Author: AlbanFejza

Praise be to God! There is no other god except God. Let’s hopefully help us understand the Friday Prayer in more depth which will hopefully then lead to an easier acceptance of all the rules and freedoms during the Friday Prayer. First, let’s look back at the history of how the Friday Prayer emerged. As we know the religious rituals like the Contact Prayers, Fasting, Obligatory Charity and Hajj Pilgrimage were revealed through Abraham. However, that did not include the Friday Sermons. The Friday Prayer did not exist then. After Abraham, God revealed the 10 commandments through Moses, and one of those commandments was the Sabbath, basically not working during Saturday. And because the Children of Israel did not engage in any work during Saturday, not even cooking, or going to the market, the Children of Israel for practical purposes started doing these thing on Friday and having them ready for Saturday. So, basically, in practice, Friday became the market day, the trading day, the Bazar day, when the Children of Israel would go to buy and cook food, and then they would have it ready for Saturday when they were not allowed to trade and cook. And this affected the whole region of the middle east, because knowing that the children of Israel would buy more on Friday, the other people also go and sell their agricultural products on Friday, knowing that more people would be there to buy it. So, gradually, the whole middle eastern culture became a culture in which pretty much in all the cities, people would expect that Friday would be the market day – the day when people come down from the villages to sell their vegetables, and their cattle and so on, and they would also buy things and go back to their village. So, this culture existed in the whole region for thousands of years, and even to this day, in many middle eastern cities, people will come down from the villages to the cities to trade their products for other products.

Anyway, when Jesus came, God revealed that Saturday is no longer an obligatory vacation day. So the Sabath which was revealed through Moses ended with Jesus. However, the culture of getting ready for the Sabath did not end. People continued to gather every Friday in the whole region and do their trade. So, this became a culture. It was neither a religious thing, neither a law, but a cultural thing, and actually a very good practical solution to more efficient trading, by doing it once a week knowing that the buyer and the seller would both be there in the city center to buy and sell on the same day. Anyway, so, by the time of Muhammad, the Sabath did not exist anymore as a religious law, but culturally people would gather on Friday for trade, not for religious purposes. And in that context, God ordered organized religion again through Muhammad, when he moved to Medina, and as we know everything which was revealed through Muhammad, it was all through the Quran. There were no other alternative revelations. This means that in whatever way Muhammad constructed the Friday Prayer, it must have come from the Quran. He did not know about it before the Quran, unlike how he knew about Contact Prayer and fasting and so on before the Quran. Muhammad learned the Friday Prayer directly from the Quran. So, if we want to know how the Friday Prayer should be done, we should be able to reconstruct it from the Quran, just like Muhammad constructed it from the Quran. So, the Friday Prayer is a Quranic law, not an Abrahamic tradition. It’s a replacement for one of the 10 commandments of Moses, not the four religious rituals of Abraham. So, we can potentially know how to do the Contact Prayer even without the Quran, but we can not know how to do the Friday Prayer without the Quran. So, all we need to do to reconstruct the rules of the Friday Prayer is to find them in the Quran. So, let’s look in the Quran and see what are the rules of the Friday Prayer. However, before we do that, let’s not forget that the assumption in the Quran is that the people did gather in the city on Friday for business purposes and this assumption is given in verse 62:11, and within this context, the laws and the rules for the Friday Prayer are given. So, again all the rules and flexibilities of the Friday Prayer should be found in the Quran. We do not need to look at the Abrahamic tradition for this. It does not need to agree with any tradition. It’s not a tradition. It’s a law. Tradition came through Abraham but laws came through Moses. It’s a law, like the laws of Moses. It’s a replacement for one of the laws of Moses, and it came to us as slightly modified, since the believers today are weaker than the believers during the time of Moses. So, it’s a law which came specifically for us in the Quran, as a substitute for the law of the Sabath which Jesus abrogated to reserve his right to reorganize the religion in the next world. So again, the Friday Sermon is a Quranic law, and everything about it should be extracted from the Quran.

