The Joy of Worship

Sayyidatunā RābiꜤah Baṣriyyah رَحْمَةُ الـلّٰـهِ عَـلَيْها was a female saint, who spent her every day and night totally devoted to worshipping Allāh. She offered one thousand nafl ṣalāh a day, and she did not place her head on a pillow for fifty years. In the book Tanbīh al-Ghāfilīn, we find a narration that describes how she was once offering ṣalāh, when a piece of her prayer mat found its way into her blessed eye. Her heart was so engaged in ṣalāh and such was her focus in the court of Allāh that she رَحْمَةُ الـلّٰـهِ عَـلَيْها did not even notice something was in her eye for the duration of her prayer.^{^[1]}

Mīr ꜤAbd al-Wāḥid Bilgrāmi رَحْمَةُ الـلّٰـهِ عَلَيْه writes:

After ṣalāh, she asked someone, “Take a look at my eye; I feel something in it.” A small fragment of her prayer mat was found within, which had caused injury to her eye. An onlooker exclaimed, “O Sayyidah! Your eye is injured, and you did not realise?” “I was in ṣalāh when this happened”, she explained, “and when I am in the court of my Lord, even if all of Hellfire was to pass by my eyes, I would not notice due to my fear of Him.”^{^[2]}

صَلُّوۡا عَلَى الۡحَبِيۡب صَلَّى اللّٰهُ عَلٰى مُحَمَّد

The misfortune of not experiencing joy in worship

O devotees of the Messenger! You have just listened to how our pious elders would remember Allāh with complete presence and humility, utterly engrossing themselves in His remembrance. The result of this was them experiencing inexplainable joy and sweetness in their acts of worship. May Allāh grant us the same joy in ours!

[1] Tanbih al-Ghafileen, p. 308

[2] Sab’a Sanabil, p. 93

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