The Field of Worship

📅 Date: 1403/08/10 – 27 Rabi al-Thani 1446
✨ Session: Meshkat-e Noor
📖 Weekly session on the explanation and interpretation of the Sahifa Sajjadiya (Supplication 20)
🎤 Speaker: Master Ali Saei
🗒 Some of the topics discussed in the session:

🌿 Obedience: a testament to worship and servitude

Obedience to God is proof that I worship Him. Through obedience, we attain the station of servitude to God, the highest rank of human excellence. We must become servants of God. Who has attained this station? The noble Prophet, Muhammad al-Mustafa (PBUH), attained the rank of “His servant and His Messenger.” He wears this magnificent medal with pride and acknowledges God’s rightful claim. Having attained the station of servitude to God, he gained access to hidden realities and worshipped God with a depth and distinction beyond compare. Attaining the station of worship is the summit of our humanity.

🌸 Servitude: a leap beyond worship

The station of servitude to God is lofty: it is a springboard to a stage beyond worship. But what lies beyond worship? Servitude to God is the first step towards reaching the very heart of life.

🔥 Self-conceit: a threat to rank and accumulated good deeds

Self-conceit can set years of accomplishments ablaze in a single moment. Rank, knowledge, wealth and even worship—all are destroyed when someone says, “I am superior,” because of their clothing, beauty, status or place of residence. Such arrogance engulfs and consumes everything like a fire.

🌠 Sincere servitude: keeping self-conceit at bay

Anyone who attains the station of worship but is overcome by self-conceit is casting themselves into the fire. O God, guide me to do what pleases You and for which I will be held to account tomorrow.

🌌 A prayer for sincerity in servitude

O God, if I do not spend my life in obedience to You, I will become a field for Satan to cultivate. I recite this prayer constantly, yet I do not know why it goes unanswered.

🌿 Devoting oneself to the service of God

I who, through my sins and heedlessness, provide sustenance for Satan—O God, make my life a garment of service to You. Take the strength of my arms and put it to use in obedience to You.

🌹 Beauty in worship: welcoming God as one’s guest

My worship should be beautiful in the highest degree, just as I welcome my guests with the finest food and the most attentive hospitality. O God, let my obedience be for You alone. Teach me the art of worship, so that I may serve You in the most beautiful way. I must spend my life in worship of You; my whole being must be devoted to Your service.

🌿 Sincerity in worship: a life shared with no one

My worship must be sincere; my life belongs to God alone, with no partner. This life is God’s, and I worship only Him. My worship should not be motivated by the desire to enter Paradise or escape Hell. I serve God solely for His pleasure.

🌸 Different kinds of worship: the worship of merchants, the abject, and the free

Some worship God for the sake of Paradise and its rewards; they are traders. Some worship Him out of fear of Hell; this is the worship of the lowly. But others worship God in gratitude and for His own sake; this is the worship of the free. The free give food to those in need without expecting a reward, doing so only to please God.

🌌 Love of Worship: Beyond Obligation and Duty

Even if God had not made worship obligatory, I would still rise in the middle of the night, drawn by love for Him and gratitude for His kindness, and ask His permission to worship Him. True worship springs from love, not from duty or obligation.

🔥 Worship Through Love: A Thirst for Nearness

Worship through love is worship offered out of love and devotion. The lover thirsts for nearness to God and cannot be content with fulfilling the obligatory acts alone. They long to worship more and soar toward God.

🌸 Nearness Through Voluntary Worship: Attaining Divine Love

It is related in a hadith qudsi: When a servant persistently and sincerely performs voluntary acts of worship, they draw ever nearer to God, until God loves them. When God loves His servant, He becomes their hearing, and they hear through Him; He becomes their sight, and they look with insight through Him; He becomes their hand, and they use God-given power to take the hands of those in need. This servant becomes the hand of God—the hand through which God comes to the aid of others.

🌿 A Beloved Servant’s Prayers Answered and Refuge Granted

Whatever a servant beloved by God asks for is granted, and whatever they seek refuge from in God, they are protected against.

🌻 A Golden Lifetime: A Life Devoted to God

O God, bless me with the ability to devote my life to Your cause. A golden lifetime is one dedicated to God and spent in His service.

🌹 Adorning One’s Life with the Arts of Muhammad and the Family of Muhammad

I must adorn my life with the beautiful spiritual and divine arts, so that I may live a worthy life, drawing near to the Prophet and the Ahl al-Bayt (AS).

🌟 Worship: The Purpose of Creation and the Pinnacle of Humanity

Obedience is a prelude to worship and a demonstration of servitude. Worship is the purpose and ultimate end of the creation of humankind and jinn. I must grasp the meaning and essence of worship and ask whether worship belongs only to this human creation of ours, or whether a new form of communion with God will emerge beyond it. Worship without knowledge has no meaning; I must worship God with full knowledge of Him.

🌌 Knowledge of God: The Prerequisite for True Worship

If I do not know God, my worship will be meaningless, and perhaps I will have served someone else. O my God, I need to know You. How can I attain full knowledge of You, so that my worship may be sincere and true?

🌹 The Call to God: The Beginning of Knowledge

Imam Sajjad (AS) said: Say «بسم الله الرحمن الرحیم», and call people to Allah, the Almighty and Glorious. Knowing God means knowing His oneness, mercy, compassion, might, knowledge, and power. This knowledge is the beginning of the path of faith and worship. Where do I stand? I have not even moved beyond the first steps toward knowledge. I must reach a point where I know that whatever He has brought is truth, and all else is falsehood. This is how one becomes a believer and attains the station of obedience and worship.

🌱 Signs of Divine Knowledge

Imam al-Sadiq (AS) said: One who has attained knowledge of God is no longer attached to this world and its glitter, nor does he yearn for its pleasures. If he still longs for what others possess in this world, then he has not attained knowledge of God. In his eyes, the material world is worth less than the dust beneath people’s feet, while the joy of knowing God is like the joy of the people of Paradise in Paradise. This knowledge is a prelude to worship and obedience.

🌟 Divine Knowledge: A Companion in Fear and Solitude

Knowledge of God is a companion in every fear and frees a person from loneliness. One who has attained this knowledge has no fear in his heart, for God is always with him. This knowledge is like a light in the darkness, a remedy for every pain and a cure for every illness. How powerful and transformative is the knowledge of God, the Almighty!

🔥 The Wonders of Knowledge: Foundations and an Idol of Self-Admiration

At the beginning of a hadith, we are told that a Bedouin came to the Messenger of God (PBUH) and asked him about the wonders of knowledge. The Prophet (PBUH) replied: “What have you done with the foundations of knowledge, that you ask about its wonders?” Perhaps these words are a clarion call to shatter the idol of self-admiration in our hearts and begin with the foundations of knowledge, rather than seeking its innermost depths.