A – Individual Effects
The Most Important Deed for Reaching the Summits of Felicity
You are young; your hearts are pure, untainted. You will not reach the depth of this remark right now either—what this untaintedness means, where the trouble with tainted hearts lies; you who are young will not get to it for a long while yet. When you reach an age around ours, then you will understand the trouble; you will see how much this clarity of heart in the period of youth is worth and how precious it is—something that can never be regained.
Today this capital is at your disposal... As much as you can, connect this pure and clear heart to the source of grandeur, to the source of truth, to the source of beauty—that is, the sacred Essence of Allah the Most High—and bring it close. If you succeed, you will have a felicitous life to the end of your days; if you do not succeed now, twenty years from now it will be harder; if twenty years later as well—when you will be 40, 45 years old—you do not succeed, twenty years after that it will be very, very much more difficult; that is, at ages still below my present age; it will become very hard. Not that it will be impossible, but it will be difficult. Connect your hearts to Allah now. The way to do it is open in the sacred Shari'ah, too; it is not some mysterious, complicated undertaking. You look at the summit of a mountain from below and see that there are people up there; it is not the case—do not imagine—that they spread their wings and flew up there; no, they went forward along this very path that lies before your feet and reached that place. Let us not fall into illusion; let us not imagine that those summits can be reached through some unusual, extraordinary kind of movement; no, those whom you see on those summits passed along these very paths. What are these paths? First and foremost, abandoning sin. Saying it is easy, doing it is hard; but it is unavoidable. Not lying, not betraying, refraining from the various sexual and lustful slips, refraining from sins—this is its most important step. After abandoning sin, carrying out the obligatory duties; and more important than all the obligatory duties is salah. “وَاعلَم اَنّ کلَّ شَیءٍ مِن عَمَلِکَ تَبَعٌ لِصَلاتِکَ”;all of a person's deeds follow his salah. Perform salah on time; perform it with attentiveness and with presence of heart (huzur al-qalb). Presence of heart means that you know you are talking with someone; know that you have an addressee with whom you are speaking. If you practice this state in yourselves, if you manage to create this concentration, it will stay with you to the end of your life... From now on, get into the habit of creating and bringing about this concentration in yourselves during salah. Then this is that salah which “تَنهَی عَنِ الفَحشاءِ والمُنکَرِ”.“تنهی” means it forbids you; it does not mean that it places an obstacle in front of you so that you can no longer sin; no, it means that it constantly tells you: don't sin. Well, if several times a day a person is told from within his own heart, don't sin, don't sin, he will not sin. This is salah.
A Source of Tranquility for Hearts and a Remover of Anxieties
Just as the glad tidings of the rising for salah would—as has come in the hadith—fill the Prophet of sublime stature (peace and blessings be upon him and his household) with rapture, and he would say to Bilal, the constant herald of salah: “ارحنا یا بلال!”, that is, O Bilal! Give my heart comfort with the adhan (the call to prayer), which is the glad tidings of salah!—in the same way, honoring salah and spreading and raising its name fills the hearts of Allah's servants with rapture and vitality and scatters the dark clouds of weariness and anxiety from their horizons; and this springs from the very nature of salah itself, which is a source of tranquility for hearts and a remover of the worries and inner anxieties of the one who prays.
In the days of the era of repression, too, when the faithful elements wanted to resist the pressure of the ruling apparatus and the temptations and enticements of a comfortable life—which pushed them to set the struggle aside—they would turn to fasting. Such are the acts of worship of Allah. Such is presence before the Lord. When you perform salah, you find tranquility; you are delivered from the anxiety and turbulence of the soul. When you engage in munajat (intimate supplication) and humble entreaty with Allah the Exalted, you refine your soul and make it pure; you drive the impurities away from it. When you fast, you make yourselves firm and tempered like steel. That is how it is.
What we gain by means of the acts of worship is very, very valuable; it is a great deal. We must thank Allah that He brought us salah and fasting and the acts of worship; He gave us the opportunity to secure these benefits for ourselves.
A Cause of True Joy and Vitality
The du'a (supplication) that is recited in the sajdah (prostration) of the night prayer (salat al-layl), and which the Imam, too, once mentioned in one of his speeches, is this: “اللهم ارزقنی التجافی عن دارالغرور و الانابة الی دارالسرور” [O Allah, grant me withdrawal from the abode of delusion and turning to the abode of joy].This is joy that is mu'tanabih;that is, he asks Allah that his heart may incline toward the abode of joy.
