Man is a born seeker. His quest in life is to find the supreme reality and make contact with it. For thousands of years people have been in search of the supreme reality. Thinking that the reality was within oneself, some people tried to make contact with their inner self to find fulfillment. They were however unsuccessful as the limited was looking in the limited for the limitless. Others tried to find the supreme reality through the concept of monism or the oneness of reality. According to this concept, the creature and the Creator are a part of the same reality and the means to make contact with the supreme reality is for the creature (man) is to merge with the Creator (God). This method of making contact with God also was not successful as the singularity of reality has yet not been established rationally. Still others looked towards meditation and the Sufi method of tasawwuf to make contact with the supreme reality. According to this concept, one can make contact with the supreme reality by leaving the material world and by stopping the thinking process, concentrate on certain objects or points of the human body and recite certain words or chants or mantras. Although this concept gained popularity, it did not help seekers make contact with God. What the seeker received was a reduced form of contact or ecstasy.
Man is an intellectual being. Endowed with a mind, his greatest faculty, and his independent thinking, he is distinguished from animals and other life forms. The journey to make contact with reality should, therefore, be entirely intellectual in nature. Man should undertake the journey by using his intellect – by contemplating, reflecting and pondering to find rational answers to eternal questions of the ideology of life. The reason why the above concepts did not help man achieve his objective was that they do not address him at an intellectual level.
According to the Islamic school of spiritualism is based on the Quranic concept of spirituality or Rabbaniyat. This system is based on the duality of reality or the concept of monotheism. According to this concept, the creature and Creator are separate from each other. The target of the spiritual quest of man is that the creature – man – discovers and realizes God – His Creator and makes contact with Him. In this way the creature receives nourishment at the intellectual level as it is achieved through the process of contemplation or tafakkur or tadabbur or tawassum as mentioned in the Quran. That is to say that God is the treasure house of all virtues. And when man’s contact with God is established through contemplation, in the world of his feelings, at the psychological level, an unseen, inner revolution is brought about which is called rabbaniyat or spirituality. In this matter the relationship between God and man can be likened to an electric wire and the powerhouse. When the wire is connected to the powerhouse, electricity is produced, and the place is lit up. In this way, light is the result of the wire’s connection to the powerhouse of God.
The Islamic concept of making contact with God can also be termed as the concept of dualism or the duality of reality — that the Creator and the creature are completely separate from one another. God, according to this concept, has a real and eternal existence based on tawheed or monotheism. According to monotheism, God is One and has no partner. He created all things and has complete control over the universe. As the Creator of all things, He is distinct from all He has created. His creatures in their seemingly independent existence totally depend upon the will of God. The sole possessor of all power, God, has created man to live for a specific period of time, during which he is sent into the world to be tested.
It is this concept of the Creator as totally distinct from the creature, which sets the Semitic religions – Judaism, Christianity and Islam – apart from the Aryan religions – Hindusim, Buddhism, Jainism – in which God is a symbol, not a reality. God in Islam is a real and independent personality. Man should serve Him and submit to Him alone. Though He cannot be seen, He is so close to man that He hears and answers him when he calls upon Him. He is alive and self-sustaining, self-perpetuating. He has knowledge and takes decisions, rewards and punishes.
Human nature is like an inflammable element. When an inflammable element like petrol comes near fire, it is ignited. Similarly, human nature is awakened when it comes in contact with God. This finds expression in the Quran in these words:
God is the light of the heavens and the earth. The metaphor of His light is that of a niche in which there is a lamp, the lamp inside a glass, the glass like a brilliant star, lit by a blessed tree, an olive, neither of the east nor of the west, whose oil would well-nigh glow forth even though fire did not touch it. Light upon light! God guides to His light whom He wills. And God sets forth parables to men, and God has knowledge of all things. (24:35)
This is a compound simile. ‘Light’ here means the guidance of Almighty, ‘niche’ means the human mind and ‘lamp’ denotes the capability to receive divine inspiration. Glass and oil elaborate upon this receptivity. ‘Glass’ shows that this receptivity has been lodged in the human mind; protected from outside influences, and clear oil indicates that this receptivity is very strong and is eagerly waiting to receive inspiration.
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