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AS
GOD DOES NOT NEED OUR WORSHIP, WHY NEED
WE DO SO, AND IF
WE DO, WHY NOT DO IT IN WHATEVER WAY
WE WISH?
If
we consider the condition man is in this
vast universe, it is that of a needy
dependent. Man is neither omnipotent,
nor self-sufficient. He is in need,
constant need, of many things vital even
for mere survival, which are not wholly
within his power to obtain. At the same
time, he is weak and vulnerable: many
circumstances can arise which can harm
him and obstruct and overturn his most
cherished and determined purposes. He is
beset by worries, illnesses, calamities
that can ruin his life’s work in a
single moment. As against the sheer
scale of what is around him, the number
and the variety of plants, trees,
animals, rivers and mountains, the
awesome power of natural forces, the
grandeur of the heavens, he is bound to
reflect on his own frailty and relative
insignificance. That reflection, that
profound impression of his own
helplessness and smallness compared to
the tremendous harmonies and scales of
the order all around him, awaken
something deeply embedded in his soul
which bids him to acknowledge the Divine
and to worship. He is bound to consider
the existence of some great mysterious
power behind or beyond nature which
controls the objects and events around
him. Since everything he can observe is
patently dependent on some other thing,
since everything is transient, nothing
he can see or touch can be that which he
needs to worship. Rather, both reason
and experience lead him to conclude that
there is a Supreme Being, a Transcendent
Will, beyond the visible, tangible
harmony of the universe, who guides and
controls all things and who must,
therefore, be the goal of his worship.
Reflecting
more carefully on existence, man notes
the all-compassing lawfulness and order,
the uniformity and regularity of things
and events, their obedience to an
All-Powerful Will in the universe. He
thus realizes that everything has a part
in that lawfulness and order which is
its purpose or duty. Being himself just
a part, he concludes that his existence
cannot be a purposeless accident, but
that he too must have a purpose and duty
to fulfill.
Observing
existence in its aspect of aesthetic
beauty, he finds it excellent to a
degree impossible to emulate. From the
human form itself, to the vigorous,
lively beauty of the innumerable forms
and colors of the earth, to the glory of
the stars and planets, everything calls
to his heart, building in it something
more than awe, an ardor and longing to
know the Creator and Owner of all this
that so thrills and delights his senses
and his mind. It is as if everything in
this world had been designed and
produced elsewhere and then simply put
before man for him to marvel at, even as
he uses and profits from it. The world
is presented to man like a table richly
laid with fruits and vegetables, and
ornaments of every kind for his use and
delight. As he stretches his hand to any
of these gifts, he inevitably senses the
presence of the Giver, and so
experiences a still greater joy and
wonder. Were babies able to formulate
thoughts and express them, they would
certainly say that the milk they suck is
as if prepared and sent from a different
realm just because they need that milk.
They would express gratitude and
reverence to the One who nourishes in
this way through the mother’s breast.
In
the formal language of religion, we
would say that sentiments and
conceptions such as these aroused in
human consciousness, as it were by
nature, are a stage in acknowledging the
Beautiful Names and Attributes of the
Creator making Himself known through His
creation. For every blessing, every
excellence, every beauty, speaks of the
one who created or enabled or provided
it. Every system, balance and order,
indicates one who established and
sustains it. In sum, man is bound to
worship God in response to His making
Himself known. Setting out from this
fact, some of the Muslim theologians
belonging to the Mutazilite and Maturidi
schools, say that if no Prophets had
been sent, if there had been no guides (murshids)
to direct people, even then man is
bound, simply by looking at the facts
manifested in the universe, to come to
know God and act accordingly. There is
much evidence to support this argument.
