The Importance of Prayer

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ

Khwaja Mu’in ad-Din Hasan Shishty (q.s.) emphasised the importance of prayer and said that it is a great necessity for the development of the soul.  He did not restrict prayer in its implications, expressions, and meaning, giving a broad connotation to the word.  According to him, prayer consists of selfless service, sympathy, and empathy.  Thus, helping the weak, the aggrieved, the needy, to feed the hungry, and to have the captive freed all constitute prayers. 

He said that to see six things constitutes prayer for the gnostic: to see one’s parents in the morning and greet them with salaam; to see one’s own children with love and affection; to see the Holy Qur’an; to see the face of the learned with respect; to see the gates of Ka’bah; and to look towards the face of one’s own murshid and to devote oneself to his service.  According to him, fear, respect, and modesty are the three things that go to make one enlightened.  The perfection of the gnostic depends upon the loss of the self.  A gnostic is said to be perfect only when all barriers separating him and the Friend are dismantled.  Either he lives or the Friend.