Truly, what kind of joy is this? “The abode of joy” means the final abode, the world of the Hereafter; the world in which Paradise lies; that is the “abode of joy”; it is the joy of the believers. It cannot be that a person goes through a lifetime of fifty years, sixty years, eighty years without feeling this joy; that makes no sense; a person must feel this joy. This joy is a joy with which there is no sorrow. These outward joys that we find are mostly accompanied by sorrow; intense loves are mostly accompanied by sorrow. Although love is a joy-bringing factor and gives a person vitality, in the very same measure that it brings vitality, it also brings sorrow. Love, at every stage, has a sorrow mixed in with its vitality. Someone has said:
The torment of nearness exceeds that of distance; / my heart bleeds from the torment of nearness
I don't know whose verse this is; years ago, I once noted it down. He says that even in the state of union there is still torment:
In distance there is nothing but the hope of union; / in nearness there is nothing but the fear of its passing
That is the least of it. He is anxious that this pleasant state, this nearness, this union, will pass away. All material things are like this; except spiritual love, spiritual nearness, spiritual joy, which never comes to an end at all; that is, does someone who truly comes to love Allah the Exalted fear its passing?! In union with Allah—that is, that gnostic and spiritual union—is there any fear of passing?! No.
I see joy in salah; when I say this, it is truly what I feel. Sometimes a person is saddened by an incident, by a piece of news, by an occurrence, by some failure on some scene or in some arena, and wants to take refuge in something that will wipe this sorrow away. Sometimes a person takes refuge in recreation and friendship, in companionship and in banter and laughter. Some are able to; some find no such thing and are unable to; but I have found through experience that the factor that always gives a person gladness in such states is salah; that is, when a person turns toward salah, his heart opens up and that spiritual gladness arises in him. Why? Because salah is that stage at which a person speaks with Allah without any intermediary and without any veil; that is true gladness. One must not be heedless of this gladness.
The Remembrance of Allah: A Guarantee of Right Action and Steadfastness on the Path
Connection with Allah guarantees right action and steadfastness on the path. If we want to move correctly along this road—not to be thrown off the path by alluring, fleeting appearances, and to move straight toward the goal—then in this task the remembrance of Allah, reliance on Allah and a constant connection with Allah are certainly needed; we must make this our standing instruction. When the poet says, “Blessed are those who are ever in salah,”he does not mean that they are constantly sitting or standing facing the qiblah (the direction of prayer), or performing ruku' (bowing) and sajdah; what is meant is the spirit of salah, and dhikr (invocation of Allah) and the remembrance of Allah. One must constantly be in the remembrance of Allah.
The Invocations of Salah: A Means to Greater Familiarity with the Divine Teachings
The words and invocations of salah are each a summary that points to a part of the teachings of religion and brings it to the mind of the one who prays repeatedly, again and again. Salah that is performed with reflection on its meanings and without lapses and heedlessness makes a person, day by day, more familiar with the divine teachings and more attached to them.
The Effect of Salah in Firming and Strengthening Patience
Take salah in the general sense of salah; that is, attentiveness, dhikr, khushu' (humble devotion); otherwise the form of salah, when it is devoid of dhikr, is not what is meant. That is why, in that noble verse too, where He speaks about salah, He then says: “ولَذِكرُ الله أكبَرُ”.“إنّ الصّلاة تَنهَی عن الفَحشاءِ والمنكَرِ”—this is one property of salah; but greater than restraining from indecency and wrongdoing is the very remembrance of Allah that exists in salah.
This salah—that is, that dhikr, attentiveness, khushu', and heartfelt connection with Allah—has an effect on the firmness of patience... That is why, observe, in the Qur'an too it is: “واصبِر و ما صَبرُكَ إلّا بالله”.Of course, “واصبِر” occurs often in the Qur'an, and if one sets out to read those verses, each of them is an ocean of ma'rifah (spiritual knowledge). Now, this noble verse, “واصبِر و ما صَبرُكَ إلّا بالله”: it is with the help of Allah that you are able to be patient; that is, steadfastness becomes inexhaustible when it is connected to the inexhaustible source of divine dhikr. If we connect patience—patience in that very sense of perseverance, standing firm, steadfastness and not retreating—to that base of divine dhikr, to that everlasting source, this patience will never run out. When patience does not run out, it means that this journey of man toward all the summits will not face any halt. These summits I speak of are the summits of both this world and the Hereafter: the summit of knowledge, the summit of wealth, the summit of political power, the summit of spirituality, the summit of moral refinement, the summit of ascent toward the lofty throne of humanity. None of these will come to a halt anymore; because the halts in our movement stem from impatience. When two material armies line up against each other, the one whose patience runs out sooner is defeated; the one whose patience and resistance run out later will be victorious; because he will be met with a moment at which the opposing side has lost its patience. This is a very evident, conspicuous, concrete example of it; it is just the same in all arenas.
