Trying to Square in Islamic Spirituality with a Materialist Understanding of Reality

Question/Discussion ❔

I am someone born into a relatively non-practicing Muslim family in a largely Muslim country, who currently posits agnostic atheism, but is drawn to Islamic spiritual heritage.

I understand God as a metaphor for the unity of being, the dialectical interdependence of total reality.

I recognise personal and social benefit in the practices of praying, fasting, and almsgiving. Taking faith not as intellectual conviction but rather as trust based on little more than simple gut-feeling, I put agnostic speculative hope and find psychological comfort in the notion of unseen as bearing ultimate accountability.

I relate sympathetically to Muhammad as a historical person who promoted the aforementioned beneficial practices and revolutionised his society, and as a psycho-mythological figure who gave birth to the Quran, from which blossomed Islamic spirituality: a world of meaning. Peace be upon him, his friends and family.

I interpret the Quran as a mytho-poetic text, the form of which is constrained by historical context. Its content containing pragmatic guidance and its cadence providing psychological comfort.

Can anyone relate?

Posted Jul 29, 2026, 12:58 PM UTC

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