The Purpose Of Praying To ALLAH S.W.T

O soul! Worship of God is not an act through which to demand a Divine reward in the future. Rather, it is the necessary result of a past Divine favor. It is truly so because we have al-ready received our wages, and in return, are charged with serving and worshipping Him. Be-cause, O soul, since the Majestic Creator Who has clothed you in existence, which is purely good, has given you a hungry stomach having appetite and, through His Name the All-Providing, has laid before you all the edible things as a table of favors. He has also given you a sensitive life, which, like the stomach, demands sustenance particular to itself. Before all your senses, like your eyes and ears, He has laid down a particular table of favors as vast as the earth. Further, since He has bestowed on you ‘humanity’, which demands numerous immaterial favors, He has laid before it a peculiar table of favors within the grasp of the reason and as many-dimensional as the material and immaterial worlds. In addition, since He has granted to you faith and Islam, which is the greatest humanity demanding endless favors and nourished by the fruits of infinite Mercy, He has opened up for you a table of favors, happiness and pleasures en-compassing, together with the sphere of contingencies, the sphere of the Most Beautiful Names of God and His sacred Attributes. Besides all these, having bestowed on you love, which is a light of faith, He has granted to you still another table of favors, bliss, and pleasures. That is, with regard to your physical aspect, you are a small, insignificant, impotent, wretched, and restricted particular being but, through His grace and favors, you have become a universal, enlightened and enlightening one. For, by endowing you with life, He has promoted you to the rank of a particular kind of universality; by giving to you humanity, the rank of true universality, and by granting to you Islam, the rank of a sublime and luminous universality, and by bestowing on you love and knowledge of God, He has made you attain an all-encompassing light.

Thus, O soul! You have already received these wages, and are therefore charged with worship, which is, in fact, an easy, pleasant and rewarding Diving gift. However, you show laziness in performing it. When you carry it out defectively, as though the wages given to you in advance were not enough, you demand more in an arrogant way. You also put on airs, saying, ‘Why are my prayers not accepted?’ Whereas, your due is not putting on airs, but petition and supplication to God Almighty. He bestows Paradise and eternal happiness purely out of his Grace and Kindness. Therefore, always take refugee in His Mercy and Grace, and in reliance on Him, heed the following Divine declaration:

Say, ‘Out of His Grace and Mercy’, and at that let them rejoice. It is better than what they have been accumulating. (10:58)

Shame, Nudity & Purdah

Shame and Respect

The woman who chatters loudly, is too bright and perky, flits her glances or is not modest in walk and dress is Be-Sharm, shameless. A young girl who covers her head when her father enters the room is pleasingly modest or bashful. She has Izzat, respect for her father.

The younger women, the unmarried and new brides all show respect to the older women by deferring to them in conversation. Older women transmit the male dictates, are usually guardians of tradition and can be tyrants in their households. When a woman visitor comes, the younger ones push on with their sewing or whatever without interrupting their mother's conversation. It is rare for a son-in-law to visit his mother-in-law but when he does he must be treated with reserve and diffidence as he is head of her daughter's family. Young women must talk in lowered tones to elder relatives and, except for greetings which they should initiate, only respond and then positively to conversation and instructions. Their heads should be somewhat bowed and their hands covering their mouth. They should observe eye-purdah, that is avoid eye-contact.

In many parts of islam marriages are still arranged. Even the shame of a "love marriage" is covered up as an arranged one. The bride is expected to be modest and demure. She sits quietly with her head bent and may not come "out of her shell" for weeks or months-not perhaps until she has had her first baby. It is rare for an unmarried girl to go to a wedding as some of the remarks may be too risque' for her. If they can afford it the bride and groom will have separate bedrooms again for the sake of the modesty of the younger girls in the household. The bride is not addressed by her first name, even by her husband. She is the daughter (bint) of so and so. When her first son is born she becomes mother (umm) of so and so and this name stays with her until she dies.

Nudity

Nakedness is generally considered ugly and the chaste wife sneaks under the bed covers. The Qur'an tells muslims: "0 ye Children of Adam! We have bestowed clothing upon you to cover your shame..." (7:26) "Let not Satan seduce you in the same manner as he got your parents out of the Garden, stripping them of their raiment, to expose their shame."(7:27)

In hadith 134 (Sahih Muslim) the Messenger said: "A man should not see the private parts of another man, and a woman should not see the private parts of another woman." It is also forbidden for both men and women to see the private parts of the opposite sex. The husband can expose his equipment before his wife and vice versa at the time of sexual intercourse but it is not desirable to see it. It is, however, allowable in case of extreme necessity for example medical examination and treatment. Yet in many cases a husband has not allowed his wife on her death bed to receive treatment from a male doctor.

Hadith 135 (Sahih Muslim) relates how the Children of Israel lost their modesty and indulged in moral depravity by bathing nakedly in front of each other. Only Moses took his bath alone. However, on one occasion he left his clothes on a rock and the rock moved so that Moses had to chase after it. By the time that Moses had caught up with his clothes and chastised the rock by striking it, everyone had had a chance of viewing his equipment. This cleared up a bone of contention: some had thought that Moses was modest because he had a scrotal hernia.

Purdah

The chador and burkah are not common to the whole of islam but muslim fundamentalists would have it that way. The Prophet said that there should be no shapeliness in the woman's dress and "it is not lawful, past puberty, to show more than the face and hand below the wrist." Many fundamentalist girls are veiling their face as a sign of Taqwah, Allah-consciousness.

The only time a man covers his face is during his wedding when a veil of flowers protects him from the "evil eye".

The seclusion of women in the home and under long clothing leads to their social nothingness. How strictly a muslim woman observes purdah depends upon her economic status. Poor women have to work in the fields, fetch water, collect firewood and look after animals.

It is a poor reflection on a religion if its system of morals cannot regulate behaviour without segregation of the sexes. Men and women can have social intercourse without sexual intercourse. Punishment of misbehaviour in the present or Hereafter is not as moral as learning to treat other human beings as worthwhile individuals who merit respect. Humanism is far more ethical than religious fundamentalism.