Invitation to Ahmadiyyat — Page 102
102 too has come to pass. Hardly one out of a hundred people who call themselves Muslims are regular in their five-time daily pay - ers despite the fact that it is foremost among the pillars of Islam. According to some divines, one who neglects his Salat is an unbe - liever. There are plenty of mosques but few are the worshippers that frequent them. There are mosques that are being used as sta - bles and are desecrated and yet Muslims feel no obligation to uti - lize them for worship. Another change predicted by the Holy Prophet s as is that people would offer the Salat in haste. According to a report by Ibn Mas‘ u d, the Holy Prophet s as said that a time would come when fifty people would pray and none of their prayers would be accepted by God. 14 This means that they would pray hastily. Of course, it is not possible to say something about the inner state of a person, for God alone is aware of it, but the apparent sign of the state of one’s prayer is to see whether he prays hastily or unhurriedly. On one occasion, the Holy Prophet s as told a person who was going through his prayer quickly that his prayer had not been accepted and that he should pray again. 15 Another sign is the indecent haste people show in observing the Salat. Their prostra - tions are in such rapid succession that it seems like a hen pecking, but after the prescribed prayer is finished they sit for a long time repeating some incantations. Another sign predicted by the Holy Prophet s as is that the Holy Quran would ‘disappear’ and only its form would remain. 16 This sign, too, has come to pass. The Holy Quran exists and yet no one reflects on it. It is strange that, leaving aside the followers of the Promised Messiah as , no one even bothers to read the Holy Quran. Many learned scholars of fiqh and Hadith do not deliberate upon