Real Revolution — Page 97
97 the same thing, namly, that observance of only the outward form of the shariah is a curse, not the shariah itself, as the Christian had done. When the religious and spiritual fibre of the Christians came to be weakened in time, under the influence of this weakness they began to give wrong interpretation to the law, and finally ended by saying that the law was a curse. They even did not pause to consider that the followers of Jesus, and Jesus himself, had engaged themselves in prayer and fasing, and had made a point of doing other good deeds, which showed that they did not look upon the outward form of the shariah as a curse, but only on that observance of it which remained on the surface and did not penetrate deep into the mind. . In short, the words used in the Holy Quran about Jesus Christ namely, اید دناه بروح القدس "We helped him with the spirit of holiness", (2:254) signify that profound points connected with purity of the mind were opened to him, and that his mission was specially to emphasise these aspects of the teaching, consolidated by a rational support of the commandments in the shariah, tasawwuf in his day reaching a stage which can best be described as its adolescence.