"Purity is half of faith."
Muhammad, Hadith
I borrowed this from a tweet from Shaykh Azhar Nasser, who I follow on Twitter. He's a Shiite Imam and I find I retweet an awful lot of his comments, although there are others that I disagree with pretty passionately. He adds this commentary to the tweet: "The meaning of this hadith is that external purity, by means of purification & cleaning with water, is merely half of the faith; the other half is internal purity which is achieved through righteous deeds & noble character." It's not particularly surprising that I'm drawn to this hadith, and Nasser's commentary, since it touches upon one of my favorite themes, the balancing act between the internal and external dimensions of our faith (or any faith, for that matter). Maybe it comes down to the fact that so much of the external aspect of the faith is more quantifiable, whereas the internal is much more ethereal. Arguably this is unavoidable, although it is also self-limiting. Certainly in the moments waiting for the Friday sermon to begin I've had brothers ask me if I had carried out my wudu (ritual purification) or when I started fasting that day, but I can't remember anyone ever asking if I had questions about the faith or if I wanted to discuss interpretations of a challenging Quranic verse. I suspect our (and by "our" I mean all persons of faith) reliance upon the externality of religious observation, while all too often ignoring the internality of faith, is one reason why so many good folks are abandoning faith, and leaving it to the judgmental and sanctimonious.
Muhammad, Hadith
I borrowed this from a tweet from Shaykh Azhar Nasser, who I follow on Twitter. He's a Shiite Imam and I find I retweet an awful lot of his comments, although there are others that I disagree with pretty passionately. He adds this commentary to the tweet: "The meaning of this hadith is that external purity, by means of purification & cleaning with water, is merely half of the faith; the other half is internal purity which is achieved through righteous deeds & noble character." It's not particularly surprising that I'm drawn to this hadith, and Nasser's commentary, since it touches upon one of my favorite themes, the balancing act between the internal and external dimensions of our faith (or any faith, for that matter). Maybe it comes down to the fact that so much of the external aspect of the faith is more quantifiable, whereas the internal is much more ethereal. Arguably this is unavoidable, although it is also self-limiting. Certainly in the moments waiting for the Friday sermon to begin I've had brothers ask me if I had carried out my wudu (ritual purification) or when I started fasting that day, but I can't remember anyone ever asking if I had questions about the faith or if I wanted to discuss interpretations of a challenging Quranic verse. I suspect our (and by "our" I mean all persons of faith) reliance upon the externality of religious observation, while all too often ignoring the internality of faith, is one reason why so many good folks are abandoning faith, and leaving it to the judgmental and sanctimonious.
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