1.5 Recognizing the Meaning of Worship — العبادة (ʿIbādah)

السلام عليكم ورحمة الله وبركاته

All praise is due to Allah, the Most High and Most Glorious, and endless blessings be upon our Seal of the Prophets, Muḥammad ﷺ. May Allah be pleased with all of his noble Companions.

Today we will share a topic: recognizing the profound meanings contained in “worship” العبادة.

Linguistic and Juristic Meaning of العبادة

In the Qur’anic usage, the Arabic explanation of worship العبادة carries the sense of “flatness” and “tameness,” so people will say “a flat road” and “a tame camel.” In Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh), this “worship” carries the combined meaning of love, veneration, and fear. Of course, the linguistic meaning and the juristic meaning can be understood in a connected way. For example, if a person truly has the elements of العبادة (worship), his life path will appear level and smooth, and he himself will show traits of gentleness and submissiveness.

“You Alone We Worship” in Sūrat al-Fātiḥah

In the fifth verse of Sūrat al-Fātiḥah, which we recite at least 17 times every day in our prayers, the Lord makes us worship Him alone and seek help only from Him. Here, worship is mentioned before seeking help from Him. This is to tell us that worshipping Him is the ultimate goal of us human beings.

In verse 56 of Sūrat adh-Dhāriyāt He tells us:

{وَمَا خَلَقْتُ الْجِنَّ وَالإِنسَ إِلاَّ لِيَعْبُدُون} [الذاريات:56]

I did not create jinn and humans except to worship Me(Translation: Dr. Mustafa Khattab, The Clear Quran).

He created the jinn and mankind only in order that they worship Him, because only by worshipping Him can human beings attain fulfillment. At the same time, in this verse our Lord tells us: “We worship You alone” — this is in the second person, directly addressing our Lord. And the second person pronoun كَ is placed before the verb of worship in إِيَّاكَ نَعْبُدُ. We must realize not only that our worship belongs to Him alone, but also that when we worship Him and draw near to Him, He is near to us and accepts our worship of Him. At the same time, we must also understand that when we worship our Lord, there is no created being serving as a barrier in between. We face Him directly and call upon Him. That is why it goes on to say “and we seek help only from You.”

Anyone who can truly be a servant of Allah, the All-High and Great, who worships Him and worships Him alone — at that point he will no longer set up any barrier between himself and Allah’s creation, nor between himself and Allah. For anyone who has a barrier, anyone who worships created beings instead of Him, will become a denier and disbeliever, just as the polytheists worshipped their idols, and as some of the People of the Book worship among the creation of the All-High and Great Lord His servant ʿĪsā (peace be upon him) and ʿUzayr.

Before we come to understand this “worshipping Him,” we must first deeply understand the use of the second person in the fifth verse of Sūrat al-Fātiḥah, where the All-High and Great Lord makes us face Him directly — “You alone we worship.” We must understand this worship in depth.

Three Testimonies Contained in Worship

Now let us connect the meaning of worship with the recognition of Allah’s Oneness (tawḥīd) that it contains. Since we were created in order to worship Him, there are three testimonies:

He possesses—

His own Being and existence: His Essence is absolutely free, unrestricted by time, space, or any categories.
He possesses His specific Spirit, and the essential content of His Speech, which are also absolutely free.
He specifically created this world to manifest His beautiful attributes and virtues, and His control over all the worlds is completely free and unrestricted.

His freedom in these three aspects is absolute. In these three respects He is the only One who is absolutely free. He created creation so that they may bear witness to Him and become His signs (āyāt).

For example, all created beings are brought into existence in order to worship Him. Human beings and jinn are created with both conscious and unconscious forms of testimony, all of which contain these three aspects. Human beings, in these three aspects, display lack of freedom. But once they worship this Being who has the right to be worshipped, they can manifest certain relative traits of freedom.