Before Islam came to them, many people,
including Muhammad, (later the Messenger
of God, upon him be peace), were born in
the heart and citadel of pagan and
polytheist idol-worship, Makka: no one
showed them the way to God no-one spoke
to them, not even to Muhammad, of the
Oneness of God (tawhid). And yet there
was a desert nomad, a Bedouin - desert
man - who said: ‘Camel droppings point
to the existence of a camel. Footprints
on the sand tell of a traveler. The
heaven with its stars, the earth with
its mountains and valleys, and the sea
with its waves - don’t they point to
the Maker, All-Powerful, Knowing, Wise
and Caring?’ If a mere Bedouin, who
knew only sand and desert, could have
such a conception, what of others, such
as the man, later appointed the
Messenger of God, Muhammad, whose
breadth of perception and understanding
were to save the world? Long before the
Divine Revelation came to him, he
realized the meaning of the world,
perceived the Truth (al-Haqq) in the
grand book of the universe, and began to
search for it. Taking refuge in the Cave
of Hira, he devoted himself wholly to
worship. ‘A’ishah, narrating
directly from Khadijah, in a hadith
recorded at the beginning of Bukhari’s
great Sahih (Bukhari, Bad’ al-Wahy,
3), said that he gave himself up wholly
to prayer, only occasionally coming home
to take some provisions. This certainly
indicates that man has the capacity to
reach some degree of knowledge and so
worship God by means of his own
perception and comprehension. It would
be useful to narrate here the last words
and consideration of Zaid bin ‘Amr,
the uncle of ‘Umar ibn al-Khattab. As
God willed, this man did not live long
enough to see the prophethood of
Muhammad, but he felt intuitively the
truth of Islam in the air, the meaning
and significance of the coming of the
Prophet Muhammad. He could not know
how to name what he felt almost to the
full. He had his family members gather
round his death-bed, and said: The light
of God is on the horizon. I certainly
believe that it will emerge fully very
soon. I am already feeling its signs
over our heads.’ Addressing God, he
went on: ‘O Great Creator! I have not
been able to know You thoroughly. Had I
known, I would have put my face upon the
ground before You and never raised it in
quest of Your pleasure’ (Ibn Sad,
Tabaqat, 1, 161-2; Ibn Hajar, al-Isaba).
Evidently, a pure conscience, not
corrupted or conditioned by pagan-ism
and polytheism, can, seeing the splendor
and harmony of the creation, understand
its own station and duty within that
creation, and seek to serve and please
the One who created and ordained all
things.
Knowing
God entails worshipping Him. Since He
provides every blessing to us, service
is owed to Him. Among those blessings is
the blessing of prayer itself and its
proper forms and means. God formulates
the prayers lest, in a clumsy ardor to
please, we should speak or act in an
inappropriate or stupid way. Otherwise.
we might witness people saying such
things as - where are Your knees, O
Lord, that I may place my face upon
them, or Your hand to comfort my head -
and other such graceless and misleading
expressions. Revelation rescues mankind
from this ignorance of not knowing how
to pray. Thus, by God’s revelation
through His Messenger we learn that, to
enter fittingly into the state of
prayer, we must follow certain rules.
Before beginning, you must purify
yourself by wudu. As you begin you must
say Allahu akbar, meaning that God is
greater than any preoccupation or
distraction, greater than your self (nafs),
so that only God is Great. To indicate
surrender, you must stand in a peaceful,
respectful stillness, with hands bound
together in front. From that moment on,
you must concentrate as fully and deeply
as possible. Then, according to your
degree, you may experience in spirit
the ascension granted to God’s Beloved
Messenger. According to the quality of
your concentration and sincerity, you
experience the desire for and joy of
ascent to the places to which the
Prophet ascended. As you rise up
inwardly so you bow down bodily,
graceful, to renew your surrender and
express your humility. As you do so, you
experience a different stage in your
servanthood, and you prostrate in fuller
reverence and humility. According to the
depth of your surrender there, you enter
into different realms. In the hope of
further progress you will raise your
head a while from the first prostration,
to rest and go fresh into the second.
Then you may experience the meaning of
the hadith in Sahih Muslim: The servant
is never closer to God than when he is
prostrating himself in worship. Make
more supplications while prostrating;
and the meaning of the verse: ... Who
sees you when you stand and your
movements among those who prostrate
themselves (al-Shu’ara’, 26.218-19).
Prayer
in forms taught through Divine teachings
and guidance is the best worship which
flows from that love, awe and submission
before God, that belief in Him and
knowledge of His Divine Being bring
about. So that we might not speak or act
inappropriately or stupidly, we follow
the patterns prescribed by God and His
Prophet, by which means we both please
Him further and do what is best for our
own benefit.
