The Form and Spirit of Religion

There are two aspects of the knowledge of religion—one is the knowledge of the form (masail) of religion, and the other is the knowledge of the maarifah of religion. Commands or laws relate to the form of religion, whereas maarifah is related to the spirit of religion. To become religious both are essential. Knowledge of the commands and laws does not give man knowledge of maarifah, but if one acquires a knowledge of maarifah, he will certainly grasp the commands of religion. The journey of religion begins from maarifah and arrives at the commands and the laws. On the contrary, knowledge of the commands does not lead one automatically to maarifah.

What is maarifah? Maarifah, in fact, is man coming to discover the reality of life, finding the answer to his internal quest, and the right ideology of life. Maarifah, in a word, is internal revolution. When this internal revolution is experienced by someone, his whole personality is transformed—his thinking, his speech, his behavior, his ambitions, his desires, his outlook on things, his criterion for accepting or rejecting something. All things in short, are colored by the hue of God.

After the acquisition of maarifah the personality of the believer manifests itself in different ways. One of these manifestations is in the form of worship. Divine commands relate to one of these manifestations. Such manifestations are essentially produced by internal change.

The role of commands is to define the right limits of these manifestations. The task of a reformer is to place the utmost emphasis on producing the inner spirit, that is maarifah. This is the natural method of reform. On the contrary, if only commands or laws are emphasized, this will amount to a shift of focus. With such a change, no desired result can be produced. In that case, by doing so, religion will become entirely based on laws, whereas religion should be based on maarifah.