I am reading a book titled “The Inner Journey: Views from the Islamic Tradition,” part of an anthology series from Parabola Magazine.  One of the articles is an excerpt of an interview with Dr. Seyyed Hossein Nasr, author of “Islamic Art and Spirituality” and professor of Islamic Studies at George Washington University, in Washington D.C.

A few of the many intriguing statements he made are:

• “I said that man himself – the saint – is the supreme work of art because all things are created by God. Man, in a sense, is God’s greatest creation…. The saint is the fullness of man- to be a saint is to be fully human.”
• “… the artist is not a special kind of man: every man is a special kind of artist.”
• “And the more contemplative and spiritual a person is, the more he or she is sensitive to the freeing power of beauty. Beauty frees…. Beauty is a way of access to God.”
• “But the most important thing, of course, is to be able to live a spiritual life …. Once we do that that there is no lack of creativity. We will not say, ‘Oh, I wasted my life because I wanted to be creative and I wasn’t and I was just putting books on the shelf,’ when we realize that to have lived in fact according to the Divine Command, according to the Will of God, is to respond in fact to God at every moment of life.”
• Today, for many people what is called creativity is really a substitute for finding their own center. They place their center in that work which is outside of them.” 

Here is a fuller excerpt of one of the question discussed.

Q: what about those of us who are not artists, or not craftspeople? What about someone working in a library, or working in a factory? What are the possibilities then to share in a creative response, to express creatively a response to the world and to the sacred?

SN: the possibility is there because ultimately everything that we do is art, either good art or bad art. Mankind does three things. These are three elements that are connected with our everyday existence. One is acting.one is making.an then there’s the ground of these, which is being. We exist. Usually we’re not aware of that existence. It takes a great deal of meditation and contemplation and self-discipline to be able to simple exist that’s a very difficult thing. Occasionally during the day we fall back into the ocean of our own existence, but usually we either act or make. Theoretically, everything that we make and every action that we take should be a form of art. Everything should be a response to the Divine. A person who has already realized a very high spiritual state, even if he’s eating his lunch – that in a sense is a response to the Divine. And even the joy he receives from walking, from breathing, from eating – the every elemental aspect of human life – are no less than the joys of great so called creativity, in the modern sense of art. In fact they are much greater, because he’s always responding to God.

That ideal is not easily obtainable, but below that ideal, for ordinary human beings working in the library or walking in the train station, if there is an inner spiritual life, a spiritual practice, a spiritual discipline then every moment of life, in a sense, is a response. And one that can manifest itself- if not perfectly at every moment as in the case of the saint – at certain moments of time. In the case of the person in the library, it isn’t that the way that he or she puts the books on the shelf is as creative as, for instance, as painting something on the wall. But the manner of acting, the spiritual intention behind it, the perfection one tries to achieve no matter what one does, making one’s work a gift to be presented  to God – even making one’s living in difficult circumstances – can always be sanctified. It is possible for his creativity to manifest itself. Even though outwardly it would not be called art today.

The Parabola Inner Journey Series has separate editions on all of the major spiritual traditions and is an excellent source for reflection and information.