The whole purpose of salah is to gain nearness to Allah, to ultimately get awareness, like you said excellence. So that’s the ultimate objective of Salah.

The study said that prayer; It comes the amygdala, amygdala part of the brain amygdala part of the brain that makes a person feel very stressful, agitated The flight or flightresponse,…

So we have even scientific reasons or justifications of why praying salah can calm a person. If science can tell us how Salah is coming up, ensurely religion should have something more to offer and the more they offer is purification of the heart.. It removes sins from the heart, makes you see things clearer, calmer.

Praying salah and doing the remembrance of Allah, it ultimately leads you to Ihsan /excellence. So excellence is the goal, salah is the means. These rituals are worshipped to the means. and the means is taqwa/ God consciousness…

So definitely these two books, ‘A thinking person’s guide to Islam’ and Imam Abu Hamid Al-Ghazali (Rah)’s book ‘IHYA’ ‘ULUM AL-DIN’ to delve in deeper into the kind of spiritual aspects.