Living Islam (mission, prophet, marriage, faith, muslims)

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Prayer: The Key to Good Life

The sincere and devoted prayer helps a person to enter the Paradise, and it is the key to everything good. In fact, the benefits of prayer are numerous, both in this world and the Hereafter; its benefits are spiritual, moral, physical, individual, and social.

Prayer is our link, our bond, and our communication with Allah. If you love Allah and want Him to love you, know that the prayer is the means to that.

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Significance of Prayer

If a person really believes in Allah (God), how will he show it? And how will it affect his life?

For a Muslim, his faith is first demonstrated by the five daily ritual Prayers called Salah. These Prayers are so important that they are the second Pillar of Islam after the Testimony of Faith (“There is no god but God and Muhammad is the Messenger of God”), obligatory for all, and they are the first thing the Muslim will be asked about on Judgment Day.

Five times a day a Muslim is asked to stop whatever he is doing — be it sleep, work, or play — and make a ritual ablution before facing his Lord in Prayer. No matter what his actions, the most important thing to a Muslim is his relationship with Allah. This relationship is demonstrated and put into practice, as well as improved and increased, by the ritual Prayers. Only if the Prayers are sound and proper will the deeds be sound and proper.

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Show Your Gratitude Through Worship

One of the fundamental components of a person's relationship with Allah is worship. As one's heart is filled with gratitude to one's benefactor, one expresses indebtedness, humility, and surrender to him.

This is a natural response, observed even in domestic animals and pets. They express gratitude by gesture or look, but human beings are required to express gratitude in a much more pronounced manner. It is an ordinary experience that a person owing a debt of gratitude to another expresses these feelings in appropriate manners and speech ...

One should reflect gratitude to Allah by way of surrendering humbly and fully to Him. In doing so, one acts in a natural way and will be blessed with tranquility and spiritual contentment ...

The gratitude we owe to Allah is manifested in our worship. It is expressed both verbally and by gesture and body movement. Worship embodies outwardly our gratitude to our Benefactor ...

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The Prophet's Mercy Towards the Elderly

The Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said,

"If a young man honors an elderly on account of his age, Allah appoints someone to honor him in his old age."

The Prophet here advises the young of the Muslim society, who will be tomorrow's elderly, to honor the elderly. Continuous application of this Prophetic advice helps bridge the gap between generations and spreads an atmosphere of love and understanding between the young and the old.

Consider here also the generalization in the Prophet's words: "If a young man honors an elderly;" the hadith requires honoring the elderly regardless of their color or religion ...

A Sign of Reverence for Allah

The Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said,

"It is out of reverence to Allah to respect the white-headed (aged) Muslim."

The hadith implies all kinds of respect and care for the elderly: Health care, psychological care, social care, economic care, ending illiteracy, providing education, and other forms of care that the international community calls for today.

In one hadith, the Prophet disavows those who do not venerate the elderly and considers them alien to the Muslim society:

"He is not one of us who does not show mercy to our young ones and esteem to our elderly."

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Family: A Divinely Inspired Institution

The institution of the family plays a very important part in the Muslim society. It is a basic unit of that society and is organized in such a way that it operates as society in miniature. About one third of the legal injunctions of the Qur'an relate to the family and its proper regulation.

The network of rights and obligations that provides the basis of family life aims at producing those attitudes and behavioral patterns, that Islam wants to foster in the individual and in society.

A new balance has been established in the roles and relationships that exist between men and women, between young and old, between near-relatives and distant kith and kin, between freedom and discipline, between individual discretion and social control.

The Muslim family is an extended family, different relations occupying different positions. It is not a nuclear, atomistic family consisting of the parents and children only; it normally has three or four generations under its umbrella.

A careful look at the Islamic law of inheritance shows that all these relations are an integral part of the basic family structure and not just peripheral to it. ...

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The Afterlife: The Resurrection

Belief in life after death gives meaning to our life, for it tells us that this life is only a test and preparation for an eternal life. Furthermore, we know that in the afterlife we will receive justice for all the wrongs we suffer here. It may seem that the sinful and corrupt are often happier or wealthier than the righteous, but that is only for a short time. In the afterlife they will get their due.

Belief in life after death encourages a person to lead a good life on earth, since he knows the fate that awaits him if he ignores the commands and warnings of Allah given in the Qur’an. In fact, belief in the afterlife is the strongest incentive for a person to lead a life of virtue here. The real road to a peaceful society can be paved only if people believe in an afterlife

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The Hospitality of The Prophet, peace be upon him

Muhammad was also a very hospitable person, even before he was raised to the status of a Prophet. Nobody ever went away from him empty handed. He used to feed the poor, the needy, the widows and orphans and was very popular among the people of Makkah. In Madinah, his hospitality knew no bounds and his house was open to all, rich and poor, friend and foe. All came to him and were treated very generously. People used to come in large numbers from all directions, and he entertained them all and served them personally.

His hospitality was not confined to Muslims alone, but was extended to all human beings, irrespective of status or creed. Polytheists and Jews were his guests and he entertained them all, without any distinction. When a Christian deputation came from Abyssinia, he kept them in his house and served them personally throughout their stay. Once when a polytheist was his guest, Muhammad gave him the milk of one goat and he drank it all. The Prophet gave him the milk of a second goat, which he drank as well. In this way the guest drank the milk of seven goats but Muhammad did not stop offering him milk until he was satisfied.

Sometimes it so happened that the guests ate all that was available in the house and nothing was left for the Prophet and his family to eat, so they had to go without food that night. This was not an unusual occurrence in the Prophet's house. ...

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Prophet’s Love and Tolerance for Mankind

According to a tradition recorded in the Sahih of Imam Muslim, when the Prophet’s opponents greatly increased their persecution, his Companions asked him to curse them. At this the Prophet replied, “I have not been sent to lay a curse upon men but to be a blessing to them.” His opponents continued to treat him and his Companions unjustly and cruelly, but he always prayed for them.

Once he was so badly stoned by his enemies that the blood began to spurt from all over his body. This happened when he went to Ta’if, where the Hijaz aristocracy used to while away their summer days. When he attempted to call them to Islam, instead of listening to his words of wisdom, they set the street urchins upon him, who kept chasing him till nightfall. Even at that point, when he was utterly exhausted and bleeding from head to foot, all he said was, “O my Lord, guide my people along the true path, as they are ignorant of the truth.”

His heart was filled with intense love for all human kind irrespective of caste, creed, or color. Once he advised his Companions to regard all people as their brothers and sisters. He added, “You are all Adam’s offspring and Adam was born of clay.”