Malfuzat - Volume IX — Page 290
290 MALFŪZĀT - ENGLISH TRANSLATION OF URDU VOLUME 9 'cautionary' Prayer. Such people are caught up in doubt. Their Friday Prayer is lost in doubt and their Zuhr Prayer is the same. Neither this nor that was attained. The essential point is to observe the Friday Prayer, but there is no need for the caution- ary Prayer. ¹ 8 JUNE 1907 (At the time of Aşr) The Importance of Istikhārah The Promised Messiahas said: These days most Muslims have abandoned the Sunnah [Practice] of Istikhārah whereas the Holy Prophet, may peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, used to perform the Istikhārah with respect to any upcoming matter. This was also the practice of the Salaf Salihin [Righteous Predecessors; i. e. the first three generations of Muslims]. Given the abounding atmosphere of atheism, people commence a project feeling so proud of their learning and wisdom, but then they sustain a loss due to their lack of knowledge of factors completely hid- den from view. In fact, this practice of Istikhārah was initiated in place of those awful customs that the idolaters carried out 1. Badr, vol. 6, no. 23, p. 8, dated 6 June 1907