Those who come from non-Muslim backgrounds will find, if they read the hadith for any reasonable amount of time, that it is quite hard to take the Islamic tradition seriously.

Despite the admirable effort by early Muslim scholars, it is amusing to think of grown men and women hunched over parchments pouring out anecdotes on everything from dealing with apostates to whether or not a fart invalidates one’s prayer. The verses dealing with base and earthy topics (and often, fluids) do in my experience put a damper on the overall “spiritual experience”—and at the very least one cannot help but let out a chuckle.