The universe has been fashioned by God in a way that it may become a source of spiritual inspiration for man. According to the Quran, it is the quality of ‘tawassum’ that enables one to find inspiration in the universe. Tawassum is the ability to understand the signs of nature. That is, to observe the phenomena of the universe in order to draw lessons from them and receive spiritual nourishment from physical events. God is so generous that He has created the whole universe to be at our service, day and night. Spirituality is based on taking lessons from God’s signs spread in the universe (Tawassum) (15: 75) which means converting every material event into a spiritual lesson. Tawassum is, in a sense, a matter of conversion, on a parallel with grass entering the body of the cow and through a natural process being transformed into milk. Similarly, the truly religious person is like a divine industry. He is able to convert physical events into spiritual lessons. He extracts spiritual nourishment from material things. True spirituality is that which leads man to intellectual development.

Source: Spirit of Islam April 2013