After reading the Tashahhud , the Ta'uz and the first chapter of the Holy Quran, Hazrat Amirul Mo'menine, Zafrullah Domun recited verse 187 of chapter AlBaqara (Chapter2) of the Holy Quran and then he said:
Today is the 18 th day of fasting in Mauritius . The ten days for the manifestation of divine forgiveness is coming to an end and the ten days for deliverance from Hell will start on Sunday 21 st September which in fact will be the 20 th day of fasting. On that date will also begin what is known as the days of ittiqaf which will be for ten days and will end when the new moon of Shawwal will be visible.
From well known and authentic traditions we know that the Holy Prophet Mohammad (saw) used to stay in the mosque these last ten days of Ramadan. It is also said that when the last ten days approached the Holy Prophet (saw) renewed his determination for worship and devotion. In a hadith narrated by ' Aisha (ra) it is said : With the start of the last ten days of Ramazan , Allah's Messenger (saw) used to tighten his waist-belt ( i.e . hard work) and used to offer Salat (Prayer) all the night , and used to keep his family awake for the Salat ( prayers) . That was how the Holy prophet(saw) used to thank his Lord for giving him the month of Ramazan, a month full of blessings. In addition these last ten days are associated with the seeking of the night of destiny (laylatul Qadr) which according to the Holy Quran is better than 1000 months.
According to the instructions of the Holy Prophet Mohammad (saw), we should seek this blessed night on the odd nights, namely 21st , 23rd, 25th, 27th and 29th . This means that during these nights we should pray as much as we can because we never know if these days would ever come back in our life or not. In the hadith it is said: “Whoever stays up (in prayer and remembrance of Allah) on the Night of Qadr fully believing (in Allah's promise of reward for that night) and hoping to seek reward (from Allah alone and not from people), he shall be forgiven for his past sins.” (Sahih Bukhari / Muslim). May Allah grant each one of us the capacity and opportunity to be awake and pray on all these blessed night incha Allah.
So, all of us, young and old, men and women, we should make the good intention that as from Sunday next we will devote more time to worship ( ebadat ) especially at night. First and foremost we should ask Allah for forgiveness for all our past sins and we should seek His Help lest we sin again in the future. Should you by the Grace of Allah understand that you are witnessing the night of laylatuol Qadr , it would be good if you follow the advice of the Holy Prophet to Hazrat Ayesha when he told her to say the following prayer if ever she saw the night that blessed night : Allahoumma innaka afouwoun tohibboul afwa fa'fo anni . The translation is as follows: “O Allah you are the Effacer of sins, you like to efface sins, please efface my sins.” Let us hope and pray that Allah may help us to witness this night incha Allah.
Since we are entering in a period where all of us would be striving to offer plenty of supplications to Allah and since I promised you that I will give you some important quotations from the writings of Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad (as), The Mahdi and Promised Messiah of the latter days, I will now read to you from his writings. You may then appreciate what emphasis he has laid on prayer and supplications for all his followers to learn from. He was a knower of Allah par excellence. In his lifetime he witnessed innumerable experiences where his prayers were accepted. In all his writings whether in prose or verse or even in his discourses he stressed upon prayers and supplications to the Almighty for the attainment of our objectives. He has also written a small booklet about this subject entitled “ Barakaatud do'a ”, the English translation of which may be downloaded from http://www.alislam.org/library/books/Blessings-of-Prayer.pdf . I will first quote from this book itself. He says:
“The subject of the acceptance of prayer is a branch of the subject of prayer. A person who does not comprehend the principle encounters difficulty in comprehending a branch. This is at the bottom of the misunderstanding of Syed Sahib. The principle of prayer is that there is a mutually attractive relationship between a pious servant and his Lord. To begin with, the Rahmaniyyat of God Almighty draws a servant to itself. Then through his sincerity the servant approaches close to God Almighty and in prayer that relationship, when it arrives at a certain stage, manifests its wonderful qualities. When a servant being confronted with a great difficulty leans towards God Almighty with perfect certainty, perfect hope, perfect love, perfect fidelity and perfect resolve, and becoming extremely alert and tearing aside the veils of heedlessness advances far into the fields of the discarding of self, he beholds in front of him the court of the Divine and perceives that He has no associate. Then the soul prostrates itself at that threshold and the power of attraction that is invested in him draws the bounty of God Almighty towards itself. Then God, the Glorious, addresses Himself towards fulfilling the purpose of the supplication and casts the effect of prayer on all those preliminary means which give rise to the means that are necessary for the achievement of the purpose of the prayer. For instance, if the prayer is for rain then on its acceptance the natural means that are needed for rain are created by the effect of the prayer. If the prayer is for famine the All-Powerful One creates the contrary means. It has been proved to the satisfaction of those who have frequent experience of visions that in the prayer of a perfect person a power of fashioning is created. That is to say, by the command of God the prayer exercise control in the lower and higher world and turns the elements and heavenly bodies and the hearts of people to the direction that is desired.”
