A Study in the Philosophy of Islamic Rites

Rites Are Practical Expressions

Just as man was born carrying in him all potentials of the experience on life's stage, plus all seeds of its success, such as awareness, activity and conditioning, so was he born tied by nature to the Absolute.

This is so because his relationship with the Absolute is one of the requirements of his own success whereby he overcomes the problems facing his civilized march, as we have already seen, and there is no experience more sustaining and inclusive, more meaningful, than this of Faith in man's life. It has been a phenomenon attached to man since time immemorial During all stages of history, such a social and continuous attachment proves-through experience-that escaping towards the Absolute, aspiring towards Him from beyond borders lived by man, is a genuine inclination of man no matter how diversified the shapes of such inclination are, how different its methods and degrees of awareness.

But Faith, as an instinct, is not enough to guarantee bringing to reality an attachment to the Absolute in its correct form, for that is linked to the Truth through the method of satisfying such an instinct. The correct behaviour in satisfying it in a manner parallel to all other instincts and inclinations, being in harmony with it, is the only guarantee of the ultimate benefit of man. Also, the behaviour according to or against an instinct is the one that fosters the instinct, deepens, eliminates or suffocates it.

So do the seeds of mercy and compassion die within man's self through the continuous and practical sympathizing with the miserable, the wronged, and the poor.

From this point, Faith in God, the deep feeling of aspiring towards the unknown and the attachment to the Absolute have all to have some direction which determines the manner of satisfying such feeling and the way to deepen it, fixing it in a way compatible with all other genuine feelings of man.

Without a direction, such feeling may have a setback and may be afflicted with various sorts of deviation, just like what happened to the strayed religious feeling during most epochs of history.

Without a deepened conduct, such feeling may become minimized, and the attachment to the Absolute ceases to be an active reality in man's life capable of exploiting good energies. The religion which laid the slogan of "There is not god but Allah," promulgating with it both rejection and affirmation, is the Director.

Rites are factors which perform the role of deepening such feeling, for they are but a practical expression and an expression of the religious instinct; through it this instinct grows and gets deepened in man's life.

We notice, too, that in accurate rites-being a practical expression of the link to the Absoluteboth affirmation and rejection promulgate. They are, thus, a continuous confirmation from man to his link with God Almighty and the rejection of any other "absolute" of those false ones. When one starts his prayers by declaring that "God is Great" (Allaho Akbar), he confirms this rejection. And when he declares that God's Prophet is also His Servant-Slave and Messenger, he confirms this rejection. And when he abstains from enjoying the pleasures of life, abstaining from enjoying even the necessities of life for the sake of God (as in the case of fasting), defying the temptations and their effects, he, too, confirms this rejection.

These rituals have succeeded in the practical sphere of brining up generations of believers, at the hands of the Prophet (peace be upon him) and his succeeding pious leaders, those whose prayers embodied within their own selves the rejection of all evil powers and their subjection, and the "absolutes" of Kisra and Caesar got minimized before their march as did all "absolutes" of man's whims.

In this light do we come to know that worship is a fixed necessity in man's life and civilized march, for there can be no march without an "absolute" to whom it is linked, deriving from him its ideals. And there is no "absolute" that can absorb the march along its lengthy path except the True Absolute (God), the Glorified. Besides Him, artificial "absolutes" definitely form, in one way or another, an absolute which curbs the march's growth. Attachment to the True Absolute, then, is a fixed need. And there can be no attachment to the True Absolute without a practical expression of this attachment, confirming it and continuously fixing it.

Such a practical expression is none but worship. Therefore, worship is a fixed need.