After reciting the Tashahhud, the Ta’uz and the first chapter Al Fatiha of the Holy Quran, Hazrat Amirul Mo’emenine, Zafrullah Domun said:

Today I will again share with you some of the writings of Hazrat Masih Maood ^as on sura Al Fatiha. You will recall that until recently I have been making a few sermons on the subject of Namaz and we have not yet finished speaking about the chapter Al Fatiha. Since our prayer is not valid if we do not read Sura Al Fatiha therefore we should learn to understand all the fine points of wisdom that this small chapter contains. This cannot be taught to us by anyone. We need to learn it from some one who knows. The person who has drunk deep from this fountain is Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad^as. In my previous speeches I have already spoken about the first six verses. I will speak now about the last verse “the path of those on whom you have bestowed your blessings not on the path of those who have incurred thy displeasure nor those who have gone astray”.

Now the question that comes to mind is who are those people. According to the Holy Quran chapter 4 verse 70 we read:

 “And whoso obeys Allah and this Messenger of His shall be among those on whom Allah has bestowed His blessings, namely, the Prophets, the Truthful, the Martyrs, and the Righteous. And excellent companions are these. [4:70] 

These are the people  whom Allah has blessed. But who are those who have incurred Allah’s displeasure and who have gone astray? When the companions asked the Holy prophet about this he said “innal maghzoube alayhim al yahood wazzaalleen an nasara”. That is to say “those who have incurred Allah’s displeasure are the Jews and those who have gone astray are the Christians”. This hadith may be found in Tirmidhi and Musnad.

So in this chapter the Muslim is taught to pray for the right path and to  stay away from the path of those who have incurred Allah’s anger and who have gone astray. Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad ^as has taught his followers to bear in mind whenever they are praying what they are asking Allah. Every time an Ahmadi stands up for prayer and starts reciting Sura Al Fatiha he should bear in mind that he is asking Allah to grant him these four ranks that is Nabi, Siddique, Shahid and Saleh. When you pray you are not just discharging a duty that you do not like to perform. No it is a request, it is a plea, it should be a request made with pain in the heart and longing for its attainment. In fact you are asking Allah to make you attain these ranks through His Grace. And this is the distinction of this umma; its people can even reach the rank of prophethood through obedience to the Holy Prophet Mohammad ^saw without bringing any new law. This interpretation has not been given only by Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad alone. Before him many Muslim Saints have expressed these ideas. Among those who are very often cited are Hazrat Mohyuddin Ibn Arabi, Maulana Rumi , Syed Abdul Qadir Jilani. And recently there is Dr Ibrahim Souroush, an Iranian professor  who lives in the USA. However since such an idea is too complicated do be understood by traditional theologians (Ulama e rosum ) any one who supports such an idea is declared a heretic by them. That is what they have been doing with the Ahmadis since 120 years. That is what they have been doing with every Muslim divine who said anything that was difficult for them to understand.

But for those who know and who get their knowledge from Allah this possibility is there. Allah can make whom He wishes a prophet besides being a Siddique and Shahid and Saleh. Now I will read to you some comments of Hazrat Masih Maood ^as on this subject. He says:

            “Thus Allah taught His servants the prayer: Guide us along the straight path; the path of those on whom Thou hast bestowed Thy favours, those who have not incurred Thy wrath and have not gone astray. Guidance 'comprises revelation, inspiration, visions, dreams, dialogue between man and God so that the mysteries of the Holy Quran may be revealed by these means and faith may thereby be strengthened. For those are the true objectives of the spiritual pilgrims who desire that the profundities of Divine knowledge be revealed to them, so that they may know their Lord in this very world and gain increase of love and faith and turn their faces away from the world to attain union with the object of their love. That is why Allah has invited people to seek this favour from His august Presence.

For He well knows the desire for union and the certainty of faith and the knowledge their hearts compass and was thus mercifully inclined towards them and prepared for the seekers every kind of insight. Next, He commanded them to beg for these in the mornings and in the evenings and in the night and in the day. He gave them this command as it was His pleasure to bestow these gifts upon them, in fact, after He had determined that they would be given them and after He had made them heirs of the Prophets who had been granted before them all the gifts of guidance directly. See then how benevolent has Allah been to us, commanding us in the Mother of the Book, to seek through prayer every type of guidance granted to the Prophets, so that all that was revealed to them may also be revealed to us, but through following them and as a reflection of that which was granted to them, and according to the measure of our respective capacities and resolves. How can we then reject the bounty of Allah that has been prepared for us if we are really candidates for His guidance; and how can we disregard it after we have been told of it by the most Truthful of the True (Hamamatul Bushra, pp. 80-81).