The text is quite clear. There is no need for me to give any additional explanations. In another extract he says:
“When a child being driven by hunger cries for milk, then milk is generated in the mother's breasts. The child does not know what prayer is, but his cries draw the milk. This is a universal experience. Sometimes when the mother does not perceive the presence of milk in her breasts, the child's cries help to draw it. Then can our cries before God Almighty draw nothing? They certainly draw everything, but the learned ones and philosophers, who are blind, cannot see it. If a person were to reflect on the philosophy of prayer, keeping in mind the connection and relationship which a child has with its mother, it would be quite easy. The second type of mercy comes into operation after supplication. Go on asking and it will be given to you. Call on Me, I shall respond to you, is not mere words, but is a characteristic of human nature. It is human to supplicate and it is a Divine characteristic to respond. He who does not understand and does not believe is false. The illustration of the child that I have set forth expounds the philosophy of prayer in an excellent way. (Report Jalsa salana compiled by Shiekh Yaqub Ali Irfani, reprinted in Malfoozat, Vol. 1, p, p. 129-130)
In another extract he says:
“It is at a time of trial that the wonderful and rare qualities and effects of prayer are manifested. The truth is that God is recognized only through prayer.(Malfoozat,Vol.3p.30I). “Prayer is a wonderful thing. It is a pity that those who pray are not aware of the true manner of prayer, nor are they acquainted with the ways of the acceptance of prayer. The truth is that the very reality of prayer has become strange. There are some who deny the effectiveness of prayer altogether and there are others who do not deny it, but as their prayers are not accepted on account of their lack of knowledge of the manner of prayer and are not prayers in the true sense, their condition is worse than that of those who deny the effectiveness of prayer. Their practical condition has pushed many others to the verge of atheism. The first condition for prayer is that a supplicant should not get tired and become a prey to despair that nothing will happen. Sometimes it is seen that a prayer is carried on till it is about to be accepted and then the supplicant gets tired and the result is failure and frustration. Frustration results in the denial and effectiveness of prayer and gradually culminates in the denial of God. It is said if there is God Who accepts prayer why have not those prayers been accepted which were offered over a long period? If those who think thus and stumble were to reflect upon their lack of perseverance, they would come to know that all their frustration is the result of their own haste and impatience which generated an ill concept of the powers of God and resulted in despair. So one should never get tired.”