So what can we conclude from the Quran about the Friday Prayer? Well, first of all, according to verse 5:58, the Quran does mention that there is a call to prayer for every prayer time at the masjid, regardless if it is Friday or not. So, on Friday there is a call to prayer for the Noon prayer, just like for all the other prayer. It’s not a special prayer. It’s a call for the Noon prayer, like the calls for the noon prayer for all the other noon prayers in other days of the week. And then in verse 62:9, it tells us that when the call for prayer is done on Friday, we should hasten to the commemoration of God. So, during other days, when the call for prayer is done, you do not necessarily have to respond, you can do the prayer alone, but on Friday you have to respond immediately. And the response is to hasten to the commemoration of God, and it does not mention the location. It does not say go to the mosque and commemorate God. It says “go to the commemoration of God.” So, where should we go? Well, God intentionally leaves flexibility here, knowing that if we are honest we will choose the best practical option. So, the location is not given, but the community is given. Verse 62:9 says, “O you who believe”, so the community of believers, so we should observe this law with other believers. It’s like the Christian idea of communion or Eucharist. Communion means becoming one body of believers to worship God together. That is the Friday Prayer – all the believers worshiping God together as one body. The location does not matter. Obviously, if there is a mosque maintained by believers, that is the best location to gather. If, the mosque is not maintained by believers, you have no guarantee that you will find believers there, so that would not be the best practical location. And actually, the law is given in the Quran as an obligatory law without any consideration for location. So, this idea that the Friday Prayer is not obligatory sometimes when the location is too far, that is false. The Friday Prayer is always obligatory according to the Quran, because God knew that the true believers will never find themselves in a situation where they can not observe the Friday Prayer. Let’s explain this further. Let’s say that you lived in the past. How would you hear about submission? There was no telephone then, no internet. So, the only way you could hear the correct version of submission, when you initially converted, is if someone came to you and told you. However, if he was a believer, he already was doing the Friday Prayer somewhere, and if he could come all the way from the mosque to preach to you, then obviously the mosque is not far away for you to go there. So, there would always be a mosque nearby, whenever submission was preached correctly. Islam would never spread further than the mosques. So, if the religion was spread correctly, the believers would never find themselves in a situation where they can not observe the Friday prayer. Now, since the existence of internet, it is possible for people to preach in faraway locations, but if you accept the idea that preaching can be done through the internet, it automatically means that the preaching during the Friday Sermon can also be done through the internet. So, you can not have it both ways. Either you accept that preaching is allowed through internet, and you must also accept that preaching the sermons during the Friday prayer is also allowed through internet, or you do not accept preaching through internet, and you should also prohibit yourself from preaching at all times through the internet. It is actually deeply irresponsible to try to convert others through the internet and once they convert not offer them an immediate option for the Friday Prayers. “Ok, so now let’s say that I converted, where is the Friday Prayer?” So, all the people who are preaching on the internet and not offering an immediate option for the Friday Sermons to those who convert, they are being deeply irresponsible, and just creating chaos. Someone might say, but the preaching during the Friday Prayer is kind of different. Well, actually, it is not, because we already established that the Friday Prayer is not a tradition. It’s a direct Quranic law. So, where in the Quran do you find the idea that the preaching during the Friday should be different from the preaching outside of the Friday? This brings us to the topic of sermons during the Friday. They are not part of the noon contact prayer, but they emerge from other Quranic laws. So, in verse 62:9, we already established that we should get in communion with other believers to commemorate God during Friday. This only mentions the DAY of Friday, in Arabic. It does not mention the time of the day. However, according to the Quran, only the day is considered a day. The night is not considered as part of the day. So, the verse must be talking either about the noon or the afternoon prayer, which are the only two prayers done during the day. And then in verse 5:48, it tells us that the believers should compete in righteousness, which means that if we have a choice between noon and afternoon, if we are believers, we will choose the earlier one, to commemorate God as soon as possible. So we are in competition, and the noon time comes earlier, and therefore the believers would compete and not wait until afternoon. So, now we know that the Friday Prayer should be done during the noon time on Friday. But, why not just do the noon prayer, as usual? Why are there modifications like the addition of sermons and the shortening of the prayer from four rakats to two rakats. Well, all of these are laws in the Quran. Verse 4:101, if you check it in the Arabic Quran, it tells us that we may shorten the prayer when we travel, and because we already established that we go to the Friday prayer from the market or from your business, not from your home, then we must be going there from a traveling state, and therefore we may shorten the prayer. There is another verse in the Quran from which we can conclude that the shortest contact prayer should be two rakats, but that is beyond the scope of this sermon. So, we already know that the Contact Prayer can be shortened to two rakats when traveling, and this condition applies to the Friday Prayer as well, when it is a traveling fear prayer. So, so far we concluded that the Friday prayer is done at noon, and as a shortened noon contact prayer. But where do the sermons come from. Well, we already established that the believers will gather during the Friday noon shortened prayer, and when they are together they are closer to one another. And then verse 26:214 gives an order to preach to those who are closest to you. So, basically, this verse is saying that since you have gathered anyway, it is appropriate to preach to them. Who should do the preaching is another issue again, but we established that when believers gather, someone should preach. It’s just a natural behavior of believers. They don’t speak over one another. The smarter people who have to say something important speak, and the rest of the people listen. This the behavior of believers at any time when they gather together. So, anyway now we established that during the Friday, there must be preaching as a natural consequence of what believers do in a large gathering anyway, and there must be a shortened noon contact prayer together. These are all from the Quran. Now, there is another verse in the Quran, verse 9:11, which talks about organized religion, which tells us that two things should be considered to regulate whether someone has joined the community of submitters, but the verse mentions a third thing which. The verse also mentions the third thing which is repentance. So, besides the Contact Prayer and Zakat, repentance is also a community ritual. So, this means that when submitters get in communion with one another during Friday, they must also repent. It’s a law to repent when getting in communion with other submitters, because once you meet people whom you should consider better than you, it should naturally make you repent for your mistakes. When a pure community of believers gather together, they always consider the others better then themselves, because you have witnessed your sins, but you have not witnessed the other people’s sins. So, anyway, repentance is a law when gathering during the Friday Sermon. However, the time when you should repent is not mentioned, and anytime you do the repentance during the sermon, it will effectively cut the sermon into two separate parts, which we today call two sermons, but according to the Quran they are one sermon separated with a repentance in between. How you choose to count them is not important. We can count them as two if the topic changes, and if the topic stays the same, we can count them as one. It really does not matter.

