The religion which laid the slogan of "There is not god but Allah...

The religion which laid the slogan of "There is not god but Allah," promulgating with it both rejection and affirmation, is the Director. Rites are factors which perform the role of deepening such feeling, for they are but a practical expression and an expression of the religious instinct; through it this instinct grows and gets deepened in man's life. We notice, too, that in accurate rites-being a practical expression of the link to the Absoluteboth affirmation and rejection promulgate.

They are, thus, a continuous confirmation from man to his link with God Almighty and the rejection of any other "absolute" of those false ones. When one starts his prayers by declaring that "God is Great" (Allaho Akbar), he confirms this rejection. And when he declares that God's Prophet is also His Servant-Slave and Messenger, he confirms this rejection.

And when he abstains from enjoying the pleasures of life, abstaining from enjoying even the necessities of life for the sake of God (as in the case of fasting), defying the temptations and their effects, he, too, confirms this rejection.

These rituals have succeeded in the practical sphere of brining up generations of believers, at the hands of the Prophet (peace be upon him) and his succeeding pious leaders, those whose prayers embodied within their own selves the rejection of all evil powers and their subjection, and the "absolutes" of Kisra and Caesar got minimized before their march as did all "absolutes" of man's whims.

In this light do we come to know that worship is a fixed necessity in man's life and civilized march, for there can be no march without an "absolute" to whom it is linked, deriving from him its ideals. And there is no "absolute" that can absorb the march along its lengthy path except the True Absolute (God), the Glorified. Besides Him, artificial "absolutes" definitely form, in one way or another, an absolute which curbs the march's growth. Attachment to the True Absolute, then, is a fixed need.

And there can be no attachment to the True Absolute without a practical expression of this attachment, confirming it and continuously fixing it. Such a practical expression is none but worship. Therefore, worship is a fixed need. Previous…