The Twenty First Word : First Station : The answer to the following objection, “Performing prayers five times every day becomes wearying.”

The Twenty-First Word

[This Word consists of Two Stations.]

First Station

In the Name of Allah, the Merciful, the Compassionate.
For such Prayers are enjoined on believers at stated times. (Qur’an, 4:103.)

One time, a man great in age, physique, and rank said to me: “The prayers are fine, but to perform them every single day five times is excessive. Since they never end, it becomes wearying.”

A long time after the man said these words, I listened to my soul and I heard it say exactly the same things. I looked at it and saw that with the ear of laziness, it was receiving the same lesson from Satan. Then I understood that those words were as though said in the name of all evil-commanding souls, or else they had been prompted. So I said: “Since my soul commands to evil, one who does not reform his own soul cannot reform others. In which case, I shall begin with my own soul.”

I said: O soul! Listen to five ‘Warnings’ in response to those words which you uttered in compounded ignorance, on the couch of idleness, in the slumber of heedlessness.

Please click on the following links to continue reading;

First Warning: A delusion that causes boredom: "The fancy of living forever".

Second Warning: The role of five daily prayers in meeting the daily needs of the heart.

Third Warning: How should patience be used and where should it be spent? Three kinds of patience.

Fourth Warning: A comparison made between the earnings given for the duties of worship and affairs of the world.

Fifth Warning: The reasons that keep man away from the duties of worship. How can the affairs of the world be turned into worship?