Understanding The Prophet's Life
From Issue: 734 [Read full issue]
Spirituality
Placing spirituality, the intimate quest for meaning, light, and peace, at the centre of the religious experience makes it possible to overcome the formalistic reductions that turn religion into a closed, restrictive Universe of norms, limits, and prohibitions. There are, to be sure, rituals, obligations, and morals, but they pertain to a conception of life and death that imparts to them a meaning and substance that one must perpetually recall to avoid becoming deluded by the presence of a formal set of rules emptied of the heart of their meaning. This is what the Prophet of Islam indicated in a tradition that should be understood both literally and figuratively: "God does not look at your bodies or at your image but God looks into your hearts." [Bukhari, Muslim]
Compiled From:
"Radical Reform: Islamic Ethics and Liberation" - Tariq Ramadan, pp. 310, 311