Imam al-Ghazzali
Imam al-Ghazzali (rahmatullah alayhi) spent much of his life making this point, in some very sophisticated ways. Let me read to you his very passionate defense of this Qur’anic principle:
“If you are educating yourself, take up only those branches of knowledge which have been required of you according to your present needs, as well as those which pertain to the outward actions such as learning the elements of prayer, purification and fasting. More important however, is the science which have all neglected, namely, the science of the attributes of the heart, those which are praiseworthy and those which are blameworthy, because people persist in the latter, such as miserliness, hypocrisy, pride and conceit, all of which are destructive and from which it is obligatory to desist. Performing these outward deeds is like the external application of an ointment to the body when it is stricken with scabies and boils while neglecting to remove the pus by means of a scalpel or a purge. False ulema recommended outward deeds just as fake physicians prescribe external ointments [for virulent internal diseases]. The ulema who seek the aakhirah, however, recommend nothing but the purification of the nafs and the removal of the elements of evil by destroying their nursery-beds and uprooting them from the heart.”
A key component of the Ghazalian agenda is the restoration of balance between outward and inward. And the Imam himself realized that the balance comes about primarily through cultivating the inward. For a balance, which is the true meaning of al-sirat al-mustaqim, is a subtle thing, and requires wisdom, and wisdom exists only when the sould is illuminated.
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