Even those who have sought to go beyond the formal level...

Even those who have sought to go beyond the formal level, through the Tariqah to the absolute Truth, which transcends all forms, have never ceased to revere the Shari‘ah and to practice it.

The greatest philosophers of Islam from Avicenna to Averroës practiced the Shari‘ah ; so did the greatest saints and mystics, such as Ibn ‘Arabi, who wrote that his heart was the temple for idols and house for the Torah, the Gospels, and the Quran, but who never broke the Divine Law or stopped saying his daily prayers, promulgated by the Shari‘ah , until his death.

The transcending of the Law in Islam in the direction of the Spirit has never been through the flouting of the Law, through breaking or denying its formal structure,…