Visiting Ibn Arabi in Damascus (Photo: Emily O'Dell)
If you read or study knowledge, your knowledge must improve your heart and purge your ego–just as if you learned that your life would only last another week, inevitably you would not spend it in learning about law, ethics, jurisprudence, scholastic theology and suchlike, because you would know that these sciences would be inadequate for you. Instead, you would occupy yourself with inspecting your heart, discerning the features of your personality, giving worldly attachments a wide berth, purging yourself of ugly traits, and you would occupy yourself in adoring God the Exalted, worshipping Him, and acquiring good qualities…
— al Ghazali
