Islam_in_Focus_text

ness and motivating power. The only way to enliven Faith
and make it serve its purpose is practice. Practice provides
Faith with nourishment, survival and effectiveness. In return,
Faith inspires man to be constant in his devotion and persis-
tent in his practice. This is because the interrelationship be-
tween Faith and practice is very strong, and their inter-
dependence is readily understandable. A person without
Faith has no real source of inspiration and, consequently, has
no worthy objectives to attain or even aspire to. The life of
such a person is meaningless, and he lives from day to day,
which is no life at all. On the other hand, the person who
confesses Faith but does not practice it is a self-deceiving
person, and in fact has no Faith, in which case he is no more
than a helpless straying wanderer.
The interrelationship between Faith and practice in Islam
has vivid reflections on the entire setup of the Religion and
manifests the deep philosophy of its teachings. Islam does
not recognize any kind of separation between soul and body,
spirit and matter, Religion and life. It accepts man the way
God has created him and recognizes his nature as composed
of soul and body. It does not neglect his spiritual nature; else
he would be like any animal. Nor does it underestimate his
physical needs; else he would be an angel, which he is not
and cannot be. According to Islam, man stands in the center
of the stream of creation. He is not purely spiritual because
the purely spiritual beings are the angels, nor is he beyond