Invitation to Ahmadiyyat — Page 82
82 of them and become a source of embarrassment for their religion. The meanings of the words recited in the five-time daily prayer are rarely known to people who are not of Arab ethnicity. And even these prayers are offered as an unpleasant obligation. People pray so fast that it is hard to tell whether they are in ruk u ’ or sajdah. It is also considered blasphemy to pray in one’s own tongue. Most peo - ple do not observe the fasting at all, and even for those who do, instead of being a source of Divine reward, it becomes a source of chastisement on account of their lies and slander and back-biting that they continue to indulge in. The Islamic laws of inheritance are completely ignored. Usury—which God has described as being the same as waging war on God—has now become so rampant that, thanks to the Muslim scholars and their many interpretations and machinations, hardly any Muslim is free from it. Even then, Muslims are not as prosper - ous as other people. High moral and ethical values, once the birth-right of Muslims, now seem as remote from Islam as faithlessness. Time was when the word of a Muslim was considered an irrevocable pledge and his promise unalterable law, but today nothing is more unreliable than the word of a Muslim, nothing emptier than his promise. Loyalty has become extinct, truthfulness is lost, courage is a thing of the past, and these have been replaced by treachery, falsehood, dishonesty, cowardice, and foolhardiness. The result is that the world has become our enemy, our trades have been destroyed, and our influence has waned. Knowledge, that was once the Muslim’s friend and constant companion, is now a stranger. The sufis have also regressed. They have converted religion into irreligion and religious law into permissiveness. Muslim clergy, in