We are often told that reciting ayat ul kursi every night has an angel protecting us until we wake up; Or reciting it after every prayer makes nothing come in our path to Jannah except death; And when we make dua between Adhaan and Iqamah, it is definitely answered; And that it is highly recommended that we do the morning and evening adhkaar everyday for our own well being; And the dua when something is hard for us to become easy or the dua when we have pain in our body; And so on..
Do you notice the pattern in the things we do called ‘worship’; everything we do, has a benefit for us in it. (Such is His Mercy ❤)
Yet, look back again at the duas. Read the ayat al kursi again. Without focusing on what you aim to gain. Rather, on what those beautifully penned heavy words say. They praise the might of Allah SWT in a way we can never praise. Read the morning evening adhkar not just to benefit but to mean every single praise of Allah. And feeeeel the heaviness of those words…Really, they’re heavy.
Imagine going to sleep telling the One who never sleeps, the Ever living, seeking His protection, and then when you seek goodness for the day imagine asking it from the One to whom belongs the dominion. Imagine that you’re entering the day only due to Him and whatever blessing you’ve received in the day or evening or from anyone, is from Him alone.
Just imagine bearing witness through Him and the bearers of His throne and His angels and through all of His creation that He is Allah, and there is none worthy of worship but Him and Muhammad SAW is His messenger! How powerful such a witnessing would be!
What I mean is, we need to do these acts of worship realizing the fact that He is so much worthy of worship. So much worthy of ALL praise. And not just do it with the expectation of our needs being fulifilled. We recite the praises of Allah swt meaning every single word, because we love Him understanding how Highly Honorable and Praiseworthy He is.
We see this during the time of the Prophet (ﷺ). The very essence of worship manifested in the following hadeeth:
‘Aishah (May Allah be pleased with her) reported: Messenger of Allah, (ﷺ) appointed a man in charge of an army unit who led them in Salat (prayer); he always concluded his recitation with Surat Al-Ikhlas: “Say (O Muhammad (ﷺ)): ‘He is Allah, (the) One. Allah-us-Samad (Allah – the Self-Sufficient). He begets not, nor was He begotten. And there is none equal or comparable to Him.”‘ (112:1-4) Upon their return to Al-Madinah, they mentioned this to Messenger of Allah (ﷺ), who said, “Ask him why he does so?” He was asked and he said, “This Surah contains the Attributes of Allah, the Gracious, and I love to recite it. Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) then told them, “Tell him that Allah loves him”. [Al-Bukhari and Muslim].
Much contrary to what is done these days (we recite the shortest of surahs to fasten our prayers), this man did not know that he was reciting one third of the Qur’an, did not care how small or big it was, instead what drove him to recite it all the time was his love for the attributes of Allah SWT mentioned in the Surah! And then imagine being told by the Prophet that Allah loves you back? Next time, while you recite this in your prayer, I hope you dissolve yourself in the sweetness of His attributes and feel a different prayer, even with one of the shortest easiest Surahs. 🙂
Taste the sweetness of knowing His greatness and see how it changes your worship; when dua isn’t about what we want but who He is. And about KNOWING Him. So sing the praises of Allah SWT now simply to praise Him. :’)
This is when we place Allah swt above ourselves. Which we must.
Sameera Hameed 