Why worship a self-sufficient God?
Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: This article argues that the Qurʾānic obligation of worship is a necessary discipline of remembrance (zikr) against human forgetfulness (nisyān). As God is free of need, worship is not a practice benefiting the divine but a normative structure that reorients the human subject, stabilizes moral agency, and integrates remembrance into embodied life. A thematic–conceptual reading of the Qurʾān, combined with anthropological and teleological analysis, shows how zikr is institutionalized through obligatory practices, preventing it from being merely intermittent. Classical perspectives (al-Ghazālī, Ibn Rushd) clarify the relation between ritual, intention, and ethical formation. Common objections, such as sustaining morality without ritual, are addressed by examining the problem of continuity in moral life. The study concludes that obligation functions not as coercion, but as a structural guarantee for the persistence of remembrance in a forgetful human condition.
DOI: 10.17613/wrsbr-v5e42
Author: Ismayilov, Oruj
Language: English
Subfield: Religious studies
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: gold
OpenAlex ID: W7156037784
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