Also
consider the difference between the ways
in which human beings and animals come
into existence. Almost from the very
moment an animal is born, it seems to
have been sent to this world after
having been trained in another and
perfected in all its faculties. Within a
few hours or days or months, it comes
into full possession of its natural
capacity to lead its life according to
its particular rules and conditions. A
sparrow or a bee, for example, acquires
in less than a month or, rather, is
inspired with, the skill and ability to
integrate into its environment in a
matter of twenty days, to do which a man
would require twenty years. This means
that the basic obligation upon animals,
their essential role does not include
seeking perfection through learning, or
progress through scientific knowledge;
nor does it include prayer and the
petitioning for help by displaying their
impotence. Their obligation or role in
creation is to act within the bounds of
their innate faculties, which is the
mode of worship specified for them.
Man,
by contrast, is born with no knowledge
of life and his environment and with a
need to learn everything. Unable to know
entirely the conditions of life even
after twenty years, he needs to continue
his learning until the end of his life.
He appears to have been sent to the
world with so much weakness and
inability that it may take him as much
as two years only to learn how to walk.
Only after fifteen years can he
distinguish between good and evil, and
by virtue of living in a society, attain
to a point where he can choose between
what is beneficial and what is harmful
to him.
Thus,
the essential duty of man, the one
intrinsic to his existence, must be to
seek perfection through learning and to
proclaim his worship of Him Who sends
him to the world. He should look for the
answer to such questions- Through whose
compassion is my life so wisely
administered? Through whose generosity
am I being so affectionately trained?
Through whose favor and benevolence am I
being so solicitously nourished? Then he
should pray and petition The Provider of
Needs in humble awareness of his needs,
even one in a thousand of which he is
unable to satisfy.
This
means that man has come to this life to
seek perfection through knowledge and
prayer. Everything by its nature is
essentially dependent on knowledge. And
the basis, source, light and spirit of
all true knowledge are knowledge of God,
and belief is the very foundation of
this knowledge.
In
any walk of life we need help, guidance
and counsel. Imagine a well-wisher
comes and gives you good advice in the
running of your business - make
economies here, investments there, do
this to avoid being cheated, do that to
use manpower more efficiently, and so on
- and this well-wisher makes no charge
whether you accept or refuse his advice.
Surely, unless you were insane, you
would accept the advice. In the same
way, if we follow the manner of prayer
prescribed by God we avoid the pitfalls
of excess and impropriety, and obtain
advantage and blessings beyond our
imagination. It may be that as we utter
Allahu akbar, we press a button that
releases the divine Rahma (Mercy) for us
and our souls are inspired upon a
journey like that of the Prophet’s mi’raj
(journey to heaven), upon him be peace.
It may be that, as we recite the Fatiha,
the opening sura of the Quran, we may
be opening the way into the highest
mystery. In fact with every word,
gesture and movement, and the pattern of
these in the prayer, we may be opening
hidden doors and secret locks leading to
hidden realms and to eternal bliss. All
the ways are straightened and the doors
opened by prayers; also, our recitals
and supplications are heard in the
presence of God, and the Angels gather
around us when we prostrate with
sincerity. No one can claim that such
things do not happen─rather, the
sayings of the Prophet Muhammad
confirm that they do. That is why the
most accepted pattern of worship is
the one prescribed by God. When a
person buys a machine for his use, he is
foolish indeed if, instead of
following the instructions that come
with it, he makes up his own.
Similarly, the Creator knows the best
way for us to operate, to prosper in
this world and the eternal life
hereafter. It is wisdom therefore to
follow the pattern of worship
prescribed by the Creator and
demonstrated by His Messenger, upon
him be peace. In truth, it is only
Muslims whose form of worship, with its
wonderful simplicity and grace, is done
as prescribed by God and which is
pleasing to Him. That is a very great
favor from God to the Muslims.
Throughout the centuries, those who
have, by God’s leave, devoted
themselves to the renewal and revival
of Islam, have always been the best and
most correct in prayer. And this is
still true today. It is we who need to
worship God; not God who needs to be
worshipped. He is free of all need. May
He grant us the favor and honor to
worship Him rightly and with sincerity.
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