Preserving the Bond with Allah through Salah
Preserve your bond with Allah. The means of preserving this bond is also at everyone's disposal. If these very five daily prayers are performed with attentiveness, with presence of heart and with the awareness that we are standing before Allah, that is the best bond, and it will make your hearts more luminous day by day. Those young people who, on the nights of Laylat al-Qadr (the Night of Power), gathered in the masjids, husayniyyahs (halls for religious gatherings) and holy shrines, wept, recited du'as, placed the Qur'an on their heads, kept vigil through the night and illuminated their hearts with the light of divine love—let them preserve this bond, for they will benefit from it. In sha' Allah, over time, in the years to come, this bond will grow stronger day by day; it is by this path that a person will attain his desired perfection and the ultimate purpose of his creation. Success in all the arenas of life also depends on this.
Salah, the Best and Most Effective Means of Meeting the Need for a Spiritual Bond with Allah
Today, with the domination of the mechanical order over all human societies, human beings and their humanity are under severe pressure. In such an order, individual human beings are compelled to make the rhythm of their individual and social life match and keep time with the heavy, soul-melting beat of the machine. It is in this conformity of rhythm that mercy, magnanimity, forgiveness, self-sacrifice and many other moral values lose their effect and fade; and it is in such a situation that the family, and the ethics of affectionate family coexistence, are trampled and destroyed. For decades now, concerned and perceptive people, even at the very heart of industrial and mechanical civilization, have sensed this danger and sounded the alarm; and regrettably, millions of human beings—especially young people, who have more delicate feelings and a more vulnerable spirit—still remain defenseless and without remedy in the face of this great calamity.
For this reason, the need for a spiritual bond with Allah, the Merciful and Generous, is today more acute and more serious than ever for the people of the world; and salah is the best and most effective means of meeting this need. Humanity today is in greater need than ever of pure, complete and fervent Islamic salah.
Deliverance from Emptiness, Aimlessness and Weakness
Salah with presence and attentiveness, salah that is brimming with remembrance and dhikr, salah in which a person speaks with Allah and entrusts his heart to Him, salah that constantly teaches a person the loftiest teachings of Islam—such salah delivers a person from emptiness, aimlessness and weakness, brightens the horizon of life in his eyes, grants him resolve, will and purpose, and saves his heart from the inclination toward deviation, sin and baseness. That is why salah, in all circumstances, even on the battlefield and in the hardest trials of life, does not lose its priority. Man is always in need of salah, and in the arenas of danger he is in even greater need.
A Barrier against Man's Susceptibility to Corruption
Man, who on the one hand is at times the manifestation of the loftiest and most beautiful truths of existence, on the other hand at times also becomes the place where unparalleled ugliness and baseness emerge. If in one place and time we see him as the manifestation of awareness, love and self-sacrifice, or of wisdom, creativity and progress in the arenas of elevation, or as a sign of yearning, fervor and hope, in another place and time we observe him afflicted with heedlessness, rancor and selfishness, or with ignorance, habit and stagnation, or with lethargy, despair and pessimism.
This gifted being can become anything from the most excellent creature in the world to the basest phenomenon in existence. He has been created equipped with all the tools and the grounds for elevation and for spiritual and material perfection. His nature is good, and the path of goodness is open before him. Reason and the power to decide and choose are his two strong wings, and the divine messengers are his guides, those who give him hope and those who help him; yet even so, he can surrender to his weaknesses, whims and selfishness, or to his ignorance, heedlessness and habits, and deprive himself of all those glad tidings, hopes and ascents. This is what must be called “man's susceptibility to corruption”, and it is the very thing that, over the long life of humankind and also in the life of each individual human being, has been and still is regarded as his greatest calamity and his most dangerous threat.
To prevent and also to cure this great blight, the religion of Allah has taught man “dhikr”. Dhikr means calling the truth to mind, finding oneself before Allah, listening to Him and giving one's heart to Him; it means freeing oneself from the preoccupations that make a person captive to the temptation of whims or that gratify his craving for superiority, vengefulness and greed; it means taking him from the hell that he has prepared for himself to the paradise of purity, intimacy, delight and security. And salah, with its harmonious combination of heart, tongue and movement, is the purest and most complete example and means of dhikr.
