Realization and Prayer
Prayer (dua) is a natural utterance for one who has a spiritual bent of mind. But without realization prayer is only a repetition of words. The prayer that comes from a realized soul is prayer in the real sense. The prayer which is devoid of maarifah is little but lip service; it has no value. Prayer is a form of worship, and the real form of worship is one of which realization of God is an integral part.
Prayer is of two kinds. One is that which requests God to fulfil some need of the suppliant with reference to some personal problem he is facing and entreating God to provide a solution. For instance, one who is jobless prays to God to help him to get a job. This is a common form of prayer. This prayer is rewarded according to the suppliant’s sincerity. It depends upon God whether after hearing such a prayer He fulfils it there and then or He postpones it until later.
Another form of prayer is that in which the person praying projects his problem as the problem of God Himself. For instance, in ancient Spain, at a time when there had been a drought, the Muslim king, Sultan Abdur Rehman al-Nasir (d. 961 A.D.) said in his prayer to God: “This forehead of mine is in Your hands. Will you punish people because of me? You are the Ruler of all rulers (of earth). Nothing of mine lies hidden from You.” (Tarikh al-Islam, Al-Dhahabi, vol. 25, p. 444). In this prayer during the drought the rains were held to be a matter of God’s own mercy rather than the solution to the demands of man’s needs. The implication of this is that God being the most merciful of all would not punish people if it was not their fault.
The first kind of prayer is uttered owing to human needs. But the second kind of prayer comes from the heart of a person with deep God-realization. The second kind of prayer is the result of the discovery of God at the level of realization. This kind of prayer comes out of the heart or mind of a person only when he has some special experience of God’s nearness. There are many instances of this kind of prayer in the books of Hadith.
