A Letter to a Dear One — Page 79
Muhammad Zafrulla Khan 79 and forsake him who disobeys Thee. O Allah, Thee alone do we serve and to Thee alone do we pray and make obeisance and to Thee we flee and we are quick and we hope for Thy mercy and we fear Thy chastisement, for surely Thy chastisement overtakes the unbelievers. I once read a book written after the famous earthquake in San Francisco. The writer of the book went to the city and was moved to see the metal structures of the buildings still standing. The writer tried to use this example to make a point that if man divides his day in a few portions and prays at the end of each portion, which would be the beginning of the next portion, then, his day would be divided into spiritual structures. If there is any element of worldliness in the in- between parts of his day which will be detrimental to his spirituality, then that effect would be dissolved when the next prayer time came and his spirituality would be refreshed. That is to say that if at any time his spirituality is shaken as the earth is in an earthquake, the metal pillars of prayer will keep his spiritual metal structure erect, and the bricks and mortars of the building that fall off can be put up once again with a little effort. When I read this I thought that Islam has already arranged for man to refresh his spirituality at prescribed time with intervals. This is so that the foundation of man’s life is on spirituality and when and if external influences affect his life, they can be regularly revoked. Remembrance of God The remembrance of Allah mainly concerns the heart. The condition of the heart of a believer should be such that when he is busy in the duties pertaining to the affairs of this world his heart should have a constant thirst that only the remembrance of Allah can abate. As I have said before, the real time for prayer is when observing sal ā t ; because sal ā t is all glorification and praise of Allah and is a perfect prayer. The time of sal ā t is a special time for acceptance of prayer. However, one can pray outside the time of sal ā t as well. The Promised Messiah (‘alaihissal ā m) repeatedly said that it is a source of extreme delight and satisfaction for a believer that the God, who has power over everything, listens to prayers and accepts them. There are many requisites of prayer but the main condition is that there should be faith in the complete Power of the Almighty and the prayer is thus made