The Luminosity of Salah: Dispelling the Darkness of Sins
Man is exposed to all kinds of errors. Every human being—great or small, old or young, it makes no difference—ultimately has lapses, mistakes and errors, and sins befall him. If a person wants to succeed on the road of life, salah can make up for these. In the noble verse of the Qur'an He says: “وَأَقِمِ الصَّلَاةَ طَرَفَيِ النَّهَارِ وَزُلَفًا مِنَ اللَّيْلِ إِنَّ الْحَسَنَاتِ يُذْهِبْنَ السَّيِّئَاتِ”;that is, perform salah at the two ends of the day and in parts of the night; for good deeds can remove bad deeds. Salah has a luminosity; it removes darkness, removes bad deeds and wipes the effect of sins from the heart. After all, a person may pick up some impurities and his hands may become entangled in some error. If you are committed to salah, this luminosity of yours will remain, and sin will not find the opportunity to penetrate your soul.
A Restraint from Indecency and Wrongdoing
A person who has taqwa (God-wariness)—that is, who watches over himself and is mindful—does not become a source of evil, oppression, corruption, rebellion and harm to this person or that. That divine remembrance is constantly forbidding him; it is constantly holding him back: “الصّلوه تنهى”. “تنهى” means it forbids, not that it ties a person's hands and feet or disables his instincts. Some people imagine that “الصلوه تنهى عن الفحشاء والمنكر”means that if you perform salah, indecency and wrongdoing will then disappear; no, it means that when you perform salah, that inner preacher of yours, which has come to life through salah, constantly speaks to you of the evil of indecency and wrongdoing; and saying, repeating and reciting into the heart naturally has an effect and makes the heart humble and filled with khushu'. That is why, you see, salah must be repeated. Fasting, once a year; Hajj, once in a lifetime; salah must be repeated several times every day. This is where the importance of salah lies.
When people's hearts become intimate with salah and, through salah, they become intimate and familiar with Allah the Exalted, sins naturally move away from them; their hearts become sensitive to sin, and that state of taqwa which, in the sacred Shari'ah, is the mainstay of religiosity gradually comes about in a person. This is what salah is about.
A Healing Remedy
In his personal life, a person sometimes draws near to the factor of dhikr as a result of hardships, adversities and calamities, and in his collective life sometimes through transformative events, such as a general movement toward jihad or charitable spending or helping the needy; and sometimes, through whim-laden amusements and immersion in revelry, aristocratic extravagance and pleasure-seeking, he falls away from it. The element that can bring him near, or nearer, to the paradise of “dhikr” in all these states is salah.
In states of spiritual readiness, salah grants a person greater ascent, spiritual state and presence, and in states of heedlessness and unreadiness it rings the alarm bell in his ear and brings him near to that luminous valley. Therefore salah must not be abandoned in any state. In the midst of hardship and adversity, in the thick of the field of jihad, in times of leisure and ease, and even in the midst of the filthy environment that a person has created around himself with whims, rancor, lusts and selfishness, salah is a strengthening and healing drink; one must drink it with heart and soul and, from whatever point one happens to be, draw one step, or one whole stretch, nearer to the Paradise of Ridwan (Allah's good pleasure). That is why they have said neither “حَیَّ علی الجهاد” [Hasten to jihad], nor “حَیَّ علی الصوم” [Hasten to fasting], nor “حَیَّ علی الإنفاق” [Hasten to charitable spending], but every day, many times over, they have chanted: “حیّ علی الصّلاة” [Hasten to salah].
The Cure for Arrogance
Among the blameworthy traits that expose the health of the soul and the ease of life to danger and obstruction, arrogance is one of the most harmful. The self-superiority and rebelliousness that arise from it leave so many truths unrecognized and so many paths of virtue untrodden, and give rise to so many unjust grudges and hostilities, and so many ugly and aberrant deeds! Yes, arrogance is a veil over the truth, a thorn on the path of virtue, an enemy of purity and sincerity, and a motive for enmity and wickedness. Individual human beings and human societies, from the beginning of their existence until now, have endured and continue to endure countless losses from the arrogance and conceit of peoples and individuals, and from the rebelliousness and bigotry that arise from them.
