While to worship is one meaning of the root abada, it has a religious connotation, as in worshiping idols. Worshiping consists of rituals, rites and ceremonies. Worshiping God reduces our purpose to mere acts of devotion like rituals.

But if we apply the meaning ?to serve? to abada, it sounds more appropriate specially when used for The God. Serving has a wider framework, not limited to ritualistic practices. It sounds unreasonable that God, who created us out of nothing, would want us to bow and prostrate to him physically (while there is nothing wrong in doing so), without the mind and heart submitted to God, willingly or unwillingly.

I think rituals like ritual prayer, fasting, once a year zakat, and hajj are very superficial and just outward submission. While there are many who pray to God with all their heart, most of the Muslims just do the ritual prayer as part of their routine life, mostly just for the sake of it. Their prayers are devoid of humility and of willing submission and surrender, and are virtually meaningless. People just squeeze the prayers in their already busy schedules and don?t give much importance to the prayer which just becomes a habitual and mechanical exercise.

Serving The God is a lot better than worshiping God, because worship does not necessarily have meaning, sincere devotion and complete submission of self. But serving The God takes willingness, consent from heart, true submission and surrender of one?s self, and serves a better purpose than just ritualistic worship routines.

While traditional translators of Quran translate the verse 15 as ?You alone we worship?, which reduces our purpose as servants of Allah to just mechanical and outward obedience rather than willing, translating it as ?you alone we serve? gives a complete picture of our purpose as servants of God.

We are to serve God like a servant serves his master. Even though a servant may serve his master in return of money or any other benefits, we are not to serve God expecting any kind of reward in return. Not that God doesn?t promise any rewards. He sure does. But on our part, notwithstanding the fact that God surely will reward His servants, our purpose should be to serve God unconditionally because He created us and it is His right to be served, and our duty to serve Him, not for any reward.

And how can we serve God? By obeying and abiding by His commandments as given in Quran. If you think about it, you will find it rational that God couldn?t have created us so that we would bow and prostrate to him physically, He is not in need of our physical bows and prostrations and outward acts of mindless devotion. He wants our heart, our inner self to bow and prostrate to Him consciously with total submission. That can only be done if we willingly live our lives by His laws which are given in Quran as opposed to robotic rituals.

Praying towards something doesn't mean that you are worshiping it. The logic behind a Qibla is to represent unity. I personally believe that the Qibla is the Temple mount in Jerusalem (the place of Abraham) and not Mecca.

One thing note is that praying towards a Qibla is not a new practice but an old one that existed during Biblical times...

Daniel 610 Now when Daniel learned that the decree had been published, he went home to his upstairs room where the windows opened toward Jerusalem. Three times a day he got down on his knees and prayed, giving thanks to his God, just as he had done before.

2144 We see the shifting of your face towards the sky; We will thus set for you a focal point that will be pleasing to you, "You shall set yourself towards the Restricted Temple; and wherever you may be, you shall all set yourselves towards it." Those who have been given the book know it is the truth from their Lord. God is not oblivious of what you do.

Peace,

Kevin.

Hmm. but where in the verse 2144 does it say we have to face the kaaba when praying? Sure muslims don't go around facing the qibla, they just face it when they pray. So where in the above verse it is mentioned that you have to face it only when you have to pray?

And it says 'where ever they are'. So didn't God know that there will be people in the future who will be travelling in space and staying in the space stations that orbit the earth some 16 times a day? How are these people supposed to face the kaaba then, if the qibla is a physical thing that God is telling us to focus to?

And what unity are you talking about? We can all see how united are the Muslims all over the world when the time comes to show their unity. Muslims are divided into so many sects, each one thinking it is on the right path and all the others are misguided, each sect fighting with the other. And many of the sects are further subdivided into smaller sects. Can we even imagine how split Muslims are?

They are so not united. Not even in something as small as a trivial matter of Jurisprudence. In such circumstances, what difference does our facing the kaaba make? Did not God know about this? Didnt He know Muslims will be split up in numerous sects? Wouldnt God rather give Muslims a better thing to focus if it was about representing unity?

My understanding (after reading Aidid Safars views and scrutinizing the proofs presented by him ) is that the word qibla doesnt mean the physical direction, its more like an ideological direction or focus. Because it seems rather irrational that God would order us to physically face a physical thing (the house of God/Baitullah) when praying, if you think about it.

Firstly, God doesnt need a house, Since He is not human, he is not subjected to human needs. And He is Omniscient.

Secondly, the word Baitullah is nowhere to be found in Quran.

Thirdly, nowhere in the Quran does it say we have to face the kaaba when praying. The verse says

Therefore, we set the direction that pleases you. Thus, focus your self towards the (masjidil-Haram) wherever you may be. Therefore, focus your self towards it. Surely, those who were given the Scripture know this is the truth from your Lord. (2144)

Taking into account the face that the above verse doesnt specify that we have to focus to the masjidil harami when praying, should we conclude that we are being told here to focus on the masjidil haram all the time, whereever we are, whatever we are doing? Obviously that sounds too absurd to be true.

So now we have only two options; either the qibla doesnt mean physical qibla or masjidil haram is not a physical place or both.

If we take qibla to mean an ideological focus which God is telling us to focus to, then the masjidil harami as a physical place wouldnt make sense either.

