Before we can understand Islamic spirituality we must first understand generic human spirituality. We can understand the human spirit as that capacity to be aware of and the ability to respond to the mystery of life and reality. In the words of one author "Mystery is the best name for reality. It indicates not an absence, but an overabundance." What we are calling "mystery" or the "transcendent mystery" is indicated or implied by means of all phenomena: physical, social and psychological. The practice of spirituality would then indicate the disciplined increase of that awareness and a disciplined response to that awareness.

In addition we need to make some corrections to how we usually envision human experience from a two-fold "mind & body" model to a four-fold, or "quaternion" model of human experience. Note that this de-centers one's interiority to but one quarter of the total experience that defines us as "human". Hence, there is less emphasis upon feeling states than is often the case when discussing spirituality. We are able to more clearly distinguish between spirituality and psychology.

Islamic spirituality is firmly wholistic as illustrated by the Field Model. Islamic spirituality is active in all four aspects of human experience. It thus avoids extremes of interiority and does not portray the physical or the social as being contra the spiritual.

The above material and the Field Model is based upon writers such as Aaron Gurwitsch, Eric Voegelin, Richard Byrne, Adrian van Kaam, William Thompson, and John Carmody & Denise Lardner.

Islamic spirituality is based upon the assumption that what appears to us as mystery revealed itself as being God. The Qur'an is this revelation. The Qur'an instructs us in the foundational importance of awareness of God and the proper response to God. The sunnah (lifestyle or practice) of Muhammad expresses and exemplifies this Qur'anic awareness of, and response to God within actual, historical, phenomenal reality. This is the heart and foundation and raison d'être of Islamic spirituality. Muhammad is considered to be a "walking Qur'an".

Islamic spirituality fosters God-consciousness, called taqwa, in and through all daily activities in addition to activities we usually identify as "spiritual" such as fasting and prayer. It shuns any extremes.

Islamic spirituality does not gauge its development and growth upon subjective experience, but on the degree to which one imitates the sunnah. Evil is that which is contra Qur'an and sunnah- it has nothing to do with subjective experiences of pleasure or pain, laughter or tears, nor does it have to do with social experiences such as riches or poverty. All of these social and subjective states are somewhat equivalent in Islam. They all originate by the will of God for the purpose of testing the Muslim's use of freedom. The Muslim submits to the will of God with patience. The word "Islam" means "submission to the will of God". It is thus not even a "religion" as we usually think of the term. It is more of an existential way-of-being.

Islamic spirituality encourages science and scholarship in that the Qur'an repeatedly exhorts humanity to observe the signs of God in creation, in history, and in one's self. It also encourages social activism. That is, jihad- the struggle of good against evil.

Islamic spirituality is the "mysticism of the ordinary".

Sufism is, in general, not quite what non-Muslims think it is. First, Sufis are Muslims and so follow Muslim law. Second, "Sufism" as such is a school of thought that can only be understood in comparison to other schools of thought any of which may express extremist trends within Islam. It is more proper to discuss tasawuuf, or purification of the self. That is, the bringing of all four aspects of human experience, and especially the subjective interiority, into compliance with the Qur'an and sunnah. To divide Islamic practice into "exoteric" and "esoteric" is prima facie evidence that one has not understood Islamic spirituality. It is a distinction that is not present in Muslim practice except as a symptom of the poor practice of Islam.