“Windows To Spirituality”
The Spiritual Life is an interfaith web-based community that celebrates and honors the many paths to God. We are dedicated to teaching and expressing a positive and practical approach to life. Our beliefs are in harmony with the basic tenets of the world’s most popular religions and spiritual traditions. As a loving and supportive spiritual community we encourage each person to pray regularly, think clearly, feel openly, and love expansively.
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Prophet Muhammad’s Marriages This article covers the Islamic Prophet Muhammad’s Marriages in detail. Some critics of Islam, either because they are unaware of the facts or are biased, revile the Prophet as a self-indulgent libertine. They accuse him of character failings that are hardly compatible with a person of average...
What Is Jewish Apocrypha? Jewish apocrypha includes texts written in the Jewish religious tradition either in the Intertestamental period or in the early Christian era, but outside the Christian tradition. It does not include books in the canonical Hebrew Bible, nor those accepted into the canon of some or all...
What Is Apocrypha? Apocrypha are works, usually written, of unknown authorship or of doubtful origin. Biblical apocrypha is a set of texts included in the Latin Vulgate and Septuagint but not in the Hebrew Bible. While Catholic tradition considers some of these texts to be deuterocanonical, Protestants consider them apocryphal. Thus, Protestant bibles do not include...
Epistles Of Wisdom The Epistles of Wisdom or Rasa’il al-hikma (رسـائـل الـحـكـمـة) is a corpus of sacred texts and pastoral letters by teachers of the Druze Faith, which has currently close to a million faithful, mainly in Lebanon, Syria, Israel, and Jordan. The Druze canon The full Druze canon or Druze scripture...
Women In The Quran And The Sunna This article examines the status of women in the Quran and the Sunna. In Islam, there is absolutely no difference between men and women as far as their relationship to Allah is concerned, as both are promised the same reward for good conduct...
What Is Zohar? The Zohar (זֹהַר, “Splendor” or “Radiance”) is the foundational work in the literature of Jewish mystical thought known as Kabbalah. It is a group of books including commentary on the mystical aspects of The Torah (the five books of Moses) and scriptural interpretations as well as material on...
What is Divine Illumination? According to divine illumination, the process of human thought needs to be aided by divine grace. It is the oldest and most influential alternative to naturalism in the theory of mind and epistemology. It was an important feature of ancient Greek philosophy, Neoplatonism, medieval philosophy, and...
Subitism The term subitism points to sudden awakening, the idea that insight into Buddha-nature, or the nature of mind, is “sudden,” c.q. “in one glance,” “uncovered all together,” or “together, completely, simultaneously,” in contrast to “successively or being uncovered one after the other.” It may be posited as opposite to gradualism, the original Buddhist...
“Five Mysteries” Mentioned In The Qur’an It appears that the time of the coming of rain and the sex of the baby in the mother’s womb can be known in advance. Are these then no longer to be counted among the “five mysteries” mentioned in the Qur’an? The question concerns...
How Does The Qur’an Regard “Knowledge”? What are the differences between the Islamic and the modern scientific points of view on knowledge (‘ilm)? How does the Qur’an regard “knowledge”? Genuine knowledge (‘ilm) is a source of infinite light covered with truth, which leads enlightened people toward the righteous path. Modern...
Important Truths Of The Quran This article covers the Important Explanations To Understand Certain Important Truths of the Quran. In the Name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate. Alif Lam Ra. A Book whose verses were established and set clear, and then distinguished, from One All-Wise, All-Aware. (11:1) In order...
Does The Qur’an Allude To Scientific Developments? This article covers the answer to the question: “Does The Qur’an Allude To Scientific Developments?” Before answering this question, we should point out one important fact: Considering science as opposed to religion and scientific study as separate from and independent of the Qur’an...
Does The Quran Contain Everything? This article covers the answer to the question: “Does The Quran Contain Everything?” Being a Book describing the man and the universe, the Quran contains ‘everything’. It declares: With Him are the keys of the Unseen. None but He knows them. And He knows what...
Did Prophet Muhammad Write The Holy Qur’an? This article covers the answer to the question: “Did Prophet Muhammad Write The Holy Qur’an?“ As this question has generated a great deal of literature, I shall confine my answer to the most pertinent points. This allegation is made by Orientalists, just as...
Divine Wisdom In The Quran’s Being Revealed In Stages Over 23 Years This article explains the Divine Wisdom In The Quran’s Being Revealed In Stages Over 23 Years. The Quran was revealed in stages over a period of 23 years, and not as a complete book in one single act...
What Is Tajwid? In the context of the recitation of the Quran, Tajwid or Tajweed (تجويد tajwīd, ‘elocution’) is a set of rules for the correct pronunciation of the letters with all their qualities and applying the various traditional methods of recitation (Qira’at). In Arabic, the term tajwīd is derived from the triliteral root j-w-d (‘to improve’). Tajweed is a compulsory religious...
Qira’at In Islam, Qirāʼah, (pl. Qira’at ) (قِراءة, lit. ‘recitations or readings’) which are different linguistic, lexical, phonetic, morphological and syntactical forms permitted with reciting the holy book of Islam, the Quran. Differences between Qiraʼat are slight and include varying rules regarding the prolongation, intonation, and pronunciation of words, but also differences in stops, vowels, consonants (leading...
Miraculousness Of The Qur’an This article covers the Miraculousness Of the Qur’an. The miraculousness of the Qur’an’s eloquence in two ways: The Quran’s challenging all to produce even a likeness of one of its chapters Miraculousness in the ways verses conclude While we have an eternal miracle like the Qur’an,...
Comprehensiveness Of Quran And Meaning This comes from the comprehensiveness of the Quran’s wording. Certainly, this comprehensiveness is apparent in the previous Words, as well as in the verses whose meanings are quoted in this Word. As pointed out in the hadith, Each verse has outer meanings, inner meanings, limits...
Mysticism Mysticism is the practice of religious ecstasies (religious experiences during alternate states of consciousness), together with whatever ideologies, ethics, rites, myths, legends, and magic may be related to them. It may also refer to the attainment of insight in ultimate or hidden truths, and to human transformation supported by various practices and experiences....