“Praying is like the sowing of a seed by a cultivator. By carrying out sowing over a field, he places underground the seed corn. Who can expect at that time that every grain of seed will be nurtured like a good plant and will bring a harvest? Outsiders and even the cultivator himself cannot see that the grain is assuming the form of a plant inside the earth. But the reality is that within a few days the grain undergoes a change and begins to assume the shape of a plant till its shoot emerges from the earth and becomes visible to everyone. From the moment when the grain was placed in the earth it had started its preparation to become a plant, but an eye that can only perceive the visible was not aware of it till its shoot emerged from the earth and became visible. An ignorant child cannot understand at that stage that it will bear fruit only at its due time. He desires to see it bearing fruit immediately, but an intelligent cultivator will know what the time of its bearing fruit is. He looks after it steadfastly and nurtures it till the time comes when it bears fruit and that fruit ripens. The same is the case with prayer, which is nurtured in the same way and brings forth fruit. Those who are in haste get tired quickly and give up and those who are steadfast persevere and arrive at their objective. It is true that there are many stages in prayer, ignorance of which deprives the supplicants, of the fruits of their prayers. They are in a hurry and cannot wait, whereas there is progression in the works of the Almighty. It never happens that a man should marry today and a child might be born to him tomorrow. Though God is All Powerful and can do whatever He wills, yet compliance with the law and the system that He has appointed is necessary. In the first stages of child bearing nothing is known, like the nurture of vegetation. For four months there is no certainty. Then a movement begins to be felt and after the expiry of the full period the child is born after great travail. The birth of the child is also the birth of the mother. It is difficult for a man to form a concept of the troubles and travails which a woman has to endure during her pregnancy, but it is true that the coming of a child is a new life for the mother. She has to accept death so as to have the joy of bearing a child. In the same way, it is necessary for a supplicant that he should discard haste and endure all troubles and should never imagine that prayer is not accepted. At last the time arrives for the result of the prayer to be manifested; the child which is the objective is born. A prayer should be carried on to the limit until it produces a result. You will have observed that a piece of cloth is placed under a burning glass and the rays of the sun concentrate upon it and their heat arrives at the degree which sets the cloth on fire. In the same way, it is necessary that a prayer should be carried on to a stage where it should develop the power of burning up failures and frustrations and to fulfill the desired purpose. One has to be occupied with prayer for a long time and then God Almighty manifests the result. It is my experience, which is borne out by the experience of the righteous in the past, that if there is silence for a long time, there is hope of success, but if there is a quick reply the purpose is not likely to be achieved. When a beggar goes to someone and begs with humility and earnestness and does not move from his place, even after he is rebuked, and continues his supplication, then in the end the person supplicated is moved and bestows something on the beggar despite his miserliness. Then should not a supplicant have at least so much steadfastness as an ordinary beggar? When God Almighty Who is Benevolent and possesses Majesty sees that His humble servant has been prostrate at His threshold for a long time, He does not lead him to a bad end. If a pregnant woman should become impatient after four or five months and should take some abortive medicine, the child would not be born, but she herself would be involved in despair. In the same way, he who is in a hurry before the due time only suffers loss and puts his faith in danger. In this condition some people become atheists. There was a carpenter in our village whose wife fell ill and then died. He said that if there had been a God, his multiple prayers would have been accepted and his wife would not have died. In this way he became an atheist. If a serious person practices fidelity and sincerity, his faith is fostered and he achieves his purpose. The riches of this world have no value in the estimation of God Almighty. He can do everything in a single moment. Have you not seen that He bestowed sovereignty on a people who were entirely unknown and made great kingdoms obedient to them and made kings out of slaves? If a person is righteous and becomes wholly God's, he would lead an excellent life, but the condition is that he should be sincere and possess resolve. His heart should never be shaken and there should be no showing off and shirk in it. What was there in Abraham which made him the father of his people and the father of those who are devoted to God, and God Almighty bestowed numberless great blessings on him? It was his righteousness and his sincerity. Abraham had offered a prayer that a Prophet should appear in Arabia from among his progeny. Was it accepted at once? For a long time after Abraham no one paid any attention to that prayer, yet it was fulfilled in the advent of the Holy Prophet and how grand was its fulfillment.” (Malfoozat, Vol. IV, pp. 4I5--420) .
There are a lot of extracts which will help you to get an increase in faith and which will incline you to use this great weapon to your advantage. O my brothers and sisters we are getting a golden opportunity to pray in the coming days, Let us not be negligent and let us use this opportunity to help our own selves to get rid of the bondage of sins and to become the recipient of divine blessings. The Promised Messiah came to revive these teachings which were being drowned by the onslaught of materialism. We Ahmadis should show to the world that by accepting the Messiah we have come closer to Allah and we show it thorough our deeds and not only through our words. May Allah have mercy on all of us. More incha Allah next time. |