The Fourth Word

بِسْمِ اللّٰهِ الرَّحْمٰنِ الرَّحِيمِ

اَلصَّلاَةُ عِمَادُ الدِّينِ1

If you want to understand with certainty, at the degree of two times two equals four, how valuable and important salâh is, how cheap it is and how it is gained with little expense, and how crazy and harmful the man who does not perform it is, look at this short story in the form of a comparison and see:

One time, a great ruler gives twenty-four pieces of gold to each of his two servants and sends them to reside on his private and beautiful farm, which is two months' distance away. And he commands, "Spend this money on your tickets and expenses for the journey. Also, buy the things necessary for your residence there. Within a day's distance, there is a station. There is both car and ship and train and aeroplane; they are boarded on according to the capital."

The two servants went after receiving the instruction. One of them was fortunate that he spent a little money until the station, but within those expenses, he obtained a profitable trade that would please his master; his capital increased from one to a thousand.

As for the other servant, he wastes twenty-three pieces of gold until the station since he is unfortunate and a layabout. He loses it by gambling and so forth. A single piece of gold of his remains. His friend says to him, "Give this last gold piece of yours for a ticket so that you will not starve and not go on foot on this long journey. Also, our master is generous; perhaps he will show mercy to you and forgive the faults you made, and they will board you on an aeroplane as well. We shall go to our place of residence in one day. Otherwise, in a desert, which takes two months, you will be compelled to go hungry, on foot, and alone." I wonder: would not the most mindless person even understand that if, out of obstinacy, the servant does not give that single piece of gold to a ticket, which is the key to a treasury, and spends it on dissipation for temporary pleasure, he would be extremely mindless, harmful and unfortunate?

Thus, O man who does not perform the salâh! And, O my nafs, which does not like the salâh!

As for the ruler, He is our Rabb, our Khâliq. As for those two servant travellers, one of them is pious; he performs his salâh with eagerness. The other one is the ghâfil people who do not perform the salâh. As for the twenty-four pieces of gold, they are the twenty-four-hour life within each day. As for the private farm, it is Jannah. As for the station, it is the grave. As for the journey, it is mankind's travel that will pass to the grave, to the rising from the dead and assembly for judgment, and to eternity. They traverse that long way in different degrees according to their deeds and the strength of their taqwâ. Some of the people of taqwâ traverse a distance of a thousand years in a day, like lightning. And some traverse a distance of fifty thousand years in a day, like the imagination. The Qur'an Great in Dignity indicates this haqiqah with two of its âyahs. As for the ticket, it is the salâh. A single hour is sufficient for the five times salâh, including wudhu.

I wonder how great he loses, how greatly he makes dhulm to his nafs, and how mindlessly he, who spends twenty-three hours in this fleeting worldly life and does not spend his one single hour on the long eternal life, acts. For to give half of his property to a gamble of a lottery in which one thousand people participate — if the mind accepts — but the possibility of its winning is one in a thousand, and then not to give one out of twenty-fourth of his properties to an eternal treasury in which the possibility of its winning is confirmed at ninety-nine out of a hundred, would one who supposes himself to be rational not understand how greatly he acts contrary to the mind and hikmah and how far he goes from the mind? Whereas, there is great ease of rûh, heart and mind within the salâh. Also, it is not burdensome work for the body. Furthermore, with a beautiful intention, all the other halal worldly acts of the one who performs the salâh will be ‘ibâdah. In this way, he can devote his entire capital of life to the âkhirah. He makes his transient life permanent in one respect...

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