Anyway, so, so far we have found from the Quran that during Friday, believers should:

• enter into communion with one another,
• do the contact prayer,
• preach, and
• repent.

These are all in the Quran. Now, here comes the most important part – the commemoration of God. The most important part of the Friday Prayer is commemoration of God, which is why this is the only part which is mentioned directly in the verse about the Friday Prayer. Verse 62:9 says, “O you who believe, when the Friday Prayer is announced on the day of Friday, you shall hasten to the COMMEMORATION OF GOD…” So, because the preaching might or might not involve the commemoration of God – as you know, the preaching can talk about community issues where God is not mentioned at all, just like some chapters in the Quran do not mention God at all. So, because the preaching might not involve the commemoration of God, it is wise to make sure that the most important commandment is fulfilled first, before you proceed with the preaching, just to make sure that you have fulfilled this commandment, so you don’t forget about it, which is why at the beginning we must start by mentioning God. But how should we mention him. Well, when the preacher stands up to preach so others can see him, and the fact that the preacher stands up is mentioned in verse 62:11, and so when he stands up, verse 52:48 says that he should praise God when standing up. Because, he stood up to preach aloud, he praises God aloud. This means that he should start the sermon by saying “Elhamdulilah” Praise be to God”, and because not everyone in the Congregation might have the same definition of what the word “God” “Allah” means, the preacher defines this word by saying “La ilahe ila Allah”. “There is no god except God”, which is again a commemoration of God.

So, from the Quran we established that during the Friday, believers:

• make the call for prayer,
• get into a communion with one another,
• someone stands up to preach,
• and he praises God when he stands up,
• then he preaches, which can be as short as the shortest chapter of the Quran,
• then he must repent, which effectively might divide the sermon in half or not,
• then they do the shortened version of the traveling fear Contact Prayer which involves two rakats,
• and there we have it all from the Quran.

So, the Friday Prayer is a collection of Quranic laws, but not a specific religious ritual. And it is important to realized that because they are laws and not rituals, therefore what is not mentioned in the Quran is actually intentional flexibility for us. For example, it does not mention that the believers should do it in someone’s home when they have no mosque, which is an intentional flexibility to do it online, as long as everyone fulfills the Quranic requirements. So, there is no such thing as Friday Ritual. It’s just a collection of about 10 laws from the Quran which we obey, which lead to one another, and as long as we follow those laws, we are doing the correct thing. By the way, here is something new. Because the Friday Contact Prayer, the actual Contact Prayer (the Salat) is shortened not because it is Friday, but because it happens to be done as a traveling fear prayer, if you have to do it at home because there is no permissible mosque nearby, that means that you have no reason to shorten the prayer. You are not a traveler in fear in your own home, so you have no reason to shorten the Contact Prayer. So, you do four rakats of the Contact Prayer, when you are obliged to do it at your home. This makes the idea of doing the Friday Contact Prayer at someone else’s home, which does not belong to you or your family members, at least a suspicious idea, because there would be a conflict whether you should do two or four rakats as a group, depending on whether you are the host or the traveling guest. Anyway, that is another issue which should be resolved when analyzing the Online Friday Sermons. But the good news is that we actually deliver the Friday Sermons (not prayers) online for people who join us as submitters.

Praise be to God! There is no other god except God. In the clarification about places of worship, one of the burning issues there was the prayer in the masjid while others are also there praying. It was concluded there that if the congregation is not doing the movements simultaneously, then we do not join them in prayer. The clarification does not mention the word “Sunnah”, but actually that is what it is in practice when you see people, in all of the Muslim world, the Sunnah prayer in the masjid is done INDIVIDUALLY, and the so called obligatory (Farz) prayer, which is like our contact prayer, is done together simultaneously. So, based on the clarification about places of worship, people can make the right decision, even if they don’t know what Sunnah is. The clarification simply solves that issue by saying that if they are not bowing and prostrating together simultaneously, don’t join them. The other people almost always minded their own business, and a lot of them actually do not do the Sunnah prayer either, even though they might consider themselves Sunnis. But, let’s actually analyze “the Sunnah” a little bit, not from the religious perspective, but from the historical perspective. So, what the Sunni Muslims have is what they call the confirmed Sunnah prayer. What they mean by that is that they have a common agreement among all Sunni groups about what it is, while the unconfirmed Sunnah prayers are those where each group has a different version, and the other group does not agree with that. Whether it is confirmed Sunnah or unconfirmed Sunnah, they do not call it Salat, or Contact Prayer. They just call it Sunnah prayer. Anyway, let’s just focus on their so called “confirmed Sunnah prayer”, and analyze it from the historical perspective, not the religious perspective. The so called “Sunnah prayer”, is most likely a human relic which had its reasons in the past but now it is more damaging than beneficial. It’s not a Contact prayer which God ordered Muhammad to do. And actually, even in their Hadith which supposedly tells them how Muhammad was taught by Gabriel how to do the Contact Prayer, in that Hadith the Sunnah is not mentioned at all, and there is no mention at all in the Hadiths of Muhammad teaching people how to do the Sunnah prayer. He never taught them that, even according to their own sources. But then how did it emerge? Well, according to the Hadiths, they saw Muhammad do it, and they imitated him, even though Muhammad never told them to do it. So, the question is if Muhammad did it, (and we are not necessarily concluding that he did it), but if he did it, and yet he did not tell them to do it, he must have had other non-religious reasons. For example, when a lot of people joined the mosque in Medina and it became overcrowded with people, Muhammad, being a very smart man, noticed that whether people get up to go home or whether some of them wait in line at the mosque for a while, it takes them just as long to get outside of the mosques. Typically, it takes the people about five minutes to get outside of the mosques when the mosque is full, since there are line bottlenecks at the door where people have to find their sandals or shoes and put them on, and that prevents others from going out, even if they are ready. So, Muhammad, being a genius, instead decided to use the time to worship God for extra credit, knowing that he cannot leave, even if he wants to, knowing full well that a lot of the people would see him and do the same thing. This would manage the crowd in such a way where people would wait inside the mosque instead of waiting just outside the door of the mosque. If people waited just outside the door of the mosque, it would be less comfortable for them, because at night, it would be dark, and they would especially not be able to find their sandals because of the crowd, and darkness. And during the day, waiting outside, it would be extremely hot during the noon time in Arabia. So, Muhammad chose to use that extra unused time for beneficial purposes, to worship God, and manage the crowd at the same time. This is why the so called “Sunnah” was only done in dark or very hot times. There is no confirmed Sunnah for the Afternoon time, when it is neither dark, neither too hot.  Of course, inside the mosque there were candles during the night, and it was cooler during the day compared to the outside. But outside, it would be completely dark at night and without street lights, and it would be hot during the middle of the day. And this idea matches with the so called “confirmed Sunnah” prayers. They consist of 2 Rakats before the Dawn prayer, because before the dawn prayer, it would be darker outside, and after the Dawn prayer, it would be brighter, and there was no need to manage the crowd after the Dawn prayer. At Noon when it was too hot to wait outside of the mosque, he would do 4 Rakahs before the Noon prayer, and 2 Rakahs after the Noon Contact Prayer. As you can see, it was too hot before and after Noon prayer, so it made sense for Muhammad to implement this crowd management system when people come in the mosque and also when they leave at Noon. Of course, the Afternoon prayer does not have any confirmed Sunna Rakats. This is because, as we said, during the afternoon it would cool a little bit, and also it would not be dark. It would be a nice time for people to wait outside rather than inside the mosque. They could chit chat outside of the mosque while waiting in line, and so on and the weather would be nice to just hang around. For the Evening Prayer, it would be bright enough towards the beginning of the Evening Prayer, so it was fine for people to wait a little bit outside of the mosque to get in, but when they left, it would be much darker. So, the Evening Confirmed Sunnah was done by Muhammad after the Evening Contact Prayer. Please bear in mind that the evenings are shorter Arabia, because the sun sets at a more direct angle, and people also recited the Quran to memorize it at the mosque back then, and this means that they would pretty much go in the mosque just after sunset and leave probably about half an hour later, when it was much darker. For the Night Prayer, a lot of people would actually stay at the mosque from the Sunset Time, since it would be very close in time with the Sunset Prayer in Arabia, and then there was no need to introduce a Sunnah Prayer before the Night Prayer, although some schools of thought do have a Sunnah Prayer before the Night Prayer, which might indicate that Muhammad sometimes did it and sometimes did not do it, depending on how many people stayed at the mosque, and after the night prayer, when it was definitely dark, all “schools” of traditional scholars agree that Muhammad did do a Sunnah Prayer after the Night Contact Prayer. So, as you can see all the Sunnah prayers match with the idea that Muhammad was simply trying to use his time efficiently, and not waste his time, and the people’s time by waiting in line, but rather use that time to worship God, and since this prayer was voluntary, not all people would do it, which means that some of them left and some waited, and so on, gradually, until the whole group left the mosque or entered the mosque. However, Muhammad never told the people to do the Sunnah Prayers. He simply did himself, if he did it, and most of them copied him. He did tell them however not to write it down, because he knew that the circumstances might not be the same in other times and places. But centuries later they eventually did write them down, without his permission. And in the beginning the purpose of those written books was to be used as books of history, not as religious books, and then soon whenever people had religious arguments with each other, they would start to use the books of history to prove their arguments, and thus effectively turning the books of history into religious books, and this is how the world most likely ended up with the so called “Sunnah Prayers”. So, the Sunnah Prayers were most likely Muhammad’s human solution for crowd management. He was acting like a city mayor in that circumstance, not like God’s messenger. He was only God’s messenger when delivered the Quran. However, no matter how good his solution was as a city mayor for that time, his solution was still a human solution, and eventually would not apply to other circumstances. What Muhammad could not predict is that there will come a time when his crowd management solution would absolutely not be necessary, and here is why. Today, it’s extremely unlikely to find a mosque where it is completely dark around it outside. All the crowded mosques are within cities, where there are street lights outside, and there are mosque lights outside. We have electricity now. Also, most of the mosques are not in Arabia, so there is no reason to try to avoid the noon heat. Actually, it is healthier in most cases around the world to wait a little bit more outside rather than inside, if you have to wait, since we do need some sun tanning these days, vitamin D, and a lot of mosques are usually cold inside. So, we are neither suffering from darkness, neither from the sun heat, in most cases, and Muhammad’s crowd management solutions are not necessary. If they happened, they were meant only for those specific circumstances. But the Quran applies to all circumstances. The Quran was meant for all times, while Muhammad’s on-the-spot solutions as a city mayor were only meant for the exact time and exact place. Actually, the way the people are implementing those human solutions now are doing more harm than benefit. For example, they waste their time doing a prayer in Arabic when they don’t understand anything, and then they remain ignorant, and then they will waste the time of the religious leaders later by asking them question about what the Quran says about certain issues. It would have been more efficient for them to read the Quran in their own language during that time, and in that way save the time of their religious leaders, and everybody would be better off. This solution was not possible during Muhammad’s time since most people did not have a copy of the Quran. But nowadays, we all have a copy of the Quran in our smartphones, which we keep constantly with us. So, because people disobeyed Muhammad when he told them not to write from him anything except the Quran, the circumstances changed in such a way that those things which they wrote about him, even if they were true, because they wrote them without his permission, they turn out to be more harmful than useful today. The Sunnah is not helping with effective crowd management today at all, while at the same time it is only keeping the people more ignorant, since they are wasting precious time, which they could use to properly understand the word of God.

Actually, even their hadith books where they base the so called “extra voluntary prayers” they tell us how Muhammad was afraid that the people might misuse his solution.

In the Sahih Muslim Hadith, Book 4, Number 1666, it says:

“’Aisha reported that the Messenger of God prayed one night in the mosque and people also prayed along with him. He then prayed on the following night and there were many persons there. Then on the third or fourth night many people gathered there for the prayer after the obligatory prayer, but the Messenger of God did not come out to do it. When it was morning he said: I saw what you were doing, but I stopped coming out because I feared that this prayer might become obligatory for you…”

So, as you can see even Muhammad was afraid that they might turn it into a religious ritual, when he actually was just doing it as a time management solution, and a personal thing, in a world without clocks, without proper lighting, and in the hot desert circumstances at noon, and when people did not have copies of the Quran with them. But none of these circumstances are true for us today. We all have clocks in our smartphones, and we know exactly when the prayer will be done, and we can prepare even beforehand and go there in a more gradual crowd. During Muhammad’s time, they would realize that the prayer time has come when the call for prayer was made, and then all of them at the same time would go to the Mosque, and if there was no indirect crowd management system, it would be inefficient. Nowadays, we have clocks, and some people will already be there 5 minutes earlier and so one, because they have a clock and know in advance exactly when the call for prayer will be made, and actually they would rather wait in line outside to make an urgent phone call about whatever they left unfinished at work or something like that.

Anyway, this is only a historical analysis of this issue. This is not a religious approach. The religious approach is this. It’s not in the Quran, we don’t have to follow it. Simple. But, the so called “Hadith books” can be used as historical books, not as religious books. Contrary to what some people might think, Rashad Khalifa did use Hadith books, but only for historical purposes. For example, in Appendix 25, Rashad says, “While Hadith is forbidden as a source of religious teachings, it can be a useful source of history. We can derive a lot of information about historical events and local customs and traditions during the early centuries of Islam.”

So, in this sermon, we analyzed from the historical perspective how the Sunna Prayer most likely emerged, and why it is useless today, because those circumstances do not apply today. However, because history is one of the least exact sciences, we should never use it to reach religious conclusions, because historical sources are always doubtful, and even if they happen to be true, the circumstances are always at least a little bit different from today. But anyway, the historical sources are always doubtful, so why should we follow doubtful sources, when we have the confirmed truthful source, the Quran? And actually, imitating Muhammad is not the same as following Muhammad. Imitating means doing what he did, even if it does not apply in our circumstances, while following Muhammad means using the Quranic commandments in all cases where he used Quranic commandments, and using our own reason in all cases where he used his own reason. That is true following. Imitating is not following.

Praise be to God! There is no other god except God.

When searching the Quran for verses, containing all three English words, “Worship” “God” “alone” in any order, the result produces 30 verses. God willing, I will look at the first 10 verses, then describe something I got from the verse, and for some verses, a life event that relates to it. But before, I continue let me emphasize that the word for worship in Arabic, also means “serve”, so I will translate it as “serve” in cases when it has to do with non-religious aspects of serving God, and I will translate it as “worship” in cases when it has to do with religious aspects of worshiping God.

Verse 2:138 tells us to worship God alone by believing that God’s system is the best.

There are many times I tackle a project or task, then map out a path to help me achieve the end goal. I will begin working, get stuck, take breaks and get back to work again. There are times I am unable to complete the task and get frustrated and angry. Did I start off the project seeking God’s permission and guidance? (1:5) Am I being patient while working hard? (42:43, 90:4) If I miss those steps, I am not using God’s system and therefore not using the best system. There were other times in my life when I was working on a project and just asked God to help me. To this day, I could not describe how I did it or how to repeat it. God’s system is truly the best!

Verse 2:172 tells us to serve God alone by eating from good things and be thankful to God.

Am I saying, “In the name of God,” then recklessly devouring my food? God help me to slow down, and be thankful for the good food God has provided to me, during each bite.

Verse 3:51 tells us that worshiping God alone is the right path.

If the choice to complete a task is presented to someone as, “You can do it this way, which is the wrong way, or you can do it this way, which is the right way,” most reasonable people will choose to do it the right way. Why then do we not to choose to worship God alone all the time? Worshiping God alone is the right path.

Verse 4:36 tells us to worship and serve God alone by not associating anything with God, regarding specified people, and not being an arrogant show off.

Doing opposite of these commands are driven from submitting to the ego. There are times when I am playing with my grandkids and need to be more careful. We will do a talent show in our living room and after all the grandkids go, I sometimes take a turn. Because I am the announcer, when I am done, I will brag that my performance was superb and I won the, “Golden Crown.” Although we are having fun, I am teaching my grandkids to be arrogant showoffs. God willing, now that I am more conscious of this, when announcing our living room talent shows, I can use this opportunity to be humble, and teach the grandkids not to be arrogant showoffs.

Verse 6:102 tells us to worship God alone by believing that God is the creator of all things and in control of all things.

In sports sometimes people are judged according to the degrees of difficulty. If they are doing one flip and someone is doing two flips, although they both performed the stunt perfectly, the one doing two flips will win. May God help me, but one of the hardest degrees of difficulty for me, is accepting God is in control of all things at all times. There are times someone cuts me off in traffic, someone is cursing or using profane hand jesters, I’ll lose or just can’t find something, or something breaks in my house that needs to be fixed. When any of these things happen to me, I have to find the positive aspect of the situation and accept that God is in control at all times.

Verse 6:162 tells us to worship God alone by devoting our Contact Prayer, our worship practices, our life, and our death to Him.

There are other verse that tell us to worship God alone by devoting Contact Prayer, worship practices and our lives, the part that stuck out to me in this verse is death. God help me submit that even my death belongs to You, and make my death pleasing to You!

Verse 7:70 tells us to worship God alone, even if we have to abandon what our parents worshiped.

For most of us whose parents were not submitters, we fully understand the difficulty of this task and for us whose parents are submitters, it could mean abandoning times or situations you witnessed your parents forgetting God. Growing up in a Catholic household in America, being Muslim was portrayed as being a crazy terrorist. Through the grace of God, God made me question their beliefs and ways and guided me to the truth.

Verse 10:104 tells us to worship God alone also because He is the One who will terminate our lives.

Some people may think that they are able to terminate lives, but it is really God that is doing it. Everyone and everything has an appointed term and God controls that appointment. You may think that you are increasing your life span because you got a vaccine shot, but you are not. You may think you are decreasing your life span because you take chances while you are driving, but you are not. God will terminate our lives according to His predetermined time, and hopefully we used that time to worship and please God alone!

Verse 16:51 tells us to serve God alone by reverencing God.

Not just think about God, but taking time to reverence God. It is a blessing to reflect on God’s attributes, seeing, and knowing that God does not need us in any way. When I am sitting in my office working, God help me to not just thank and think about God, but being extremely thankful that God created me with eyes to see, a brain to think, hands to type, then truly reverence God!

Verse 16:52 tells us to worship God alone by devoting our religion to Him alone.

In summary, May God strengthen us all to worship and serve Him alone believing God’s system is the best, eating from good things and being thankful to God, following the right paths, not associating anything with God, regarding specified people, and not being an arrogant show off, believing God is the creator of all things and in control of all things, devoting Contact Prayers, worship practices, life, and death, abandoning what our parents worshipped, and believing in God’s retribution, believing God is the One who will terminates lives, reverencing God, and devoting our religion to Him alone.

By: Robert Szilagyi