Life and Teachings of the Prophet Muhammad
11. The Concept of Spirituality in Islam
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11. THE CONCEPT OF SPIRITUALITY
IN ISLAM
S
PIRITUALITY
as a philosophy has a long history of five thousand
years. In ancient Greece there were great philosophers like Plato
and Aristotle whose thinking was spiritual in character. According
to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, spiritualism is the philosophy of
higher reality, which has been defined by different philosophers in
different words such as, “immaterial reality,” “a universal mind,” “a
supreme being,” “spiritual cosmic force,” “infinite personal God,”
etc.
Spirituality, being a subjective discipline, it cannot be described
in objective terms. Every person is composed of two things—body
and spirit. The body is related to objective science while the spirit
is related to subjective science.
There are two different concepts of spirituality: God-oriented
spirituality which is based on the concept of God Almighty, and
man-oriented spirituality, which is based on man’s soul itself being
the treasure-house of spirituality. As for the former concept
spirituality results in God-realisation while in the latter, spirituality
results from self-realisation.
The concept of self-realisation is based on the assumption that
the treasure of spirituality exists within man himself. And through
meditation man can peep into his inner self and discover
