Claims and Teachings - Ahmad The Promised Messiah and Mahdi — Page 293
293 which He has forbidden. When keeping fast, yon should re- member God much. The practice of the Holy Prophet shows that the Ramzan is particularly the month of Divine worship. Therefore let your abstinence from food during these days serve as a step for the engrossment of your ideas with the worship of God, so that cutting off all ordinary connections with the physical world, you may enjoy the blessings of the spiritual world. Woe to him who found the physical bread and did not care for the spiritual bread. As the physical bread sustains the physical life in man, so the spiritual bread sustains the spiritual life of man and breaths vital power into the spirit. Seek assistance from God, for by His grace are the doors opened. The fourth pillar of Islam is Zakat or giving of legal alms. The Arabic word signifies purification, and therefore by this in- junction also Islam aims at purity. There are many people who give alms and make charitable gifts, but they do not care whe- ther they earn money by fair or foul means. But the institu- tion of ZaJcat in Islam requires only a stated share of that which has been earned fairly and without doing any wrong to others. Zakat is the giving in the way of God out of one's fair earnings which are thus purified. What Islam aims at teaching by this institution is that a man should not so love the wealth of this world as to feeK it difficult to part with it in the way of God. On one occasion the Holy Qurau says : J^aaii' ^J^ ^ } jy UJ ^J ^^xsu U* " By no means caii you attain to righteousness until you spend in the way of God out of what you love. " The reason for this injunction is that unless a man learns to sacrifice his dearest interests for the sake of God, he cannot be said to have preferred the side of God to this world. When we compare the state of the Muslims of our time with the companions of the