Understanding Salat — Page 120
Understanding S al A t 120 occupy his mind and religion is not his objective, then he should weep at his condition. ( Malf uzā t (10 vol edition), vol. 7, pp. 117) The purpose of praising Allah before our prayer is to remove every materialistic priority from our mind and only make Allah our objective. We reflect on how perfect and infinite our Beloved is and how temporary and flawed everything is that distracts us from Him. Such praise changes the priorities in our prayer. After praising Allah, the prayer that seemed urgent and important before now seems small. The object of our prayer is no longer the thing we want; it is Allah. If we pray for a job after praising Allah, we now only want the job as a gift from Allah and as a sign of the acceptance of prayer so that it brings us closer to Allah. The thought of that job taking us away from Allah makes it repulsive in our eyes; we want nothing to do with it. We now only want that job if it increases us in the greater praise of Allah and nearness to Him. Hadrat Mu s le h Mau‘ ū d ra said, When Allah Almighty does a favor to a believer, then he will say Al h amdulill ā h, but he will also say, “All praise belongs to Allah for this favor, but my desti- nation is still far. ” When he receives another favor, he will say, “All praise belongs to Allah for this favor, but I want to attain You, these small things are not my