Claims and Teachings - Ahmad The Promised Messiah and Mahdi — Page 288
in the Unity of God. So long as jealously, enmity, hypocrisy, dishonesty, &c. , are met with in a man's relations with his / fellow-men, his profession of the Unity of God is not sincere and does not proceed from, his heart, For, unless a man shows in his practice that he has^ forsaken all gods and all objects of love, worship and desire, a profession with his lips is an utterly useless thing. A man can never be pure in heart unless he first des- f troys all the false idols which like rats on earth affect it with a / plague. It is in this that the distinctive superiority of Islam, lies, for as regards the mere belief in the Unity of God, there are Unitarians even among the Christians, and the Aryas, the Brah- mqs and the Jews too profess a belief in the Unity of God. The Unity of God is the first and the foremost principle of v Islam. Having expressed myself briefly on the true nature of this doctrine, I will say a few words about the prayers enjoined by the Muslim law which form the second pillar of the faith of Islam. The importance of the injunction relating to prayers can be understood easily from the frequent repetition of that injunction in the Holy Quran. But the Holy Book at the same time warns the Muslims against a misconception or ignorance of the true nature of prayers, for it says : "Woe is to those who pray but are utterly regardless of the true nature of their prayers," Prayers are a supplication addressed to Almighty God by a man to purify him and to make him attain union with Him, for un- less a man is purified by the hand of God, he cannot be pure, and unless Almighty God makes him attain His union by His powerful hand, he cannot find it. Many are the chains and fetters with which a man is bound, and his own exertions, how- ever hard, are not sufficient to liberate him from them. He de- sires that he may become purified, but his efforts without the hel- ping hand of God are of no avail, and sometimes he does stum-