Since the verse doesnt specify we have to focus to the kaaba while praying, that can only mean our focus has to be constant which is not possible for us if the we take masjidil haram to mean a physical mosque or any physical place. Is it possible for you to constantly focus yourself towards the Masjidil haram (if it is kaaba) ?

So you see there is something terribly wrong with the traditional understanding of this verse.

no idea if kaaba was previously a temple or not. But I finished reading Aidid Safar's book named 'Mental bondage' lately and the author has proved that Abraham couldn't have made kaaba.

Quran says God never sent any messengers to Arabs before Prophet Muhammad. So could Abraham just go all the way to Makkah, build the kaaba and go back just like that? I mean Abraham would definitely have asked the arabs to help build the house of God. the arabs of makkah must have asked abraham who he was and why was he building the house of God and who told him to do that etc. it's not possible that abraham could have built the kaaba and gone back without telling the arabs that he was a prophet of God. But Quran says the opposite.

So the only logical conclusion is Abraham did not build the kaaba because he never went there.

Aidid Safar has propose a whole new meaning to kaaba. You should read the book if you want to know what kaaba really means.

I know it's hard to digest this, but doesn't it make sense? What do you think?

Deviance. welll. i wouldnt call this book deviant. look it's not like we're little kids and we would believe anything thrown at us. Because now that we are seeking the truth, we must use our faculties to verify and analyze the arguments. And this book, i must say, sounds very logical and makes complete sense. I even looked up the verses the author has quoted. I checked all of the verses about salat, hajj and other things he mentioned as mistranslated and I really gave it all some thought. And it's surprising yet true that his arguments are very logical. like for example I looked up the verses on salat he was talking about and I was shocked that at some of the places salat as ritual prayer didn't make sense at all. You have to keep the context in mind for that. We shouldn't really be too rigid to see things from a different perspective.

For example; We know that Abraham built the kaaba, and for that he must have had to actually get help from people in Makkah to build the kaaba, right? And if he did, the Arabs of Makkah must have been aquainted with Abraham. It won't be wrong to say that if Abraham built the kaaba, he would have been obligated to preach to the arabs, because it sounds very unlikely that he just went to Makkah, built the kaaba and went back to his homeland. But Quran says God never sent any messengers to Makkah before Prophet Muhammad, and that Arabs were a gentile race i.e. without any prior knowledge of God's scripture.

Another example, if Masjid is a mosque for Muslims, why is the same word (masjid) used in Quran in the context of other prophets like Moses? We have been told that the first Mosque was built by Prophet Muhammad himself after 12 years of his prophethood. So what are those masjids God is talking about at other places in Quran? Sure masjid must mean something else than a physical mosque.

There are many other examples that make perfect sense if you really think analytically.

I think it's a must read. You are free to put it in the trash if it doesnt make sense to you anyway.

Has anyone read the book 'Mental Bondage in the name of God' by Aidid Safar???

Hello everyone,

I am a born Muslim and belong to a very typical Shia family. Ive been a very non-religious person all my life. I never used to pray, but Ive been fasting every year since I was 9. Other than that I was never into Islam. Islam was no more than a subject I was taught in school, it was a part of my life but never my priority because it was secondary to me, much like a side-career. I did read Quran but never knew what it meant. I just used to read the Arabic and that too rarely. But I participated in all the Shia rituals religiously, which now that Ive realized are too polytheistic. I was happy with the way I was living until something terrible happened, something that made me question my lifestyle, my choices, my beliefs and I was compelled to figure out the purpose of my life.

That was more than a year back. However, it was only this Ramadan that I came across Quranist websites and to be honest I was surprised because I had never even heard the term Quranist in my 23 years life. I never knew this concept existed, nor did I ever hear or read about anyone who took only Quran as the sole source of guidance, other than Omar offcourse who said Quran is sufficient for us. While I dont believe anymore that the Pen and Paper incident ever happened, the idea that Quran is sufficient for guidance was not fascinating to me. In fact I was of the opinion that this idea was very devilish.

Anyhow, it was an instantaneous paradigm shift that I had experienced because it shook me to the core and all of a sudden I could see the other side of the wall. Surprised and anxious, I began searching on the web and read all I could about the God Alone idea, which is, no doubt the real message of Quran and true Islam. At first I thought I might be going off track and I didnt want to go astray. But since I was genuinely praying to Allah to guide me to the correct path, eventually I accepted this readily as the only correct path which would lead me to God because I knew Allah wouldnt misguide me after I have so desperately wanted and prayed to be guided.

So now MashaAllah I am able to see the Real Islam. And it wasnt that I accepted this idea (which was completely unfamiliar to me) right away. It took long hours of soul-searching as well as researching over the web for me to realize that this is without any doubt the only correct path to God. I investigated a lot and did my best to read as much as I could about it and I read many arguments and discussions regarding this and it was only after it all made sense that I accepted it. I examined the arguments and scrutinized everything before accepting it. It was hard for me to let go of my long-held beliefs and the corrupted faith I was blindly holding on to for so many years. It was disheartening to realize and accept that I was on the wrong path.

But anyway, all is well that ends well. Its never too late to mend your ways. Right? And Im grateful to God that He showed me the correct path. May God guide us all on the straight path!