Islamic acts of worship, and above all salah, are among the effective and efficient remedies for removing this blight from people's souls. Salah, when it is performed with spiritual state, presence and proper etiquette, acquaints the human spirit with its essential neediness, and burns away the roots of arrogance, vainglory and illusory grandeur within him. Khushu' before the Lord shines the light of insight upon his heart and wipes away from it the illusory shadow of self-aggrandizement: “فرض الله الایمان تطهیراً من الشرك والصلاة تنزیهاً من الكبر...” [Allah made faith obligatory as a purification from polytheism, and salah as a safeguard against arrogance...].
...In Nahj al-Balaghah it is stated thus: “و عن ذلك ما حرس الله عباده المؤمنین بالصلوات و الزکوات و مجاهدة الصّیام فی الایّام المفروضات، تسکیناً لاطرافهم و تخشیعاً لابصارهم وتذلیلاً لنفوسهم وتخفیضاً لقلوبهم واذهاباً للخیلاء عنهم”;that is, Allah protects and guards His believing servants from arrogance and self-conceit through the prayers, the payments of zakah (obligatory alms) and the arduous fasts; He gives calm to their bodies, humility to their eyes, makes their selves docile, teaches their hearts lowliness, and drives vanity away from them.
B – Social Effects
Salah: Shaping the Architecture of the Islamic System
Salah also has a social dimension. The social dimension of salah is that each and every Muslim, by means of salah, comes into contact with one single center. At one and the same moment, at the time of salah, all Muslims, in all the places across which the Islamic world extends, connect their hearts to one single center; this connection of all hearts to one single center is a social matter, a system-building matter; it determines and shapes the architecture of the Islamic system.
Establishing a Religious Society through Salah
When we have been told “الصلوة عمود الدّین”,we must take this seriously. The tent of religion stands upright by salah; in the religiosity and devoutness of an individual, in the establishment of a religious society, and in the religiosity of a country and a community alike. If we are unable to discern correctly how salah exerts its influence across this broad and vast expanse, it is due to our own shortsightedness; otherwise, the one who declared “الصلوة عمود الدّین”, and the noble verses of the Qur'an that speak of the importance of salah, know well how this mechanism works and what this role is.
A Luminous Society in the Light of Humbly Devoted Salah
Salah, when it is accompanied by attentiveness and presence, makes not only the heart and soul of the one who prays, but also the atmosphere around him, gentle, luminous and fragrant, and it sheds its radiance upon the home and family, the workplace, the gatherings of friends, the assemblies of citizens and all the spaces of life. The more worshippers there are who are attentive, humbly devoted and engaged in dhikr, the less the darkness of selfishness, despotism, ill will, greed, aggression, envy and malevolence becomes, and the more brightly the light of salvation shines on the brow of life.
The root of all humanity's bitterness lies in heedlessness of Allah and in being confined to personal interests. Salah frees man from these dark enclosures and guides his lust and anger toward the exalted truth and the common good. Salah that is humbly devoted and brimming with spiritual state and presence creates a true paradise, first in the heart and soul of the one who prays and gradually in the environment of life, and bestows righteousness and salvation upon man as a gift. That is why, in all the divine religions, performing salah is the most fundamental etiquette of religiosity and the clearest and most universal sign of faith; and the salah of Islam is the most complete and most beautiful of all the prayers.
Salah: The Most Crucial Element in Reforming the Individual and Society
The importance of the work of establishing salah (iqamat al-salah) and promoting salah stems from the importance of salah itself. When we see that in the sacred Shari'ah of Islam so much encouragement, exhortation and concern has been shown regarding salah—whether in the Qur'an, or in the words of the Noble Prophet, or in the sayings of the Infallibles—we discover that, among the whole set of remedies that cure man's physical and spiritual, individual and social ailments, salah is the principal element, or one of the most principal elements. All the obligations of the Shari'ah and the avoidance of all that is forbidden make up a set of remedies prescribed by the Lord for strengthening man's spiritual constitution and setting right the affairs of his world and his Hereafter—reforming society, reforming the individual—except that in this set some of the elements are key elements, and it could perhaps be said that salah is the most crucial of these elements. “الّذین ان مکّناهم فی الارض اقاموا الصّلوة”.The believers, the strivers in the way of Allah, those who sacrifice themselves on the path of consolidating the divine teachings, are such that when “ان مکّناهم فی الارض”—when We establish them in the land and entrust power to them—there are many things they must do: establishing justice, bringing about this and that; but the first thing there is: “اقاموا الصّلوة”; they establish salah.
