The Holy Quran with Five Volume Commentary (Vol 1) — Page 39
PT. 1 AL-BAQARAH which dispels doubt and helps to establish a real and living contact between him and his Creator. There is a tendency to condemn institutional worship as useless and ceremonial. Worship, it is said, is an attitude of the mind and should be confined strictly to it. There is no doubt that attitudes belong to the mind and if the mind is corrupt, humility of the body can be of no avail. A person whose heart is unimpressed by the Majesty and Glory of God and who yet sings His praise is a hypocrite; but so also is the person who claims to accept a certain truth, yet his body and behaviour show no signs of it. When a person is in love, his face betrays a peculiar emotion when the beloved appears before him. Parents fondle and kiss their children and friends express their affection by visible movements. These demonstrations of affection are CH. 2 is bound to meet with a similar fate. Besides other advantages, Prayers in congregation, as Muslim Prayers always are, foster the spirit of brotherhood. Five times a day believers, both rich and poor, have to stand unceremoniously together, shoulder to shoulder, and offer their humble supplications to God. The busiest and the biggest of them have to find the time and join in this united act of worship. Such a fellowship cannot but wholesomely impact the worshippers' hearts. Incidentally, it may also be remarked that the outward form of the Islamic Prayer includes all the poses of the body expressive of humility, i. e. standing with folded arms, bowing, prostrating, and sitting with folded knees, each pose being allotted a corresponding prayer. Besides the prescribed Prayers, one is free to pray in one's own words and spontaneous, not assumed. It is, one's own way. therefore, impossible that a man should love God and entertain a true man longing for Him, but should not seek to express this love or longing by some outward acts; and this is the secret of all worship. Worship is the outer expression of the inner relationship of with God. Moreover, God's favours surround the body as well as the soul. Thus, perfect worship is only that in which body and soul both play their part. Without the two the true spirit of worship cannot be preserved, for though adoration by the heart is the substance and adoration by the body only the shell, yet the substance cannot be preserved without the shell. If the shell is destroyed, the substance 39 The expression, they spend out of what We have provided for them, includes not only spending in the cause of Allah but also spending for the welfare of the individual and the community. The words used here are used in their widest possible sense. Wealth, power, influence, physical and intellectual capacities in short, all that one may receive from God- must be devoted, partly at least, to the well-being of others. The beneficiaries of this injunction are not confined to the poor alone. All who have claims over the belongings of a Muslim are entitled to a share in them. The injunction applies to a mother who gives suck