Relative Freedom in Existence (Hereafter and Paradise)

First, human beings, in their existence, are restricted by time and space. But once they worship this One and only One who is to be worshipped, this One Being who is free in His existence, and bear witness to Him, then in the Hereafter, when they enter Paradise, they will step out of this relative lack of freedom in terms of space — that is, they will attain relative freedom: eternally unending reward in terms of time, and a type of experience that relatively reaches freedom.

Thus, in this aspect, the trait of servanthood must show the seeking of true faith. Regarding true faith, right after Sūrat al-Fātiḥah, in Sūrat al-Baqarah, Allah the All-High and Great tells us to believe in Him and believe in the Hereafter. Once the Hereafter is mentioned, concepts of time and space immediately arise. When we believe in the angels created by the All-High and Great Lord, we know there are also categorical contents.

Human beings are material beings who have souls, and we also have various states of spirit. We are the beings most comprehensively restricted by time, space, categories and the like. Our material bodies contain many categories of limitation. Jinn do not have a material body in space. All other created beings are similar in that respect: angels are purely spiritual beings; animals do not have these kinds of spiritual-intellectual categories. Human beings are chosen to have عبادة — contents of servanthood and worship. When they bear witness that Allah the All-High and Great is absolutely free in His existence — unrestricted by time, space, categories, or cause-and-effect — then human beings must worship the Lord in an all-encompassing way to attain such testimony. So long as they are called “His servant” by their Lord, they can receive the glad tidings of Paradise and step out of relative restrictions.

Relative Freedom in Spirit and Speech (Guidance and Remembrance)

Second, Allah the All-High and Great possesses His perfect, pure Spirit. He is Ever-Living and Self-Subsisting. With the essential content of His Speech, He guides His creation, so that creation may bear witness that His Spirit and His Speech are free and eternal, and not subject to limitation. Therefore, He sends revelation to humankind and to the created world, and all follow His arrangement in worshipping Him. All things glorify Him.

Human beings, however, have the power of choice. If they accept the grace that comes through His Speech, they will praise Him. Once all of this reaches the level of praise, they can bear witness that the spiritual essence possessed by Allah the All-High and Great is the only absolutely free one.

Human beings possess many kinds of spiritual essence: the desire to satisfy physical appetites; the spiritual satisfaction of the soul; the manifestation of the self; and our life itself; as well as all aspects of our intellect, which all need to show traits of fulfillment. To do so, we must use the essential content of the Speech Allah the All-High and Great has given us, to regulate our behavior.

His Speech, when set out in the form of His revealed Book, must be taken as the basis of our acts of worship so that we may become His servants. At the most basic level, He has chosen for mankind His religion — Islam. Of course, around this religion there are all the teachings and laws that manifest its essence and guide humankind. Because when we regulate our behavior according to the content of His Speech and thereby attain worship of Him, we will gain an experience: we attain relative spiritual freedom and testify that He is the One who possesses absolute freedom. Because He bestowed upon us spiritual capacities, we can offer perfect praise to Him.

Thus, in Sūrat ar-Raʿd (The Thunder), our Lord tells us: people’s hearts find peace through the remembrance of Him. When we utter the fixed phrases of glorification He has given us to praise Him and remember Him, and when we remember Him and praise Him through various acts of worship, and even through pure recitation of the Qur’an, all these various forms that contain the content of worship and remembrance enable our hearts to gain tranquility. Naturally, this spiritual state reaches a relative non-restriction, thereby bearing witness that the Spirit He possesses and the Speech He possesses are absolutely perfect, free, unbounded, and transcendent, while we become His signs (āyāt).

Relative Freedom in Attributes and Beautiful Names

Third, Allah the All-High and Great possesses attributes, virtues, and Most Beautiful Names that are absolutely free. To know His attributes and His Names, we must not only rely on the Book He has given us and on what the Prophets and Messengers have taught us, but also know them through His created world and voice our praise.