Promoting Salah Reduces Social Ills
Let everyone know that one of the most effective ways of reducing social ills is promoting salah. Strive so that not even one of the country's young people and adolescents is negligent in salah. This is one of the best ways to the spiritual and psychological health of our people and our society.Salah, when it is performed with khushu' and presence, draws society toward righteousness and rectitude in word and deed and elevates it. A significant part of our problems and corruptions results from not attending to this cautionary truth. Hence, promoting salah by every effective method is among the great duties to which we must all devote ourselves.
The Security of Society: The Fruit of Establishing Salah
If we perform salah—from within a person, from a person's heart, all the way to the level of society and the level of governance over society, however large this society may be—through the blessing of salah, it finds safety, it finds security. The human heart finds security, the human body finds security, human society finds security. This is the property of salah; this is what establishing salah in society means.
An Important Factor in Social Discipline and Order
Since salah, firstly, grants moral and spiritual health and elevation to the members of society, and secondly, since through its particular form and content it draws the one who prays toward discipline and saves him from futility and slackness, it must rightly be recognized as one of the important factors of social discipline and order. If salah performed with presence, out of eagerness and at its preferred time (waqt al-fadilah) becomes widespread among a people, these will be the certain achievements of that people; it is obvious that salah performed out of lethargy, without presence, or for show will have none of these benefits.
An Unfailing Power against the Front of Corruption
Our people and our society, and especially our young people, who have now taken the heavy burden of a trust upon their shoulders, must regard salah as a source of unfailing power, and draw strength from salah and the remembrance of Allah against the front of corruption, injustice and deviation that threatens humanity today. The field of struggle that lies before us today makes us need the firm support of the remembrance of Allah, and of hope and trust in Him, more than ever and before anything else; and salah is that gushing spring that grants us this hope, trust and spiritual power.
The Country's Greatness and Dignity in the Shade of the Qur'an, Islam and Salah
Let all families and all the people, especially young people, attach importance to salah, the masjid, worship and Qur'an gatherings. Whatever greatness, dignity and power this country has achieved today is in the shade of the Qur'an, Islam, salah, worship and the remembrance of Allah. Attention must be paid both to study and work and to religious devotion; for religious devotion is the backbone of all of these. You must become intimately attached to salah, the masjid, worship, religious gatherings and Qur'an gatherings.
The Spiritual Backbone of All Struggles and Sacrifices
It is salah that brings about in the human spirit the qualities needed for self-sacrifice, forbearance, trust in Allah and devoted servitude, which are the indispensable backing of perilous and difficult obligations such as jihad, forbidding wrong and zakah, and it sends him courageously into those arenas. When, because of an enemy onslaught, the obligation of jihad gains importance, or when, due to the hardship of life of some sections of the people, the obligation of zakah and charitable spending calls upon everyone, or when, as required by the enemy's efforts in the field of culture and morals, enjoining good and forbidding wrong becomes a universal duty—in all these conditions, salah not only does not fall from its standing as “خیرالعمل” [the best of deeds], but, as the spiritual and moral backing of all the struggles, sacrifices and risks taken, its importance increases.
The Pure Life of Society Depends on Establishing Salah
Salah is a door open to all the members of the Ummah, through which one can reach the guidance and mercy of Allah and set life on the right course, brimming with goodness and blessing. The spiritual health of every individual depends on salah, and the straight path and pure life of every society, too, are realized only through establishing salah in it. All this emphasis on establishing salah in the Book and the Sunnah has no aim other than that this door of mercy should remain open to the Muslim individual and society, and that the opportunity to benefit from it should arise.
The Fruition of the Islamic Revolution through the Blessing of the People's Spiritual Inclinations and Commitment to Salah
Before the Revolution, one of the well-known Arab writers had once come to Iran. In a meeting we had together, he said to me: “I have traveled to all the Islamic countries; but in no country have I seen that when people are aboard a train on a journey, at the time of salah the train suddenly stops and everyone gets off to perform salah.” He said: “It is in Iran that I am witnessing such a thing for the first time, and I have not seen the like of it anywhere else.”
Yes; it was this very spiritual and religious inclination that brought the next point of strength into being; and that was the accomplishment of one of the greatest national tests and most courageous uprisings in the course of history, at a sensitive juncture in the life of this nation—namely, our great Islamic Revolution—and standing by this revolution and forming a government based on this revolution, which is the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran. These are among the blessings of that very religious faith. Did you see how those who claimed to be freedom-seekers, strugglers and revolutionaries, but who deep down were strangers to religion, fell by the wayside midway, were grounded and, as you would put it, “conked out” and could not come forward?! But the Iranian nation went on forward and forward, and still, by the blessing of faith, it is moving forward.