Lecture Ludhiana — Page 54
54 38 The prayer taught in terms of ‘those on whom Thou hast bestowed Thy blessings’ suggests how to seek the excel- lences of the prophets. Of course, the excellence vouchsafed to the prophets was their true knowledge and understanding of God and this they achieved through direct communion and converse with Him. This is what you also desire. But if you think that though the Holy Qur’an directs us to offer this prayer, we are not likely to achieve anything from it, or that none from among the Muslims will be privileged to attain this spiritual station and the door to the acceptance of this prayer has been shut to us till the Day of Judgement, then will this not amount to insulting Islam and the Holy Prophet sa ? The plain truth is that he who so thinks and believes defames Islam. He fails to understand the spirit of Islam. What Islam empha- sizes is that mere verbal pronouncement of the belief in the Oneness of God is not enough; one should really and truly understand its full import. Belief in Heaven and Hell should not be based on mere conjecture. One should taste the blessings of Paradise in this very life, and shed sins in which savages wallow. This indeed was and remains the splendid objective that human beings must pursue, a noble and holy objective, the like of which no other people can point out in their religion, nor can they produce an in- 38 ‘Guide us in the right path, the path of those on whom Thou hast bestowed Thy blessings. ’ (1:6-7) [Translator]