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The Etiquettes of Spiritual Wayfaring & the Journey to God
In The Name of God, The Most Merciful, The Most Beneficent The story of this book begins with the great mystic, philosopher, and commentator of the Holy Qur’an, Allamah Sayyid Muhammad Husayn Tabataba’i. Although best known for his Tafsir al-Mizan, the heritage he bequeathed to those wishing to travel the spiritual path is no less significant. While many of Allamah’s works have made their way into the English corpus, we have yet to benefit from the treasures of one of his students, Ayatullah Ali Pahlawani Tehrani, better known as Ayatullah Sa’adat Parwar. “The Etiquettes” consists of a letter written by Ayatullah Sa’adat Parwar and a commentary on that letter authored by his student, Hujjatul Islam wal Muslimeen Dr. Sayyid Muhammad Jawad Vazirifard. A unique characteristic of this book is that it can assist a person at any stage of his or her spiritual journey.
- GenresIslam
Hardcover
Published September 27, 2022
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
January 7, 2025
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Picture this. You're nine years old and attending a buloogh celebration with your friends in yall's honor. Along with the bedazzled prayer mats, flower bouquets, and barrage of hugs and kisses, somebody hands you this book. Maybe you don't understand it, and maybe it takes you till you're fifteen or sixteen or twenty, but that book that you kept on the shelf all those years slowly shapes the blueprint of how you want to live your life. And maybe your Pinterest boards look different. And your new year's resolutions don't sound like everybody else's. And your relationship with money and food and education and justice feel concrete—like they won't sway with the next trend or passing comment. And this foundation sticks with you for the rest of your life.
That's the kind of potential I see with this book. There are lists and lists of how to be a "good Muslim" all over but this book is simple, provides evidence and commentary (I LOVE a good footnote), and tackles common misconceptions. It is structured with a growth mindset—no Etiquette is designed as an order, rather a series of steps that one naturally moves up as they progress in spiritual wayfaring. It totally eliminates the overwhelming feeling one gets as they stare up at a seemingly impossible goal. And it does that without "babying" the reader. It recognizes the hurdles in between us and Allah and provides concrete ways to reduce them.
My favorite part of this book was Part 2—"Fraternity"—consisting of Etiquettes 4-6. One quote that stuck out to me was in the Etiquette 4 section: "Imam Muhammad Jawad (a) has said, 'The one who listens to a speaker worships him: Thus, if the speaker speaks about Allah, he has worshipped Allah, and if the speaker speaks the tongue of Satan, he has worshiped Satan'". This put a completely new meaning to my understanding of shirk and why it truly is such a major sin. This book put so much emphasis on the influence our casual conversations have on us and how "mental preoccupation" can have extremely adverse effects on one's wayfaring journey. It made me think about that study where two sets of plants were growing. One set was given negative feedback while the other was given positive feedback. The latter set grew healthier and stayed alive longer. Plants can't communicate, don't have consciousness, and are yet affected by such conversation. It's scary to imagine how much things like that affect our souls.
In conclusion, this book is definitely going on my Favorite Books list and I can see myself coming back to it for a very long time. I love the design for the Muhasibah journal they released for it and hope to purchase one soon. I'm really grateful to live in a time where I can buy something like this book and it just gets shipped to my house. InshaAllah whoever is reading this gets the opportunity to read this book and benefit from a spiritual teacher as well.
Toodles!
ZR
Picture this. You're nine years old and attending a buloogh celebration with your friends in yall's honor. Along with the bedazzled prayer mats, flower bouquets, and barrage of hugs and kisses, somebody hands you this book. Maybe you don't understand it, and maybe it takes you till you're fifteen or sixteen or twenty, but that book that you kept on the shelf all those years slowly shapes the blueprint of how you want to live your life. And maybe your Pinterest boards look different. And your new year's resolutions don't sound like everybody else's. And your relationship with money and food and education and justice feel concrete—like they won't sway with the next trend or passing comment. And this foundation sticks with you for the rest of your life.
That's the kind of potential I see with this book. There are lists and lists of how to be a "good Muslim" all over but this book is simple, provides evidence and commentary (I LOVE a good footnote), and tackles common misconceptions. It is structured with a growth mindset—no Etiquette is designed as an order, rather a series of steps that one naturally moves up as they progress in spiritual wayfaring. It totally eliminates the overwhelming feeling one gets as they stare up at a seemingly impossible goal. And it does that without "babying" the reader. It recognizes the hurdles in between us and Allah and provides concrete ways to reduce them.
