Sharia means formal regulations on legal and ethical issues, that is, God's commandments and prohibitions that a Muslim should follow in the everyday contexts of his physical life. If someone does not thoroughly implement the Sharia regulations, such as the regulations on prayer or fasting, he will not be able to properly approach the sphere of spirituality and it will even be meaningless to talk about the results of his spiritual and mystical development. Therefore, he will not have credible intuitive (...) power and the most refined ontological and metaphysical secrets of the universe, which are discussed in theoretical Sufism, will not be revealed to him. The most prominent representatives of theoretical Sufism assure us that Islamic jurisprudence and ethics are a necessary introduction to valid mystical experiences and that it is necessary to adhere to all Sharia regulations because they are a condition for success both at the beginning and in all later stages of the mystical journey. They warn that the slightest neglect of the importance of God's precepts in the form of Sharia will be the cause of the mystic's spiritual downfall. By analyzing the content of the reference works of the members of Ibn ʻArabī's school of theoretical Sufism, we will see that Sharia plays the role of the guardian of the mystic's intuitive experiences. The guardian will not allow the spiritual traveler in the protected area to be endangered and will protect his pure mystical knowledge from being discredited and distorted. We will also realize that all formal Sharia regulations actually hide deep spiritual secrets. If we approach the analysis of Sharia regulations in their esoteric layers with a grounded mystical methodology, we will understand that the original mystical teachings of Islam are hidden in the Sharia itself and at the heart of the Sharia rituals in which the Muslim affirms his ontological need to repentantly obey and serve the absolute being of God. (shrink)

Ibn Tufayl, the great Andalusian thinker of the 12th century, is important in the history of Islamic philosophical thought because of his masterpiece Hayy ibn Yaqzan. Ibn Tufayl's novel is one of the most translated texts of Islamic philosophy into Western languages. Hayy ibn Yaqzan is a story about a child born and raised on an island far from civilization and according to many historians of Islamic philosophy, it symbolizes the human soul on its developing spiritual journey towards eternal bliss. (...) Ibn Tufayl's introduction to the book gives a unique insight into the thought background of this philosopher and shows how familiar Ibn Tufayl was with the ideas of prominent Islamic philosophers. The fact that Ibn Tufayl was not a student of any of the four philosophers he names in the introduction - Farabi, Ibn Sina, Ghazali and Ibn Bajja - justifies the choice of the translators of his book to give him the title of self-taught philosopher. Knowing that Hayy ibn Yaqzan is the story of a self-taught man, this nickname can be an additional sign that Ibn Tufayl wrote about himself in the novel. The main motive of Ibn Tufayl's Hayy ibn Yaqzan is the harmony of religion and science, that is, philosophy. Over time, Hayy unravels most of the most significant scientific achievements of Ibn Tufayl's time to finally devote himself to thinking about the origins of being. This thought development, before Absal, a symbol of religious revelation or mystical tradition, comes to the island, Hayy achieves independently without the help of other cognitive beings. Hayy's autodidacticism symbolizes the self-sufficiency of the rational method in dealing with the truth. From Absal, Hayy learns how to speak and learns about religious rituals, which he begins to practice. The pinnacle of Ibn Tufayl's skill in showing the harmony between religion and philosophy is reflected in the fact that Ibn Tufayl writes about philosophical discoveries in the allegorical language of religion. (shrink)