The religion which laid the slogan of "There is no god but Allah...

The religion which laid the slogan of "There is no 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 does this instinct grow and get deepened in man's life.

We notice, too, that in accurate rites - being a practical expression of the link to the Absolute - both affirmation and rejection pro mulgate- They are, thus, a continuous confirma- tion 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, i.e., Allahu akbar," he confirms this rejection.

And when he declares that His Prophet is also His Servant- slave and Messenger, he confirms this rejection. And when he abstains from enjoying the plea- sures of life, abstaining from enjoying even the necessities of life for the sake of God, defying the temptations and their effects, he, too, confirms this rejection ... !

These rituals have succeeded in the practical sphere of bringing up generations of believers, at the hands of the Holy Prophet 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 limited 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 One. Besides Him, artificial abso- l utes definitely form, in this way or that, an absolute curbing the march's growth.

Attach- ment to the True Absolute, then, is a fixed need; and rejecting artificial absolutes is also a fixed need; and there can be no attachment to the True Absolute without a practical expression of this attachment, confirming it and continu- ously fixing it; and such a practical expression is none but worship! Therefore, worship is a fixed need ... ! 2.