Text of the publication

“Do you know that listening to the Qur’an reduces the spread of cancer cells in the human body and even destroys them?

That prolonging prostration strengthens memory and prevents strokes?

That raising the index finger during the tashahhud increases blood flow, helping strengthen the heart?

That prostration removes negative charges from the body because the earth has a positive charge?”

Comment

  1. Do you know that God created us to worship Him, and that worship’s purpose and reason are to glorify the Lord, draw near to Him and commune with Him? This is sufficient for us to hold fast to worship and perform it as we should.
  2. Do you know that attaching people to such conjectured fruits may empty worship of its spiritual and meaningful content, turning it into nothing more than sessions for receiving healthcare?
  3. Do you know that, if new studies establish the contrary, people’s confidence in and adherence to these acts of worship may be shaken?
  4. Do you know that foregrounding such benefits and making them the reason for these acts of worship may, in some forms, converge with the ideas of atheist philosophers who regard worship as physical exercises intended to refine morals, reform society and establish justice?
  5. Do you know that most such publications are false and fabricated, and that most of those sharing them are ignorant people with good intentions who do not realise they are thereby distorting religion and opening the way for atheists to attack it and mock its rites? God is the One whose help is sought.
  6. If explaining the worldly benefits of worship – psychological, health or material benefits – had been intended by the Wise Lawgiver, the Messenger of God, may God bless him and grant him peace, would have been foremost in explaining and clarifying them, since God charged him with explaining and commanded him to convey the message. He said: “No prophet before me was sent without being duty-bound to direct his community to the best of what he knew for them and warn them of the worst of what he knew for them.” Narrated by Muslim. What, then, of Muhammad ibn Abd Allah, the Seal of the Prophets and Messengers, blessings and peace be upon them? Rather, what the Prophet explained to us, directed us towards and commanded us to do, through explicit, mass-transmitted reports, is to perform these acts of worship with sincere intention and purpose for God, motivated by love, fear, hope and glorification of the Lord of the worlds.

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