02-29-2008, 07:53 PM
Bismillah
Praise be to Allah the All Close and prayer and peace be upon His final Messenger Mohamed Ibn Abdullah and all Prophets and Messengers.
"Verily! We have seen the turning of your face (O Muhammad) towards the heavens. Surely, We shall turn you to a Qibla that shall please you, so turn your face in the direction of the Sacred Mosque. And wheresoever you people are, turn your faces (in prayer) in that direction. Certainly, the people who were given the Scriptures know well that that is the truth from their Lord. And Allah is not unaware of what they do." (2:144)
As usual, in many cases when I recite the Glorious Quran, certain Ayahs move and touché me deeply that I feel I interact on a different level.
When you recite the above mentioned noble Ayah, you see how carefully as usual Allah articulated the sentence to serve the desired meaning in incomparable manner. Using the verb Nara (translated as We have seen the turning of your face, I d rather use We See) in this present form is not haphazard, but rather it just derives from and builds on the Name Al Qareeb. It actually proves how Close Is Allah, it stresses the direct communication between Allah and His Messenger, but we shouldn’t take it as being restricted to the Messenger only. Allah Manifests - using this concise yet very accurate statement- how close and Knowing He can be. And yet we will never be able to realize how much is much. Please also note that responding to the wish and desire of his beloved Messenger to perform Salat facing Kaba`a, has an indication, since establishing this pre requisite became a focal point and a corener stone in Islam. Thus actually, responding to this wish had a long lasting effect and shall remain to have it till the Day After. But my core of interest here is the style of communication between Allah The Great and His Messenger salla Allah a`lyhee wa sallam and every other devotee in the same situation. Allah Willed to tell us how Close, Knowing, Aware, Seeing and Wise He is. How He Realizes all what is in our hearts, aware of our inner struggles and wishes, and certainly Most Capable in no time to just respond to it very easily without incurring any burden. In a faction of a second, during Salah Allah Commanded to switch to Ka`aba. I will not elaborate why was it changed to A`qsa at the first place. This will be a totally different issue. But just ponder on the prompt response. This is what we should really learn from this Ayah.
The lesson learnt is how we must struggle to obey Allah's Commands, strive continuously to maintain a direct one to one relation with Allah, and focus on how to enrich and further coin this relation. We should do all this while being confident of Allah's Awareness, Knowledge and mostly Mercy and Capacity to fulfill at any time. Allah Is so Close to exactly Know our struggles and grievances. Work on that relation in order to gain more and more.