Testimony of the Holy Quran — Page 157
H A D R AT M IR Z A GHU L A M AH M AD A S 157 apart from a few select people, I do not see such countenances. Yes, they offer their five daily prayers, but they do not know what prayer is. Unless the heart bows down in prostration, it is vain to expect that physical prostration will avail them anything. Just as the blood and meat of sacrificed animals do not reach God, but only righteousness does, similarly, physical bowing and prostra - tion amount to nothing unless the heart, too, bows, prostrates, and performs qiy a m [standing position in prayer]. The qiy a m of the heart is to be established upon the divine injunctions, and the bowing connotes bowing towards Him, and prostration means forsaking one’s self for His sake. A hundred pities, nay, a thousand pities that I do not at all see any effect of these things in them. Nevertheless, I supplicate—and I shall go on supplicating as long as I live—and my prayer indeed is that God Almighty may purify the hearts of this Community of mine, may He turn their hearts to Himself by extending the hand of His mercy, and remove all mischief and rancour from their hearts, and bestow upon them true, mutual love. I firmly believe that this prayer will certainly be accepted at some time and God will not let my prayers go to waste. And yes, I also pray that if someone from among my Community is, in God’s knowledge and will, eternally wicked, and is not des - tined ever to attain true purity and righteousness, then O God Almighty, alienate him from me also, as he has turned away from You, and bring in his place someone else who is tender-hearted and whose soul earnestly seeks You. My condition at present is that I fear the one who takes the bai‘at with me just as one fears a lion, because I do not want that one should be related to me despite remaining a worm of the earth. Hence, the above-stated reason is one of the causes for the postponement of the Jalsa.