Past eventOther · Patience · Session 4

Oh Bilal, Make My Heart and Soul Peaceful

Wednesday, 23 October 2024

Every religious obligation you find difficult was designed to be difficult — and this session argues that is precisely the point. Prayer requires you to stop, wash and dress a particular way; fasting means sitting with hunger and thirst all day; the hajj, the pilgrimage to Makkah, now means visas, expense and separation from home. None of this sits comfortably with a comfort-loving nature, the session argues — and that discomfort is not a flaw in the system, but exactly where patience in obedience does its work. Drawing on Imam Khomeini's Sirr as-Salat, the Secrets of the Prayer, the session examines presence of heart in prayer, described as a bird jumping branch to branch, unable to settle while attached to worldly love — contrasting someone who owns nothing but is consumed by this world, with someone like Prophet Sulayman, peace be upon him, who possessed everything yet remained untouched by it. There is a warmer moment too: the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him and his family, asking his companion Bilal to call the prayer and "make my heart and soul peaceful." The session closes on the Qur'an's promise that twenty steadfast believers can defeat two hundred, and the prayer facing Goliath's army: "pour down patience on us, and strengthen our foothold." If the obligations are hard by design, what is patience in obedience actually training you for? What the evening covers Why the compulsory is uncomfortable. Prayer, fasting and hajj examined as obligations that were never meant to be easy. The heart like a bird. Imam Khomeini's teaching on presence of heart in prayer. "Make my heart and soul peaceful." The Prophet's words to Bilal before the call to prayer. Twenty against two hundred. The Qur'an on patience as the deciding factor in battle.