RITUAL MUST ARISE FROM THE SPIRIT

RITUAL MUST ARISE FROM THE SPIRIT Meaningful Devotion A LL religions, through rituals and ceremonies, give a definite form to the act of worship. Islam too has specific rites but emphasizes the spirit in which these are carried out. It does not conceive of divine worship as a dichotomous proposition of two equal parts, form and spirit. Form is an external manifestation of the spirit—the vital and indispensable element of every sincere religious act, the former being 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 ritual practices and spirit are not equal constituents of worship. One is crucial and the other, a subordinate element. Each act of worship may or may not—depending upon its nature and circumstances—have an external form, ritualised or otherwise. What is truly important is the zeal which inspires it. While rituals serve partly as palpable identifiers of religious acts or of worship, and partly as physical reinforcements or prompters to religious ardour, the essence of Islam is the inner spirit, eternal and unassailable, unlike its outer forms. When this reality is lodged in the recesses of the individual psyche, its effects are outwardly reflected. Sincerely performed ceremonial acts are but material expressions of the incontrovertible inner truth. Towards the end of his life, Prophet Muhammad went on his pilgrimage and laid down specific ways of performing Hajj. More than 100,000 of his Companions went with him. The Prophet seated himself in the courtyard of the Kabah while his Companions queried him on the procedures of this important part of worship, especially concerning rites and their proper forms. (Hajj involves the performance of a series of rites, and since this was the first proper Hajj, 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 the dishonouring of a person.” This saying throws light on how form relates to spirit in Islam: the spirit is the essential factor, while the form or ritual is a matter of externals. The true value of an act in Islam depends entirely upon the spirit in which it is carried out, and not the trappings of outward form.