Rule 3: Deepen the Understanding

Each and every reader comprehends the Qur’an on a different level in tandem with the depth of his understanding. There are four levels of insight. The first level is the outer meaning and it is the one that the majority of people are content with. Next is the Batin - the inner level. Third there is the inner of the inner. And the fourth level is so deep it cannot be put into words and is therefore bound to be indescribable. Scholars who focus on the Sharia know the outer meaning. Sufis know the inner meaning. Saints know the inner of the inner. The fourth level is known by prophets and those closest to God. So don’t judge the way other people connect to God. To each his own way and his own prayer. God does not take us at our word but looks deep into our hearts. It is not the ceremonies or rituals that make a difference, but whether our hearts are sufficiently pure or not.

What is noted about the Koran here is of course true for all the other holy books and scriptures in other religions and traditions. Seen from the model of the levels of consciousness, we connect the first level of insight with the hierarchical level. Spiritual and religious knowledge is institutionalized as knowledge of power. Laws are derived from the holy writings to steer and regulate the behavior of people. People should not only be afraid of the punishments of mundane law courts but also from avengements from the beyond, as marked in the comment to the second rule.

 The age of enlightenment had a strong impact on the West as it could build on the fundaments of the materialistic achievements. Since then, the entanglements between the churches and the mundane systems of suppression and regime have been among the main points of criticism on religions and added to the spreading of atheism. As an example, Karl Marx coined the formula of religion as “opium of the people” to point out that religion is misused to abduct people from the injustice which is inflicted upon them and to promise them a paradise in which all injustice and exploitation is brought to balance.

This is why the West observes the Islamic world and especially states which use the Sharia as system of law with specific mistrust. However we see that there is also criticism on superficial interpretations of the holy scriptures from Islamic sources. As soon as the literal interpretation of the texts is abandoned and the political and social regulations derived from them are questioned, these texts do not become obsolete as suggested by philosophers of the age of enlightenment, but show and “inner meaning”.

The inner meaning is not compatible with a God of fear and punishment (cf. Comment on Rule 1), but only to the “logic of the heart” (Blaise Pascal), to the special power of love and human connectedness. By this, the tendency to condemn other forms of belief vanishes just like that, and any kind of belief and worship is accepted and understood as specific way to God. Inquisition is banned to the dark corners of history and the notion of heresy becomes meaningless.

And we develop a form of tolerance which is founded in a deepened sense of religion instead in a formal equality which is only the result of a materialistic concept. Who approaches other people with the vision of the heart – or, to put it into modern scientific language, who meets people in the mode of the smart vagus of the vegetative nervous system, will not be able to fight or reject others because of their way of searching God, on the contrary, he will know that any form of condemning other people means leaving one’s own spiritual path and is a pollution of one’s own heart.

In a book by Reishad Field I found the following story:

In a town on the coast lives a pious and loyal imam. He highly acknowledged by his people. One day, someone tells him about a hermit who lives on an island not far from the coast. He decides to pay this hermit a visit to find out whether he is on the right path to God. So he sets out with his boat and rows to the island. When getting ashore, he hears the prayers of the dervish. The imam comes closer and notices that he has turned around the devotional formula and prays “ilAllah la ilaha“ instead of   „La ilaha ilAllah“ (There is no God except God).
Oi, oi, there we have a problem, God will be angry at hearing that ignorant prayer. So he tips the dervish on the should and explains the correct way of praying. The dervish thanks and promises to pray in the right way from now on.

The Imam is content and walks back to his boat. With the pleasant thought that he has brought some more order to this disturbed world and has helped a person to return to the right path, he rows back. Half way on the sea, he sees someone swiftly approaching from the island. It is the dervish who runs on the waves. As he arrives at the boat he asks: “ I am so sorry, please forgive my forgetfulness. But what was the correct way of praying again?”

The rules are taken from Elif Shafak's novel “The Forty Rules of Love” (Viking 2010). They are inspired by the Sufi tradition and worded by the autor's imagination. http://www.elifshafak.com/