Malfuzat – Volume III — Page 303
303 in my own household that the Prayer is offered with uncompromising adher- ence. When our first Bashir was born—his face bore a striking resemblance with Mubarak—he fell ill and developed such a severe temperature that he began to hang by a thread. During this state, the time for Prayer arrived and my wife said that she is going to offer her Prayer. She was still offering her prayer when the child passed away. After she had completed her Prayer, she asked me: ‘How is he doing?’ I said: ‘The child has passed away. ’ When I said this, without any reserva- tions whatsoever, she proclaimed: َ ِ وَ اِنَّاۤ اِلَيْهِ رٰجِعُوْن ِ هلل اِنَّا Surely, to Allah we belong and to Him shall we return. At that time, it was put in my heart that Allah Almighty would not let her leave this world until He compensated her for this loss. As such, approximately forty days after the demise of this child, Mahmud was born. After him, by the grace of Allah Almighty, our other children were born as well. The Essence of the Formal Prayer Is Supplication Therefore, a person who entertains evil thoughts is a person who is deficient as a human being, because all they do is cling to customary things, and for this rea- son, neither is their religion in order, nor their worldly life. People of this nature offer the Prayers, but are unfamiliar with the deeper meanings of the Prayer, and they do not know what they are doing in the least. They offer the formal Prayer hastily but then they will spend an hour supplicating after the Prayer has ended. It is strange that they do not supplicate in the formal Prayer, even though its very purpose and essence is supplication. Even the mandatory positions of the Prayer encourage a person to supplicate. As the saying goes: there is blessing in move- ment. Sometimes it so happens that when a person is sitting, their mind remains blank, but when they stand up and begin to walk about, a stream of thought begins to flow forth. This is the case with all actions, and if one does not give due consideration to their fundamental purpose and disregards their essence, they are reduced to nothing more than superficial customs and habits. Similarly, it is necessary to keep the inner self pure for the sake of God when a person is fasting. However, if a person ignores this underlying reality, this action is nothing more than a worthless tradition. p. 276