My favorite part of this book was Part 2—"Fraternity"—consisting of Etiquettes 4-6. One quote that stuck out to me was in the Etiquette 4 section: "Imam Muhammad Jawad (a) has said, 'The one who listens to a speaker worships him: Thus, if the speaker speaks about Allah, he has worshipped Allah, and if the speaker speaks the tongue of Satan, he has worshiped Satan'". This put a completely new meaning to my understanding of shirk and why it truly is such a major sin. This book put so much emphasis on the influence our casual conversations have on us and how "mental preoccupation" can have extremely adverse effects on one's wayfaring journey. It made me think about that study where two sets of plants were growing. One set was given negative feedback while the other was given positive feedback. The latter set grew healthier and stayed alive longer. Plants can't communicate, don't have consciousness, and are yet affected by such conversation. It's scary to imagine how much things like that affect our souls.
In conclusion, this book is definitely going on my Favorite Books list and I can see myself coming back to it for a very long time. I love the design for the Muhasibah journal they released for it and hope to purchase one soon. I'm really grateful to live in a time where I can buy something like this book and it just gets shipped to my house. InshaAllah whoever is reading this gets the opportunity to read this book and benefit from a spiritual teacher as well.
Toodles!
ZR
May 4, 2025
I feel like I always thought of spirituality as a very complicated concept and how spiritual growth could only really be achieved by scholars and mystics. What I particularly liked when reading this book was that it highlighted irfaniat in a very practical perspective. I remember a sheikh said that you become more spiritual once your “no” to a sin gets stronger. This really put things into perspective and I feel like this book is a perfect step by step guide in showing how the most basic actions that we oversee lead to shaping our spiritual self. Some points that I loved:
- “Prayer is the action through which, in a single moment, we are both giving attention to the station of Allah’s Lordship and defying Satan.”
- “What you hear impacts the heart. When the heart becomes selective of what it should and should not hear, it is prepared for spiritual elevation, and becomes capable of distinguishing good from bad and right from wrong.”
- The relationship between knowing the “self” and knowing Allah is one of equivalence, meaning if you know one, you immediately know the other. These concepts cannot be separated because it is impossible to know the self without first knowing Allah. We know ourselves through Allah, not the other way around. Allah is the only reality, and a man who does not recognize Allah will be unable to correctly recognize himself, since he is a manifestation of Allah.”
- “When one knows himself, he enters the vast ocean of Tawhid.” Reading the concept of knowing self and knowing Allah, emphasizes how believing in Tawhid is a whole lifestyle. Being self vigilant, being accountable, killing the ego, etc. has to be done daily for someone that says they believe in Allah.
Good read and especially loved how it simplifies a spiritual journey that will undoubtedly be difficult but is also clear and possible.
- “Prayer is the action through which, in a single moment, we are both giving attention to the station of Allah’s Lordship and defying Satan.”
- “What you hear impacts the heart. When the heart becomes selective of what it should and should not hear, it is prepared for spiritual elevation, and becomes capable of distinguishing good from bad and right from wrong.”
- The relationship between knowing the “self” and knowing Allah is one of equivalence, meaning if you know one, you immediately know the other. These concepts cannot be separated because it is impossible to know the self without first knowing Allah. We know ourselves through Allah, not the other way around. Allah is the only reality, and a man who does not recognize Allah will be unable to correctly recognize himself, since he is a manifestation of Allah.”
- “When one knows himself, he enters the vast ocean of Tawhid.” Reading the concept of knowing self and knowing Allah, emphasizes how believing in Tawhid is a whole lifestyle. Being self vigilant, being accountable, killing the ego, etc. has to be done daily for someone that says they believe in Allah.
Good read and especially loved how it simplifies a spiritual journey that will undoubtedly be difficult but is also clear and possible.
September 27, 2025
I feel like a fraud marking this as read but to be frank with you all, I only read a little less than half this book. Perhaps I wasn't in the right headspace for this and perhaps what I needed was a reading circle to make sense of this book smh. I will be returning this book to the owner ty!
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews