In the Name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful

The Return to Servitude

Looking thoroughly at our daily activities, we understand that we conduct most of them subconsciously and easily at definite periods. However, sometimes we like to extend them or to make their effects last permanently. Devotion and submission to our kind Creator is one of such activities that, in fact, faces many ups and downs during our lifetime. Such submission takes a special flavor during the holy month of Ramadhan. But making it last and the development of its effects to the entire lifetime remains for some of us as a hope or even an untouchable dream. How can we really make such devotion and submission enduring?

Basically, the tasks that we logically contemplate and ponder on to realize their true meanings, and do them knowingly, will become more permanent and continuous. Therefore, with pondering on the meaning and the truth of devotion and submission, we might be able to find the golden key to making this devotion long-lasting. What does really the divine devotion and submission mean?

Acknowledging the unique Creator as the most perfect being with the most perfect traits, pure from any sort of deficiency, and the realization of our relation to him, as the creator and the custodian of the world, leads to a reaction in us which is referred to as devotion and submission. The recognition of the Almighty as the sole source, and the sole possessor of everything, obliges us to not to associate any partner with Him in worship. Therefore, the Holy Quran stresses numerously that the act of worship must be exclusive to Allah (SWT), and that no sin equals associating things with Him. Now, let us see what the worship which is exclusively for God is and what the kind of this relationship can be?

Some acts of humans are void and empty from any inner meaning, and are not signs or symbols for other matters, and are conducted for the sake of their direct natural cause. For example, a farmer performs the set of tasks pertaining to farming, in order to harvest the natural result of those set of tasks. Therefore the farmer does not perform those tasks as a symbol or as expressions of a set of motives and emotions. Similarly, when we commute to the university, in our effort, we do not follow any cause other than reaching to the university. We are not seeking to reach any other cause by that.

However, some actions are conducted as the signs of certain purposes and expressions of certain emotions. For example, as an expression of confirmation we nod, or as a sign of humbleness we sit on a lower place, and as a sign of showing respect, when someone approaches we stand before him.

Most of our actions fit in the first kind, and least of them in the second; however, in any case, some part of our actions are those which are performed for the expression of certain causes, and implying certain inner emotions.

Now that these two introductions are understood, we say that worship is a meaningful action. What the human expresses in worship and devotion are states such as praise, admiration, glorification, thankfulness, submission and complete obedience. All these states are exclusive for God, and that means that there is no partner for Him in that sense. No self is pure from loss except Him, there is no any other source for affluences except Him that deserve being thankful to, there is no other being except Him who deserves being fully obedient to (except those He Himself has bade us to obey). This is the reaction that is proper for a being in front of his creator, and except in front of the unique God, in no other case, is correct or eligible. This is what we can accomplish by worship when following the Infallible Imams (PBUT).

These points are unchangeable truths and consistent meanings for all lifetime. These are the facts that if they are understood, we can possibly preserve the results of worship, more and more, and to make such state permanent in order to prevent negligence from making us forget devotion, after this month that because of the special atmosphere of grace and mercy of God, and imprisonment of the devils, we were more submissive to the divine realm.

Now that, in gratitude of this month of servitude, we have made the ceremony of Fitr and return to Him, let us promise Him to always keep prostrating before His realm.

(Selection taken from the book “Monotheistic Ideology”, by Mortada Mutahhari (with some changes))

On behalf of Roshd website, we congratulate all Muslims and especially you, dear friend, on the arrival of Eid al-Fitr, the day of returning to Allah (SWT).

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