I was still in my teens when a family elder suggested that I should visit the most famous Shrine/mausoleum of Lahore every week. The idea was to keep me in the loop of spirituality which saves a person from going astray.
I started visiting the place every Friday for praying. After couple of months I realized that every time during prayers at my visit ,I do not mention the one whose shrine I am standing at and I only give reference of Holy prophet(P.B.U.H) so during pray I decided that soon after giving Holy prophet’s reference ,I would give reference of the shrined. At the end of the prayer when I actually tried to do it than I realized that I have made an error of sequencing the references as after referring to the ultimate reference I can not give reference of the shrined so next week when I would come than I would give reference of Holy prophet(P.B.U.H) at the end but next week I realized that I was unable to quote a reference even before Holy prophet’s reference so I finished the prayers through only one reference which was of Holy prophet (P.B.U.H).
In the same time period I used to be almost a pathological liar so when I prayed to God for helping me quit than by mistake I gave reference of Abu baker Siddique (who was known for being truthful and whose generation I belong to) .Soon after referring to him I felt guilty for not referring to Sadiq and Amin (Holy Prophet’s tittles for being truthful and trust worthy).I asked for God’s forgiveness and from that point and age onwards I always refer to Holy prophet(P.BU.H)which is the ultimate reference, during my prayers. I also stopped visiting shrines and Mausoleums.
Different people have different opinions about use of references during prayers.
Being an ordinary person who has not conducted any research
1: Do you feel urge to use “any” references during prayers?
2: Do you agree with the idea that God would be more attentive to our prayers if we beg him in the name of people who were very pious and are not alive anymore.
3: Is use of references in prayers a reflection of our national trait i.e. using references to get the things done which we feel we can not do on our own and similarly we don’t believe that we are good enough to convince God to listen to our prayers so we refer to the people who are supposed to be better humans than us.
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