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Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books The Ritual and Spiritual Purity VI. From Ritual To Spiritual A. Introduction One of the main distinctions of the present civilization is that knowledge has become accessible to the ordinary people on an unprecedented level. The trend of presenting things in a simplified and lay-man's language, and the mass media had an important role to play in this.

The accessibility to knowledge has made the modern man more inquisitive than ever about everything, including his religious rites and rituals. In the great family of mankind, Muslim of the present day has also acquired his share of this extra-inquisitiveness. The inquisitive nature lures the present day Muslim to rationalize the rites and rituals of Islam. This, indeed, is a good phenomenon because it will increase his aware­ness about Islamic values, and make him more firm in his religious life.

But in his inquisitive journey in Islam, the present day Muslim must broaden his horizon and should not look only for material explanation of the Islamic rites and rituals because many such acts are a gateway to the spiritual world of Islam, a world still foreign to majority of the Muslims.

Moreover, he must use the appropriate vehicles to embark on such a journey-the Qur'an and the sunnah *.*** In this part of the book, I intend to study the ritual purity in order to discover its relation to the spiritual purity. B. The big question Do the rituals have anything to do with spiritual purification? The answers to such question will reflect the mentality of majority of the Muslims.

When asked, “Why was wudu and ghusl made obligatory?” or “Why are certain things consider `ayn najis in Islam?” many people will say that such laws were made so that we may remain clean, and that Islam is a religion of cleanliness. This is the answer you get from both, the simple-minded religious Muslims and also the Muslims with a liberal outlook.

Unfortunately, the insistence on this aspect of taharat and najasat by the former provides ammunition to the liberal view which says that such laws were made to keep the Arabs of the desert clean and are therefore irrelevant to us. I do not deny that Islam expects its followers to be physically clean, that it is a religion of cleanliness, and that the rules of taharat help in keeping oneself clean.