At that point, we will know that He created this world, and that He is absolutely free. Those who wish to become His servants can also attain a relative freedom. For example, once a person worships Him, and He is pleased with that servant, He will aid that servant, and grant him nourishing portions from His attributes to appear as traits. For example, Allah the All-High and Great is the One who guides. He grants His Prophets and Messengers the attribute of guidance which appears in them as a human trait. In this way, the servants chosen by Allah the All-High and Great can experience relative freedom. Because the good that appears as a beautiful attribute of guidance in them is all permitted by Allah the All-High and Great.

For example, our Prophet Muḥammad ﷺ — Allah the All-High and Great granted him this authority so that whatever he said and every act he did manifested relative freedom in his actions. Whatever he said and whatever rulings he chose to give, all were done as his Lord commanded him, and thus he became a concrete sign and manifestation (āyah) of the attributes and virtues possessed by Allah the All-High and Great.

The Word عبد and the Nobility of Being “His Servant”

In Arabic, the word “servant” عبد is composed of three letters, and these three letters imply these three aspects. Our Lord, Allah the Lord of all realms, calls His Messenger, the Seal of the Prophets ﷺ, “His servant” in many verses. We can read this in various places. For example, in Sūrat al-Isrāʾ, when He mentions the Night Journey and how He took His servant by night from the Sacred Mosque to the Farthest Mosque, He calls him “His servant”:

{سُبْحَانَ الَّذِي أَسْرَى بِعَبْدِهِ لَيْلاً مِّنَ الْمَسْجِدِ الْحَرَامِ إِلَى الْمَسْجِدِ الأَقْصَى الَّذِي بَارَكْنَا حَوْلَهُ لِنُرِيَهُ مِنْ آيَاتِنَا إِنَّهُ هُوَ السَّمِيعُ البَصِير} [الإسراء:1]

Glory be to the One Who took His servant ˹Muḥammad˺ by night from the Sacred Mosque to the Farthest Mosque whose surroundings We have blessed, so that We may show him some of Our signs. Indeed, He alone is the All-Hearing, All-Seeing (Translation: Dr. Mustafa Khattab, The Clear Quran).

In the first verse of Sūrat al-Kahf He says that He revealed the Book to His servant:

{الْحَمْدُ لِلَّهِ الَّذِي أَنزَلَ عَلَى عَبْدِهِ الْكِتَابَ وَلَمْ يَجْعَل لَّهُ عِوَجَا} [الكهف:1]

All praise is for Allah Who has revealed the Book to His servant, allowing no crookedness in it (Translation: Dr. Mustafa Khattab, The Clear Quran),

In Sūrat al-Furqān He says that He sent down the Criterion to His servant — all of these call the Prophet and Messenger “His servant”:

{تَبَارَكَ الَّذِي نَزَّلَ الْفُرْقَانَ عَلَى عَبْدِهِ لِيَكُونَ لِلْعَالَمِينَ نَذِيرًا} [الفرقان:1]

Blessed is the One Who sent down the Decisive Authority to His servant, so that he may be a warner to the whole world (Translation: Dr. Mustafa Khattab, The Clear Quran).

From this we can see how noble it is to become His servant! On the level of the name, putting on oneself the label of “slave” or “servant” that must worship Him may sound as if one is not free. But being able to become His servant, with every aspect of our human nature being fulfilled — whether materially or spiritually, whether it is the self, our very life, or our intellect — all of these can attain the highest degree of fulfillment. From this fulfillment we experience freedom.

On the contrary, if one does not worship Him, refuses to accept being “bound” (unwilling to be called “slave”), refuses the beautiful name of “servant/slave” bestowed by the Lord and does not pursue the essential content within it, then in reality such a person will never be free.

Servants of the Most Compassionate and Life’s Tests

We must also recognize that whoever becomes a servant of Allah the All-High and Great, who worships Him — whether “servants of the Most Compassionate” or “servants of Allah the All-High and Great” — in the Qur’an, Sūrat al-Furqān speaks of the “servants of the Most Compassionate,” and in Sūrat Maryam, when ʿĪsā (peace be upon him) was born, the Lord says he is a servant of Allah the All-High and Great.

