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There are three passages from the Quran that have accompanied me throughout my journey of faith, no matter where I turn, from the earliest days to the present.

The first is the infamous story of the cow, where people were asked to slaughter an animal as a sacrifice. This story unfolds with the people demanding more and more specificity — about the animal’s age, colour, and purpose — until what was a simple command became unnecessarily burdensome.

To me, this passage critiques excessive questioning and legal hair-splitting. God’s command was straightforward, but by demanding more and more detail, the people made religion so difficult for themselves that they nearly could not follow through at all.

The second is the story of those who sought loopholes in their religious laws. In this passage, the people were forbidden from fishing on the Sabbath. But instead of obeying the command with sincerity, they devised workarounds: setting traps on Friday and collecting the fish on Sunday, technically avoiding fishing on the Sabbath, while nevertheless violating the spirit of the law.

This speaks to me of the danger of looking for loopholes, using underhand ingenuity to justify doing what we inwardly know is wrong. As every believer should know, it’s not just the act that matters but also the intention behind it, for faith isn’t a game of technicalities.

Finally, there is the warning against taking rabbis and priests as lords. While most Christians and Jews — and Muslims too — would deny worshiping their scholars or clergy, this passage refers to people obeying them in matters that go against God’s commands, effectively elevating their authority above divine guidance.

This verse cannot but resonate given the way some Muslims defer to scholars absolutely, even when the guidance seems at odds with the spirit seemingly intended by the Quran. While well-grounded scholarship is undoubtedly essential, when deference turns into dependency we risk outsourcing our conscience completely.

Of course, for me, there is other context here. I was raised on the Christian Gospels which shaped my outlook that the law is a means to a higher end, not an end in itself. In the stories we learnt as children, Jesus was scathing of the pretentious observance of the pharisees of his time.

But it wasn’t that the law doesn’t matter — who could forget him ferociously turning the money lenders out of the temple? — but that its purpose must remain in view. That is, to draw us nearer to God, to shape our character, to make us more just, more grateful, and more compassionate. When we lose sight of that, religion becomes hollow, if not outright harmful.

In Islam, I’ve found many teachings that affirm the same idea. These three passages, in particular, have helped me articulate why I sometimes feel uneasy with overly legalistic or scholastic approaches to the faith. Far from dismissing the law, these verses caution us against a spirit of practice that is pedantic, evasive, or rooted in blind deference to authority.

Thus, with my simplistic faith, I am more likely to be found taking Quranic verses to heart — like “live with them in kindness” and “He placed between you affection and mercy” — than to embrace legal loopholes which allow men to behave completely contrary to these ideals.

Taken together, these three passages form a kind of counterweight to excessive legalism. They call me to approach Islam not as a checklist of rulings, but as a path of sincerity. A way of life where form and spirit reinforce one another, but where the spirit must always lead.

I understand the value of law, and I respect those who dedicate themselves to its study. But for me, faith begins with a humble relationship with God, not with the scaffolding of scholarly authority. These three passages reassure me that this instinct isn’t rebellion. It’s faithfulness of the kind the Quran itself profoundly honours.