Understanding spirituality in Islam (tazkiya)
Perceptions of life and its surroundings (faith) along with intentions determine your heart’s action. Your body and mind only react to your heart’s action. This makes spirituality inseparable from how you perceive the world around you, and later how you act in it, and towards it.
In order to gain spirituality, Islam focuses on the heart and ones’ understanding of this world, and considers that God Almighty is the One behind this life, and that He had created man to worship Him alone. Worship in Islam, is a comprehensive word to mean more than ritual, and includes acting upon God Almighty’s standards. His standards are to preserve the fitra (pure natural creation) from going astray, or becoming a victim to world pacifiers to gain close relations to God Almighty.
What is to be attained through spirituality?
Through spirituality, success can be achieved in this life, by balancing the different needs, which God Almighty set the standards for, so that we may preserve a healthy life. Spirituality also leads to sucess in the hereafter with the reward of paradise. In the Quran, Allah Almighty says (Translated 79:40-41): “As for he who fears the standing before His Lord and prevents his nafs (lust and inner motive for going after temporary pleasure) from fulfilling its desire, paradise is his abode”.
What is the criterion for spiritual development?
Every Muslim must use all of his capacities for the sake of God Almighty, and fulfill all duties with sincerity and obedience to Him alone by doing things as He had ordered, in the manner that He had ordered it to be done.
Spiritual actions are not separated from materialistic or physical actions, but are connected to each other. So your actions affect your spirituality, and your spirituality affects your life and psychological balance, such as your happiness, tranquility and inner peace. To attain inner peace (Islam), one must do jihad of the nafs (control his lust and inner motives) from enslaving him, in order to submit to God Almighty alone (Islam). This is where the name Islam comes from, that is: attaining inner peace by submitting to God Almighty alone.
Islam sets pathways for attaining spiritual development and calls spiritual denouncers as sins, and the obligatory things as spiritual elevators. It must be noted that spiritual elevators are affected by spiritual refrainment. Therefore, one may find spiritual elevators as hard to apply if he has not worked on his spiritual refrainments. And since prevention is better than remedy, Islam orders Muslims to consider spiritual denouncers before considering spiritual elevators. The prophet (peace be upon him) said, “If I order you to leave something, then stay away from it, and do as much as you can of what I ordered you to do”, narrated by Bukhari (7288) and Muslim (1337).
Spiritual denouncers
Spiritual denouncers, and addiction to them, have different capacities to damage the heart. The larger the damage it causes to one’s personal or community spirituality, the stronger Islam’s stance is in ordering one to abstain from it. The stronger the addiction if one were to commit it, the stronger of a spiritual denouncer it is. The scale of forbiddance is based on the strength of that spiritual denouncer. The stronger that spiritual denouncer and the longer time one spent committing it, the more spiritual effort (jihad of the nafs) is required.
The scale of major spiritual denouncers (major sins):
– Harming the community’s spirituality is considered a larger spiritual denouncer than the individual’s. Making the worst spiritual denouncers are those that harm the communities or the individual’s: faith, life, mind, chastity and wealth.
Harming in faith by bringing confusion to people’s faith and trust in God Almighty
Harming in life by killing or threatening to kill.
Harming in mind by intoxicating it through alcohol, drinking or drugs
Harming in chastity by rape, adultery, fornication or any sexual relations that contradict the system God Almighty had created it for.
Harming in wealth by stealing or destructing others possessions.
– Minor spiritual denouncers are things that, at many times, may lead to major spiritual denouncers, but usually affect the individual’s spirituality. Those spiritual denouncers are in the individual’s actions that affect the heart gradually.
– Sight spiritual denouncers, such as looking at the wrong things
– Hearing spiritual denouncers, such as listening to the wrong things that program one’s heart and mind
– Tongue spiritual denouncers, such as gossiping, and lying.
– Eating and drinking also have their impact on our spirituality, which is why Islam considers some foods or drinks – such as eating carnivore animals, or pork or alcohol – as major spiritual denouncers.
Stages of spirituality
Not all people or even Muslims are on the same level of their spirituality, which is why there are different levels, to help one test himself on.
Islam
Eman increases with obedience to God Almighty and decreases with committing spiritual denouncers.
Taqwa: leaves everything that is forbidden or takes to forbidden paths. خشوع
Ihsan: attained highest excellence in his faith, words, actions and thoughts, to the point that he lives all his life as if he sees God Almighty.
Spiritual elevatorsAbstaining from spiritual denouncers is not enough, but is a major key to attaining spiritual therapy (tazkiya), in order to take the steps to go up the spiritual elevators. Islam connects between faith and action, therefore strong faith stands with strong actions that base from faith and sincerity to God Almighty alone.
The prophet (peace be upon him) said, “Faith is seventy and a few categories, the highest and best of it is submitting to God Almighty alone, and the lowest of it, is removing harm from roads” narrated by Muslim.
Spiritual elevators
The essence of all spiritual elevators is sincerity to God Almighty, even if the action was a normal action as sleeping, playing with one’s children, or even having a romantic time with his wife.
Major spiritual elevators are performing the pillars of Islam
– Believing in one God Almighty
– Praying: 5 times the obligatory, and more if you want to increase your spirituality
– Fasting to enhance self discipline and training to leave spiritual denouncers for the sake of God Almighty
– Charity trains a Muslim to balance his love for wealth and life and trains him to sacrifice himself for others.
– Pilgrimage trains Muslims for universal spirituality, Muslim brotherhood and humility
Other forms of spiritual elevators include:
– Contemplation through remembering the greatness of God Almighty, and the bounties He had blessed.
– Recharging ones soul by mentioning the name of God Almighty, and invocating Him, and seeking His forgiveness, not just by heart, by literally mentioning it.
Finally, I ask Allah Almighty to bless us with faith, and increase our levels in spirituality.
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