These two kinds: one aspect faces pure العبادة — that is, the All-High and Great Allah has given us specific acts of worship to remember Him; and another aspect is the human path of radiating the merciful qualities that Allah the All-High and Great has placed in human beings, by doing good.

When we become His servants in these two aspects, we will also face all kinds of sorrow and distress — that is, tests of blessing and hardship. In the process of testing there will naturally be times of distress, but that does not mean these servants are not free, because the Lord wishes to elevate them.

How do we understand this? It is that He wants them, in the trial of hardship, to strive to attain good; and in the test of blessing, to increase in doing good. Even our Seal of the Prophets Muḥammad ﷺ, when he was conveying the message, because of the persecution of the polytheists and their refusal to submit, he too experienced times of distress. At those times, the Lord commanded him to continue worshipping his Lord until the decree came. In the explanation, this refers to until the Prophet’s passing. This can be learned in Sūrat al-Ḥijr.

Sūrat al-Fātiḥah, the Servant’s Duʿāʾ and Purity

Finally, we will end our topic today by studying the mention of the servant’s grace in Sūrat al-Fātiḥah. In verse 5 of Sūrat al-Fātiḥah it is said:

{إِيَّاكَ نَعْبُدُ وإِيَّاكَ نَسْتَعِين} [الفاتحة:5]

You ˹alone˺ we worship and You ˹alone˺ we ask for help (Translation: Dr. Mustafa Khattab, The Clear Quran).

We worship You alone and seek help only from You. Then in verses 6 and 7 it says:

{اهدِنَــــا الصِّرَاطَ المُستَقِيم} [الفاتحة:6]

Guide us along the Straight Path (Translation: Dr. Mustafa Khattab, The Clear Quran).

{صِرَاطَ الَّذِينَ أَنعَمتَ عَلَيهِمْ غَيرِ المَغضُوبِ عَلَيهِمْ وَلاَ الضَّالِّين} [الفاتحة:7]

the Path of those You have blessed—not those You are displeased with, or those who are astray (Translation: Dr. Mustafa Khattab, The Clear Quran).

We ask You to guide us to the straight path — the path of those whom You have blessed, not those who incur Your anger, nor those who go astray. Whoever can be guided to the straight path, and not follow the path of those who incur anger or of those who go astray, such people can manifest the traits of being servants of Allah the All-High and Great.

When Allah the All-High and Great Himself speaks about Sūrat al-Fātiḥah, He calls it aṣ-ṣalāh (the prayer), and divides it into two parts: one part belongs to the servant praising, lauding, and extolling Him; then the following verses say: the servant asks of Him, and thus receives what he asks. Here it is said that this is His servant. We recite Sūrat al-Fātiḥah at least 17 times every day in our prayers. When we perform ṣalāh, our bodies are pure because we have performed minor or major ablution; our souls are pure because along with the recitation of Sūrat al-Fātiḥah, we are praising our Lord, praising and glorifying Him — this makes our souls as pure as the angels.

And when we make supplication, saying that we worship Him alone and seek help only from Him, asking Him to guide us to the straight path — all of this proves that our hearts are pure. Because whenever we ask of Him, He will fulfill us, and our hearts will be satisfied.

These three aspects all contain the content of العبادات — that is, the content of worship: for example, the physical acts of minor and major ablution; how our souls, through concrete remembrance of our Lord, can attain a pure, angel-like ascending state; and how we concretely travel upon our Lord’s straight path, with the religion and true dīn He has given us, and with the laws and teachings He has given us — there are many topics within this knowledge of worshipping the Lord. Of course, we will omit these today and only explain the profound meanings contained in worshipping Allah the All-High and Great.

We will end our sharing here today. For any slips of the tongue or unclear explanations, I ask Allah, the Most High and the Most Great, for forgiveness, and I ask the members of the group for your understanding. Thank you all for sharing!

السلام عليكم و رحمة الله و بركاته

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