What is true ‘Islamic Spirituality’?
It could be described and understood in a few ways:
- To surrender oneself fully to the will of Allah.
- To embrace Allah’s constant, eternal Presence.
- To use the outward rituals of Islam as catalysts to deepen our awareness of Allah’s Presence.
- To exchange one’s own mind-made fantasies for the beauty of Allah’s Reality.
- To clean one’s heart, by quietening one’s mind; removing thoughts of anything, thereby finding the One Source of everything.
- Put most simply, it is ‘Zikr Allah’ – to bring Allah to mind.
If Islam were a person, its practices would be the body; its beliefs would be the head; and its spirituality would be the heart.
If Islam were a jar of honey, the outward practices would be the beautiful jar and its spirituality would be the honey inside. If you were to have the jar without the honey, you’d be missing the essence. If you had the honey without the jar… you’d be left with a sticky mess.
If you were to try to describe the taste of the honey to someone who’s never tried it, the best description would pale in comparison to the smallest taste.
The Quran describes Islamic spirituality as ‘tazkiyat an-nafs’ – purification of the ‘ego-self’.
What all of these descriptions have in common is that they involve letting go of the thinking mind and replacing it with an awareness of Allah. This creates instant surrender to Allah’s will and an accompanying peace (ie. the literal state of “Islam”).
The more we remove the ‘nafs’ from the picture (thought-forms that we are unconscious of or fully identify with), the more we are free to enjoy the ‘honey’ of spiritual connection with Allah.
If you want more of that in your life, here are the insights and the method that has been most beneficial to me on my personal journey and many others:
