Boycott Israel [IslamCity] Devotion in Salaat

[Mohammad Shafi]

In the Name of Allah, the Gracious, the Merciful   In Verse 2.238, the Qur'aan directs the believers to stand in Salaat, completely in devotion to Allah, and to Allah alone. It directs them therein, moreover, to protect all their prayers (Salawaat) in like manner.   Do we, as Muslims, follow those divine directions? The sad fact is: most of us do not! Many of us do go through the ritual of Salaat, but our minds wander. They dwell on matters pertaining to our businesses, workplaces, neighbours, relatives, families - in short, to any sort of worldly affair. Our thoughts seldom remain devoted to Allah.   And to make the matter worse, we have come to believe that such straying of thoughts, while offering Salaat, is a normal thing! But what does the Qur'aan say? It forebodes sorrow, distress or trouble for those who are negligent/inattentive in their prayers!! [107.4,5]   And if we do believe in the Qur'aan - as we vehemently say we do - we are doomed to suffer in terms of those Verses in Surah 107. And do we need any proof that we are suffering, in this very worldly life? Hardly. Our position, as a community, in the polity of nations is despicable, as any one can see. We have become the favourite whipping boys for any Tom, Dick or Harry everyshere in the world.   It is grievously wrong on our part therefore to treat the straying of our thoughts as something normal. We've got to do something about it. What do we do? First and foremost, we stop thinking that it is normal for our thoughts to wander while in a ritual Salaat. Second, we realise that our thoughts wander because our Faith is superficial. The Faith has not gone deep into our hearts. We're hardly interested in studying the Qur'aan, the Creator's Manual for the right conduct of our worldly lives. We've to shed our indifference to this most important Book that every human being is duty-bound to read and study. Third, we've to shorten our Salaat, till at least the Faith really enters our hearts. Allah would look to the quality, rather than to the quantity, of our prayers. The longer the duration of the prayers, the greater would be the tendency of our minds to wander. Our Wise Lord has therefore prescribed only short ritual prayers after long intervals of day time. Another thing, that has contributed to our undoing, is our blatant disregard to the divine edicts: "...and be attentive at every place of worship and invoke Him alone to make the Religion exclusive for Him..." [7.29] "And the Masaajid are for Allah Alone; so invoke not anyone with Allah." [72.18] We have to ponder deeply on these edicts. Aren't most of us violating them, in letter and in spirit?   Mohammad Shafi islam-n-interest.com __._,_.___ *************************************************************************** {Invite (mankind, O Muhammad ) to the Way of your Lord (i.e. Islam) with wisdom (i.e. with the Divine Inspiration and the Qur'an) and fair preaching, and argue with them in a way that is better. Truly, your Lord knows best who has gone astray from His Path, and He is the Best Aware of those who are guided.} (Holy Quran-16:125) {And who is better in speech than he who [says: "My Lord is Allah (believes in His Oneness)," and then stands straight (acts upon His Order), and] invites (men) to Allah's (Islamic Monotheism), and does righteous deeds, and says: "I am one of the Muslims."} (Holy Quran-41:33) The prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) said: "By Allah, if Allah guides one person by you, it is better for you than the best types of camels." [al-Bukhaaree, Muslim] The prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him)  also said, "Whoever calls to guidance will have a reward similar to the reward of the one who follows him, without the reward of either of them being lessened at all." [Muslim, Ahmad, Aboo Daawood, an-Nasaa'ee, at-Tirmidhee, Ibn Maajah] -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Recommended: http://www.ikhwanweb.com http://www.islamonline.net http://www.islam-guide.com http://www.prophetmuhammadforall.org -------------------------------------------------------------------------- All views expressed herein belong to the individuals concerned and do not in any way reflect the official views of IslamCity unless sanctioned or approved otherwise. If your mailbox clogged with mails from IslamCity, you may wish to get a daily digest of emails by logging-on to http://www.yahoogroups.com to change your mail delivery settings or email the moderators at [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the title "change to daily digest". Your email settings: Individual Email|Traditional Change settings via the Web (Yahoo! ID required) Change settings via email: Switch delivery to Daily Digest | Switch to Fully Featured Visit Your Group | Yahoo! Groups Terms of Use | Unsubscribe __,_._,___