This quotation is from an Arabic book written by Hazrat Ahmad as. In another extract from another Arabic book he says:

“The teaching of the most authentic Book of Allah and of the Prophet of Allah (Peace and blessings of Allah be on him) is divisible into three parts. First, that the wild ones should be tamed into human beings and should be taught proper behav­iour and be equipped with human susceptibilities. Secondly, that they may be promoted from average human beings to the highest stage of moral excellence. Thirdly, that they may be raised from the ethical level to the level of the love of the Creator so that they may attain to the stage of closeness to the Divine and His pleasure and His company and immersion in Him and a melting-down in His love and absorption in Him that is, to the stage where one's self and choice are shed and Allah alone remains just as He alone will survive the annihi­lation of this universe, in His Supremacy. This then is the last stage of the pilgrims' journeying to God, men and women, and here terminate all strivings and here end all the paths of saintliness. This is the stage of steadfastness that is the object of the Fatiha prayer. All the vain desires generated by the promptings of the evil-bidding ego flare up and are consumed at this stage under the command of the Lord of Might and Honour. The whole city is then thrown open and the ferment of the masses of vain desires subsides and it is asked: Whose is the dominion today? Surely, of Allah, Lord of Dignity and of Greatness (Najmul Huda, p. 7).

Now I invite you to meditate upon these words. If you think that by merely listening to them during the sermons you will understand its importance you are mistaken. I would like you to become different than others who call themselves Ahmadi. I want you to get to what is most important in prayer. That is to get a personal relationship with Allah. From experience I can say that very few people have an intimate relationship with Allah as Hazrat Masih Maood as wished us to be. Those who are with us have been given a second chance so to say. And if they do as they are told they will become the real spiritual heirs of Hazrat Masih Maood ^as. Just observe around you about the number of people who are regularly praying to Allah. But how many amongst them can you say that they have an intimate relationship with Allah and that Allah showers on them His spiritual favours as have been asked in this chapter? In another extract Hazrat Masih says:

“In this Surah (the Fatiha), Allah, the Sublime, teaches His Muslim servants, so to say, in these words: 0 My servants, you have observed the Jews and the Christians, beware then of acting like them and hold fast to the rope of prayer and uprightness and forget not the blessings of Allah like the Jews, lest His wrath should afflict you, and disregard not the true sciences and prayer and slacken not in seeking guidance as did the Christians, otherwise you will be lost. He has urged the seeking of guidance by pointing out that perseverance in seeking guidance is not possible, except through constancy in prayer and humility before Allah. It is also stressed that guidance comes from Allah and. that man can never be guided aright except when Allah guides him and admits him among the rightly directed. A further point is that guidance is endless and that man can climb up to it by means of the ladder of prayers. He who gives up prayer loses his ladder. He alone is deserving of guidance who keeps his tongue occupied with the remembrance of his Lord and prays with earnest constancy. One who gives up prayer and claims that he is one of the rightly guided, bedecks himself for public show with that which he possesses not and will fall into the pit of polytheism and ostentation and will forsake the body of the devoted ones. But the sincere one rises higher and higher, day by day, until he becomes the select and His munificence grants him a secret that subsists only between Allah and him and he is admitted to the body of favorites and is promoted to the rank of the accepted ones.”

Reflect upon these words as I am telling you in order to deepen your understanding of what Allah expects of you and how He has made easy for you the path that will lead to Him. This applies to both men and women. The following is the extract that I was looking for to tell you with regard to what I said about the sincerity of the helpers of the Mahdi. Alhamdulillah Allah has shown it to me inadvertently in order that I may share it with you. I read this extract in the early days when I became the Amir Jamaat in Mauritius. But I can tell you that it has helped me a lot to deliver my self of the love and fear of any other besides Allah. I hope it will be even more useful to you. Hazrat Masih says continuing with the above quotation:

 “No one can reach the reality of faith until he comprehends the reality of sincerity and is firmly established in it. He is not truly sincere so long as there is in the world aught that he relies upon or is afraid of or considers helpful for himself. No one can be safe from the ruin and evil of his ego until after Allah has accepted him, because of his sincerity, and guards him by His grace and His power and His might and by giving him a taste of the wine of the spirit. For the ego is foul at the height of its malignance, and is the breeding ground of fatal, noxious and offensive misguidance. Therefore, Allah, the Supreme, has taught His servants to run to Him, praying and seeking security against its wickedness and its afflictions, so that He may admit them into the party of the protected. Undoubtedly the emotions of the ego are very much like high fevers. As there are encountered in the course of these fevers fearsome and acute conditions like ague, cold fits, paroxysms, or profuse sweating, or nose-bleeding or excessive vomiting or debilitating diarrhea and unbearable thirst or excessive sleep or insomnia or coated tongue, or dryness of the mouth or continual sneezing or severe headache or fits of cough or loss of appetite or hiccups and all the symptoms that the fever stricken have, similar are the outbursts and symptoms of the ego. Its elements are in constant ferment, its billows heave and its afflictions make their rounds, its heifers bleat, its captives expire and only a few are secure against it.”

The seeking of guidance then is like turning to an eminent physician and placing oneself wholly in the hands of the healers. The bounty which Allah has indicated for His servants is the utter detachment of the worshipper from the world and his turning wholly to Allah and the warmth of his attachment to Allah and sustaining and maintaining of his devotion and Allah's reciprocating him with His blessings and His inspiration and His responsive favours and dignifying him among His own dignified ones and admitting him among His protected servants, and His direction: O fire! be thou cool and harmless for Ibrahim (21.70); and making him one of the pure and the holy. This indeed is cure from the fever of sins and a treatment regime that none but the Lord of Universal Providence knows

(Karamatus Sadiqeen, pp. 82-83).

More incha Allah next week.