RITUAL MUST ARISE FROM THE SPIRIT

A LL religions give, through rituals and ceremonies, a defi nite form to the act of worship. Islam, too, has specifi c rites but emphasises the spirit in which these are to be carried out. Form is an external manifestation of the spirit. The latter is the vital and indispensable element of every sincere religious act, while the former is a mere ancillary. A hadith on fasting shows how this act must be illumined by spirit: “One who did not forsake telling lies while on a fast, God has no need of such a person forsaking food and water.” Numerous statements in the Quran and hadith make it clear that in Islam the form of ritual practices and their spirit are not equal constituents of worship. In relation to one another, one is the crucial and the other, a sub-ordinate element. Each act of worship may or may not — depending upon its nature and circumstances — have an external form, but, whether ritualised or formless, what is truly important is the spirit that underlies it. Form is an external manifestation of the spirit which is the vital and indispensable element of every sincere religious act. While rituals serve partly as palpable identifi ers of religious acts or acts of worship and partly as physical reinforcements of or prompters to religious ardour, the essence of Islam is the inner spirit, eternal and unassailable, unlike its outer forms. Whenever this reality is lodged in the recesses of the individual psyche, its eff ects are outwardly refl ected. Sincerely performed ceremonial acts are but concrete expressions of the incontrovertible inner truth. When, near the end of his life, Prophet Muhammad went on his pilgrimage, he laid down specifi c ways of performing Haj. More than 100,000 of his companions went with him. Then the Prophet seated himself in the courtyard of the Kabah and his companions queried him on the procedures of this important part of worship, especially concerning rites and their proper forms. (Haj involves the performance of a series of rites, and since this was the fi rst proper Haj, there was uncertainty about their correct order.) The Prophet allayed their fears, saying: “There is no harm. There is no harm. Real harm lies in RITUAL MUST ARISE FROM THE SPIRIT