Tag: spirituality
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A Coffee Pause Between Two Worlds
The steam rose slowly, soft, hesitant, as if unsure of the morning air. It floated upward, disappeared, and returned, a cycle as brief and delicate as my pause between two meetings. I held the paper cup with both hands—not for its warmth, but because it anchored me. Out there, I belonged to a world of…
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Nikos Kazantzakis and Imam Al-Ghazali: On Pursuit of the Self
Nikos Kazantzakis’s portrayal of Jesus in The Last Temptation of Christ reflects a struggle between flesh and spirit, aimed at self-discovery and reaching God. His interpretation draws parallels to Imam Al-Ghazali’s exploration of self-realization, emphasizing the need to confront worldly desires and temptations in their quests for spiritual unity and meaning.
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Fasting as an Entry into a Transcendent Cosmic Realm
The author explores the crisis of meaning within modernity, emphasizing the loss of metaphysical grounding and identity amid neoliberal consumerism. It presents fasting as a transformative practice, aligning the self with divine attributes and serving as a resistance against hyper-individualism. Fasting purifies the soul, bridging human experience with transcendence and spiritual elevation.
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Journey of the Wayfarers
The modern man in his pursuit of knowledge finds himself inundated with doubts and uncertainty regarding the world he inhabits itself or the fundamental truths that transcend it. In a paradigm wherein skepticism is praised and certainty shunned, subjective truths are forwarded as truly the extent of human capacity, ever-changing across generations. Finding no concrete…
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Barriers to Understanding the Qurʾān: Insights from Imam Al-Ghazali’s Ihyāʾ Ulūm al-Dīn
During my travels, I found myself immersed in Imam Al-Ghazali’s Iḥyāʾ Ulūm al-Dīn, and as I reflected on his profound insights into the barriers that prevent us from truly understanding the Qurʾān, I was struck by how these obstacles are not merely intellectual but deeply spiritual. Al-Ghazali identifies two primary barriers that hinder our comprehension: 1)…
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From Darkness to Light
God gave humanity a special kind of life, unique from the attribute of life associated with the rest of His creation to test their ability to submit to His Will and act in conformance to His Command. This temporary life is punctuated by death, and then the afterlife, where one will reap what they sowed—virtue,…
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The Grammar of Reality
Grammar is often viewed as a tedious and unimaginative subject, pertaining merely to our means of mundane communication. Squeezed dry of any life, outwardly it appears to be an endeavor devoid of any inspiration. Even moreso, for a traditional student of knowledge, memorizing obscure aberrant verses of poetry to deliver grammatical points, parsing the construction…
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Al-Tirmidhī’s Bayān al-Farq
This is a translation of the first chapter of the Persian jurist al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī’s Bayān al-Farq bayna al-Ṣadr wa-l-Qalb wa-l-Fuʾād wa-l-Lubb. I may translate the rest in due time, as some of the contents in my following pieces on Akbarian Metaphysics, in shāʾ Allāh, may be better understood by non-Arabic speakers after reading this chapter,…
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7 Modern Deadly Sins and Misunderstandings: Clarity
Understanding and Critiquing Certain Common Sense Moralisms in Modern Society Previously, we discussed the moralism of determining when exclusivity functions and certain misjudgments we make regarding the moral weight of things. The following discussion ties into another issue in conceptualizing popular sentiments in modern ethics – namely, our severe lack of moral clarity, sincerity and…
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A Book Review of ‘Infamies of the Soul and Their Treatments’
Matters of the body are relatively straightforward: if an organ or limb or tissue is afflicted, medical expertise is sought, and then one hopes for an effective treatment, perhaps in the form of a pill or medical procedure. Humans understand the consequences and pain of neglecting a physical ailment. We intuitively recognize the necessity of…