What is Ahmadiyyat? — Page 80
( 80 ) level, improves our capacity for action and creates in us a spirit of self-sacrifice. The promised Messiah invited people to true religion. He insisted on religious practices. But the prayers, _fasts, Zakat and l;Iaj to which he invited were those taught by the Quran. The religious practices taught by the Quran are not physical experiences. ·Fasts laid down by the Quran are not feats of physical endurance. Zakat is not to lose money in sport. Haj is not an exercise in difficult travel. According to the Quran, 'prayer teaches you to abjure all indecencies and. prohibitions' (29 : 46). If our prayers do· not result in the banish- ment of indecencies and prohibitions, they are not prayers in the true sense. . Similarly fasts (2 : 184} are meant to. purify us and to raise our moral standards. If we fast but the fasting does not pro~ duce the results which it should, we may be sure·that we have been fasting in the