Dr Salman ibn Fahd al-Awdah wrote in a tweet on his official Twitter account dated 26 January 2016:
“How many people come to prayer and block a pedestrian path, for example, although we came to prayer in order to train ourselves in good manners and respect for other people’s rights!”
Comment
- Dr Salman al-Awdah has a grounding in the Islamic sciences and is a writer and poet. He therefore knows very well the implications of Arabic words and expressions and understands the meaning of “in order to” and “train ourselves in”. The starting assumption should therefore be that he knows what he is saying and means what he says.
- “In order to…” identifies the motivating cause, objective and purpose of an action. He has explained that this motive, objective and purpose is “to train ourselves in good manners and respect for other people’s rights”.
- The doctor’s words explicitly distort the purpose of going to mosques to establish prayer, making it a utilitarian, moral and behavioural purpose. This accords with the position of extreme philosophers who regard acts of worship as means of correcting human behaviour.
- The purpose of maintaining mosques and establishing Friday and congregational prayers is clear in God’s Book and the Sunnah of His Prophet, may God bless him and grant him peace. It is none other than remembering and glorifying Him and devoting servitude sincerely to Him, seeking His pleasure, hoping for His Paradise and fearing His punishment. God says: “In houses that God has permitted to be raised and in which His name is remembered, He is glorified morning and evening by men whom neither commerce nor sale distracts from remembering God, establishing prayer and giving zakat. They fear a Day on which hearts and eyes will be overturned, so that God may reward them according to the best of what they did and increase them from His bounty. God provides for whom He wills without measure.” [Surat al-Nur: 36–38.]
