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From: zix@cs.nott.ac.uk (Zafer Iqbal)
Newsgroups: soc.religion.islam
Subject: Re: Is there something more to Islam than mere rules?
Message-ID: <1990Dec12.022257.20404@nntp-server.caltech.edu>
Date: 12 Dec 90 02:22:57 GMT
Sender: bes@nntp-server.caltech.edu (Behnam Sadeghi)
Organization: California Institute of Technology, Pasadena
Lines: 33
Approved: bes@tybalt.caltech.edu

In article <1990Dec5.082427.2124@nntp-server.caltech.edu> reddy@mips.com (T.S. Reddy) writes:
>
>     I must say that I am thoroughly disappointed with this newsgroup. I
>expected to find discussions about things like the spirituality of man,
>the application of Islam to life to make it better in general, answers
>to the metaphysical aspects of life and the like. Instead, all I read
>about are rules. Don't do this or do it only in this way. If I am to
>interpret the essence of most of the articles, Islam does nothing more
>than command a person to lead a constricted life much like animals
>which live by instinct. Surely there is a spiritual aspect to Islam? 

Every action a person does is a material action. E.g., praying is a series
of actions. The action only becomes spiritual (and hence gains ajar (reward))
when the person carrying out the action links the action back to Islam.
for example, praying is a material action, but becomes an act of worship when
the "prayee" prays because he is ordered to pray by Allah (swt).
Hence all actions can be spiritual if they are done according to Islam with
the correct intention - e.g. marriage, business transactions, education &c...
Could you explain by what you mean by the spiritaul aspec of Islam???

>     Now I know there have been several schools of thought (e.g. Sufism)
>in Islam that have gone beyond a rule bound interpretation of Islam to probe
>the consciousness of man. I read soc.religion.eastern regularly and there
>are many beautiful and thought provoking articles about the approach of
>eastern religions towards spirituality. Can't we have similar discussions
>here? A moderated newsgroup is, in my opinion, the best place to start
>such discussions. Any takers?
>
>-- 
>T.S.Reddy
>e-mail: reddy@mips.com

Zaf