Fifth Word The Raw Recruit And The Lesson Of Duty And Prayer

The raw recruit, however, was fond of his stomach and paid no attention to training and the war. "That is the state's business. What is it to me?", he would say. He thought constantly of his livelihood, and pursuing it would leave the regiment and go to the market to do shopping. One day his well-trained friend said to him:

"Your duty is to train and fight, brother. You were brought here for that. Trust in the king; he won't let you go hungry. To feed you is his duty. Anyway, you're powerless and wanting; you can't feed yourself everywhere. And this is a time of mobilization and war; he'll tell you that you're mutinous and will punish you. Yes, we have two duties. One is the king's duty: sometimes we do his fatigue duties and he feeds us for it. The other is our duty: training and fighting, and sometimes the king helps us with it."

Of course you will understand in what danger the layabout soldier would be if he did not pay attention to the striving, well-trained one. O my lazy nafs! That turbulent place of war is this stormy worldly life, and the army divided into regiments, human society. The regiment in the comparison is the community of Islam in this century. One of the two soldiers is a devout Muslim who knows his religious obligations and performs them, and struggles with Satan and his nafs in order to give up serious misdoings and not to commit sins. While the other is a degenerate wrongdoer who is so immersed in the struggle for livelihood that he casts aspersions on the True Provider, abandons his religious obligations, and commits any sins that come his way as he makes his living. As for the training and instruction, it is foremost the prescribed prayers and worship. And the war is the struggle against the nafs and its desires, and against the satans among jinn and men, to deliver them from sin and bad morals, and save the heart and spirit from eternal perdition. And the first of the two duties is to give life and sustain it, while the other is to worship and beseech the Giver and Sustainer of life. It is to trust in Him and rely on Him.