Advice of Scholars - THE USE OF WORSHIP IS FOR THE DOER

Most people go wrong by acting upon doubts and illusions. Some of such ill-thinking people say, ‘Allâhu ta’âlâ does not need our ’ibâdât. Our ’ibâdât do Him no good. It is indifferent to His Greatness whether people worship Him or disobey Him. Those who perform ’ibâdât suffer trouble and bother themselves in vain. ’ This reasoning is wrong; those who do not know Islam say so because they think that ’ibâdât are commanded because they are useful to Allâhu ta’âlâ. This is a very wrong supposition that makes one confuse impossible with possible. Any ’ibâda done by anybody is useful to himself only. Allâhu ta’âlâ declares clearly in the eighteenth âyat of the sûrat Fâtir that this is so. A person who bears this wrong thought is like a sick person whom the doctor recommends to diet but who does not diet and says, ‘It won’t harm the doctor if I don’t diet. ’ He is right to say that it will not harm the doctor. But it will harm him. The doctor recommends him to diet not because it will be useful to the doctor himself but to cure the patient’s disease. If he follows the doctor’s advice he will recover. If he does not, he will die, and this will not harm the doctor at all.