Prayer and Purity of Mind in Islam
Prayer and Purity of Mind in Islam
Prayer and Purity of Mind in Islam
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This verse shows that prayer promotes purity of mind because it says that if someone prays, Allah will help them and allow them to be free of bad thoughts or anything type of evil thought swirling around in their mind which ultimately brings them closer to Allah.
Another important thing is that worldly gains such as wealth or property cannot give us purity of mind because the continuous appetite for more and more worldly objectives never ends and creates one problem after another. It is in human nature that if a person has 100 dollars they would strive for a 1000 dollars. In essence, we are stuck in a viscous cycle, a cycle only a pure mind can break through by praying to Allah. The question arises on what should we do to help us escape from this black hole of worldly pursuits? The answer is very simple. We should turn to Allah. We should pray to him. He will surely listen to our prayers and will guide toward purity of mind. In Reality, only prayers can shield us from these worldly ideals and bring us closer to our Creator by making our minds pure. Allah Ta'ala says in the Holy Quran:
Hear in this verse Allah is telling us that that only praying can bring us at ease and protect us from our worldly pursuits and truly help us attain a pure bound to the will of Allah. This is because only a pure mind feels comfort and breaks away from its worldly pursuits. Allah Ta'ala also clearly says in the Holy Quran only he can bring about a pure mind:
Who answers the cry of the distressed person when he calls upon Him, and removes the evil? (21:63) In this verse Allah says that only he can dispel Evil and bring relaxation of purity. The only way to get close to Allah or connect to him is to pray. Therefore, this verse restates that purity of mind can be attained through prayer.
It is related in a Hadith that our beloved Holy prophet, Muhammad, peace and blessing of Allah be upon him, said:
The prayer of a person is, in reality, a light in his heart, so whoever desires, can illuminate his heart by means of prayers. This Hadith tells us that by praying we illuminate our heart which means we can purify our mind through prayer and the more we pray the more purer and closer to god our mind will become. In his book Essence of Islam, Volume 2 the Promised Messiah (as) said that:
Humility alone is not enough for prayer, but righteousness, purity, truthfulness; perfect certainty, perfect love and perfect attention are all needed.
Here the Promised Messiah (as) tells us that for prayer to be complete purity of mind along with the many other principles of prayer is required. Which simply means when you pray you automatically in a sense receive at least some purity of mind but like the Hadith mentioned the more prayer the better.