Lesson Twenty three
Prayer is the cause of good deeds:
A real story
Free your hand oh! Lively lion!
The holy prophet (cpth) said: (There is no good for he who abandons prayer).
My dearest students, can a person live without food and drink? Really, you will say no, nobody can do so and if he does he will die. It is the same as a person who cannot ‘live’ without prayers. A body need food and drink for energy while prayer serves as food and drink to the heart in order to keep it alive. One’s spirit is highly in need of nourishment more than the body for good deeds. A body can live for a day without food while the spirit cannot. For that reason, God ordained five times meals (prayers) to energise the spirit and to keep it alive with the light of God. The body meals can be: bread, meats, cassava, rice, coco yam... etc. While the spirit gets its meal through prayers legalised in Islamic religion, when the communication with God is achieved, man gets all the good qualities from the Almighty Al’lah. God says: (It is the High quality of God and which one can be better than Allah’s? And we are His worshipers)Sourat 2, Al bakaraverse
138. It is through this worship (prayer) the spirit becomes alive with God’s lights and baptised with love, kindness, bravery, good behaviour and with all good qualities suitable to its state as regard to its love, link with Allah and all its work will only be good.
In fact, God shall never be pleased with the wrongdoer and he shall never enter the Paradise because he doesn’t do good deeds as he prohibits himself ―his heart" from the real life got through prayer from Al’lah’s light, so he kills himself ―his heart" without prayer. This is identical with the Prophet’s (cpth) saying – "There is no good for he who abandons prayer" meaning, he who does not pray kills his heart due to the lack of heart nourishment (prayer); this lack prevents him from good deeds which lead him to Paradise. Prayer is the meal of the heart or mind or spirit without it the spirit has no energy and no good deeds will be done except that of cursed Satan. God says: (And it will be cried out to them: "this is the Paradise which you have inherited for what you used to do(of good deeds)" ) Fortress 7, A‟raf verse 43
He says again: (Those whose lives are taken by the Angels while they are in a pious state (pure from all evils and worshiping Allah alone), saying (to them): Salamun alaikum (peace be upon you) enter your Paradise because of that (good) deed which you used to do (in the world)).
The formalistic prayer mentioned in the book is what many Muslims perform today without concentration and feeling but, it differs from some believers who really taste the pleasure of their prayer, having good feeling and nourish their spirit very well with perfect prayer. So, God has ordained prayers to human being so as to honour other creatures and become very kind and sympathetic to all of them and love his Creator and Provider much more. As a result, he would not be able to harm any creature without a good reason, even an ant, dog, cat, bird...etc. and he would not waste food or water so he becomes well organised in life. This is how a true believer in God the Al-Mighty should be.
Another story that confirmed what was mentioned above is that of the scholar M. A. Sheikho who is as clear as the morning or the day light. God ordered all women to cover their whole bodies, recite Qur’an in their houses as mentioned earlier. In this real story you will ‘see’ the honest feeling against the violation of this command, by the women now in our days, in the heart of the scholar M. A. Sheikho since his childhood. His story with the green grocer shows that, he wants all women to remain in a clean and pure atmosphere with happiness and guiding their chastity. But now in our days, people have put away chastity, purity, and buried moral and honour replacing them with the desires of the cheap and passive earthly life that always result in severe punishment in this world and in the hereafter. Really they forget the paradise promised to them by God. They decorate the earth, beautify women and exchange good for bad. That is the state of people nowadays. ‘People are like their period and their period is like them’.
They have become unmindful because they do not think that, these desires that God put in human spirit are not to destroy them and make them lose their respect in transgression that will result in great pains. But for them to be close to God through leaving the bad desires, keeping away forbidden things and please Allah by their good deeds so as to be granted with paradise ‘tomorrow’. God has promised His creatures with the Gardens of Paradise beside which is pure running water and they will abide in it forever. He says:
(and for such as had feared the supreme Might of their Lord (Provider) and inhibited their spirit from lower whim. Their abode will be the Garden.) Fortress .An-Nazi-at, verses 40 to 41.
In the past centuries things were not as we find nowadays, with downfalls and deterioration in values. People used to hold religious rules very firmly practising them both indoors and outdoors. Till their sincerity with Al’lah’s religion overwhelmed the Christians and Jews so they all practised outdoors the rules of Islam. Veiling was generally applied by all women and girls from all religions, so there was no transgression of Allah’s commands and no immorality.
The story begins:
When scholar M. A. Sheikho was nine years old, he went out one day playing with his friends of almost equal age. Later on, he decided to turn back home and was accompanied by some of his friends. On their way, they were happily discussing with each other, till they arrived at the subsidiary road to his house opposite ‘the flower public shower-room’ in a region called ‘Sarouja market’ in Damascus.
Then they continued their journey till they arrived again by a certain house, where M. A. Sheikho, sensed of an unveiled girl searching for her junior brother out door. When he saw her at that state, his heart bubbled with pain due to his piety, honour and generosity to the female. This unveiling was not existing in the past, showing the real Islamic symbol and the religious rules were strictly practised in and out doors, He immediately picked a stone to shoot her, she realized and ran into the house shutting the door very fast. M. Amin’s stone cracked the door. That inserted a great fear in the heart of the girl and a big lesson to her and others who use to violate the Islamic religious rules. After that he and some of his friends completed their journey to their various homes.
When the girl’s father returned home on his horse, he saw his door cracked. He asked of what had happened and the children explained to him that M. A. Sheikho passed by and saw one of his daughters unveiled and wanted to shoot her and the stone got the door.
The man due to his braveness, immediately prepared his horse and got off his horse with full speed to M. A. Sheikho’s house. When he arrived there, he knocked at the door and he waited by it, M. A. Sheikho gently opened it and stood by it. When the father saw him he embraced him and kissed his forehead saying: ―your hands have been freed oh! The Lion of our quarter, why didn’t you shoot and split her head" !
That was a blessing act, he then moved to a coffee house where young men of the quarter used to sit discussing their affairs. Went in and climbed on a high point and said loudly: "praise to God, oh! Men of Quarter, we haven’t descended with good, so our children, if we are away, protect our women dignity" then he narrated the event of M. A. Sheikho.