on how to offer prayers and how many
times, people’s wealth and its distribution, dress code, sex life,
punishment for crimes etc, then the whole concept of spirituality loses
its Godly element. A religion of such nature, then simply becomes part of
human civilization, a political ideology for a group of people who choose
to follow a certain social orders and customs.
For this article, I would like to personally
interpret spirituality not in the conventional sense, but as a human quest
for peace, harmony, and secular philosophy. However, to make my point
across to the multiple segments of people who believe in a verity of
religions, I also quote the word God into the discussion.
The eternal qualities, which are attached to
the principles of religion, are justly expected to stand beyond
materialistic orders of this temporal world for the simple reason that the
whole concept of spirituality has been perpetually associated with God and
God alone. As such, the act of punishing a human being for his crime by
another human being or a group of people has nothing to do with
spirituality. Praying at different intervals, murmuring repetitive and
memorized verses (often without understanding their meaning) does not
manifest spirituality. On the other hand, someone who perceives this
eternal universe in awe and wonder about its expanse and eternal nature,
contemplating on the force behind this creation, manifest spirituality. Or
simply, focusing for a moment on a myriad of questions about one’s
existence and the meaning of life, translates into spirituality. But
sacrificing animals for the appeasement of God or dictating a dress code
(Or should I call it uniform?) on people is in extreme contrast with the
concept of eternal truth.
Sacrificing an animal needs special implements
such as knifes and swords, which in the first place had to be conceived in
the human mind before they were invented. Because nowhere it says that man
was created with a sword in his hand!
To impose a dress code, firstly it had to be
stemmed from the concept of clothing, and then its invention, followed by
man made tools to develop them into the prescribed design so that it
confirms with the ruling of a particular religion; for example Islamic
dress code.
To this my question is very simple; Does the
Almighty God had to wait such a long period of time for issuing certain
(in this case, sacrifice and dress code) religious orders until such a
time when the human beings were capable of inventing tools, and clothing
materials?
Every ritual that is practiced in compliance
with the orders of religion, particularly the organized religions, is
closely associated with this materialistic world. When Quran orders to
distribute wealth according to certain proportions among wives, daughters
and sons, it should be right to logically conclude that God must have
realized that, at a particular point, in later times that man will start
acquiring wealth, so that some guidance should be given to him with
respect to its distribution. Again, God had to wait until man had to
conceptualize and adopt the system of property ownership in order for Him
to issue orders in matters of His creations’ wealth.
Keeping in mind the above logical questions,
let us examine where does Islam stand today? Does Islam allow an
individual’s quest for the knowledge of the existence of God on a
personal level, using his own intellect, senses, and wisdom? The answer is
a big NO! A Muslim is bound to restrict his freedom of conscience within
the frame of Quranic prescriptions. The moment he has questions on
metaphysical issues, he is considered an outcast or an apostate. People of
other religions, including Christianity and Hinduism has already started
shedding their inhibitions or political correctness and are not reluctant
to cast their doubts about the origins and contemporary relevance of
religious scriptures and belief systems. No authority is interested in
issuing “fatwas” against them. But Islam is different. As time passes,
Imams and Islamic clergies are becoming more and more powerful enough to
tighten their noose around the freedom of thought.
What differentiate the evolved ideologies such
as democracy, capitalism, communism, secularism, humanism and so on, from
religious scriptures, is their sources of origin. While scriptures are
considered divine, other social systems are definitely man-made. Thus when
the freedom of people to question the tenets of Islam is confronted with
armed resistance, then as a religion it loses its universality and
credibility as a divine revelation from God. It degenerates into becoming
just as any other ideological system with its own inherent limitations and
constraints, so much so that, when faced with rivalry would not hesitate
to use violence. But the proponents of these evolved doctrines are able to
justify their actions for the mere reason since these systems are manmade
and their ideas should spread through humanly possible actions. And that
include the use of military forces, politics, weapons and wars. But does a
peaceful religion (as the apologists claimed it to be) need to choose the
path of violence to achieve its goal?
Islam has no identity as a religion. Rather it
is closely identified as a political system under which people are forced
to put aside their freedom. It emphasizes on uniformity through Islamic
Umma) rather than diversity. It is more ritual based rather than being
spontaneous. It advocates a dress code for men and women; just like in
schools, military barracks, or hospitals. It believes in a political
system where a “Khalifa” or a deputy should be the ruler. It dictates
rules on property distribution. Most importantly, its concept of heaven
filled with corporeal descriptions such as, young girls (virgins),
beautiful gardens, silk dresses, perfumes, streams, delicious meat, and
wines while the hell has fire, hot water, hooks and what else!
When an individual’s life and the life
hereafter are controlled and dictated only by these temporal experiences,
then what place spirituality has in the religion of Islam?
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