Prayer #3
Reading time: 2 - 4 minutes
Bismillahir Rahmaanir Raheem
Assalaamu’alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakaatuh
“When the servant stands in prayer, the Devil grows jealous because [in prayer] the servant’s station is supreme, nearest to God and most enraging to the Devil. And so the Devil will try every means to keep him from praying. He will keep coming at him with his forces - mounted and on foot - until he makes the prayer appear insignificant to the servant, who will then treat it so and leave it.
But if the Devil fails in this, and the servant resists him and takes his place at that station, the Devil will then come before him with thoughts that rise up between the servant and the servant’s own soul and heart. He will make him remember in prayer what he could not before. It may happen that while in prayer the devotee will recall something he needed but had given up hopes of ever [recalling]. This will absorb his heart and take him away from God entirely. He will stand in prayer without heart, and obtain nothing of the acceptance, generosity and proximity that come to one who turns completely toward God and make his heart present. Instead, he will walk away from the prayer just as he had come to it, still bearing his faults and sins, his burdens made no lighter.
Prayer will amend misdeeds, but only for he who gives it its due, offering it with complete humility and standing before God Most High with his heart fully turned in His direction. When such a person finishes praying, he finds a lightness in his soul, and feels that some weights have been lifted from him. He finds such vigour, rest and calm in the prayer that he wishes he had not had to end it. Prayer has become his source of gladness, his soul’s delight, his heart’s heaven and his place of rest from the world. Before beginning his prayer, he feels as if he were in a prison, a constricted place, and then finds rest - in his prayer, not from his prayer.”
Extract: The Invocation of God; Ibn al-Qayyim al-Jawziyya [rahimahullah]; pages 26-27.
http://cityisoc.com/2471-prayer-2/ <<< Part 2 [also contains link to part 1 insha'Allah]
We ask Allah [swt] to grant us truth on our tongues, sincerity in our hearts, and Paradise by His Mercy. Indeed Allah is a witness over us, and Allah knows best.
In the care of Allah [swt],
Wassalaamu’alaikum wa rahmatullah
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