Islam: A Search for Meaning

The aim of this book is to explore the philosophical process of becoming a Muslim from within the traditional context of Islam. Starting with a search for the meaning of oneself and the purpose of human existence, the author describes the Divine response as depicted in the Qur'an. This raises the question of human freedom and responsibility towards the Creator as a response to the Divine Will providing this choice, which the author addresses by resolving the common misunderstandings on the relationship between the Divine and human wills. Accepting that the human is created in a Divine image, the author extends this analogy, asserting that the human spiritual path is itself a reflected image of a Divine path of action, and posits that the Islamic rituals themselves constitute such a reflected image which thereby universalizes faith by its embrace of all previous religious paths. Lastly, the author links knowledge to love as poles that, although exoterically appearing as opposites, esoterically define the global human reality vis-a-vis the Divine mandate.
Throughout this book the author is concerned not only with the philosophical and logical basis of Islam in isolation, but with the nature of this basis as it establishes the intellectual, religious and spiritual foundations of the modern Muslim, enabling him, at a personal level, to shed the mysteries and paradoxes of the human condition.