LESSON OF THE DAY 659

Ayahs of the Day:
And if We had ruined them as a penalty before, they would have said, "Our Lord, why didn't You send us a messenger, so we might have followed Your signs before being abased and disgraced?" Say, "Everything awaits, so watch: and you will know who is on the straight way, and who is guided. [20: 133,134]

Hadith of the Day:
The likeness of the one who remembers his Lord verses one who does not is the likeness of a living person verses a dead one. [Bukhari & Muslim]

Wise Quote of the Day:
Those who intimately know Allah are wealth in of themselves, and need no wealth from anywhere else. [Ma'ruf al Karkhi]

Guidance of the Day:
Certainly our love for Him cannot be possibly be like His love for us. The love of which we are capable is either natural love (which many of us, if not all, can feel) or spiritual love, which very few can understand and fewer still can experience. Spiritual love cannot be acquired. It is a gift, and to receive that gift we must be worthy of receiving it. The highest form to devotion is to praise the Beloved with both the natural love given to us and the spiritual love that must be won.

To receive the gift of spiritual love, we have "to know, to find, and to be." You cannot find a thing when you do not know what you are looking for, and you cannot find it if you don't the way. We cannot be that thing if we do not leave ourselves behind. Allah says in a divine tradition: "When My faithful servant comes close to Me with extra worship, I love him and he loves Me. And when I love him, I become his eyes with which he sees, his hands with which he holds, his feet with which he walks." That is when man knows, finds, and is with his Lord. But what is this "extra worship" that will bring us close to our Lord? It is service.

There are two levels of worship. One is the obligatory worship of five times daily prayer; fasting during the month of Ramadan, paying alms of one-fortieth of our liquid assets to poor Muslims, and going on the Pilgrimage once in a lifetime. The second set of obligatory worship does not have specific times. These duties are to be done now and always. They are exercised as the occasion presents itself in daily life. Such are kindness, forgiveness, concern for others, helping, protecting, feeding, advising, building and not destroying.

Allah does not permit this form of obligatory worship to be delayed. This second form of prayer through service is the "extra worship" that will bring us closer to our Lord. In fact, if we are given the occasions and are able to perform the worship of service, it is a sign that our formal devotions of daily prayers, fasting, and almsgiving are accepted. When someone has proven himself worthy to be a human being and a faithful servant of his Lord by serving selflessly in his Lord's name, he may then be given the gift of spiritual love. [The Path of Muhammad]

Food for Thought:
Respectable men and women content with good and easy living are missing some of the most important things in life. Unless you give yourself to some great cause you haven't even begun to live. They never fail who die in a great cause.