Worship as Cognition, Intentionality and Freedom

Abstract

Worship/ibādah is commonly defined as the innermost capability of cognizing of all rational beings of the existence of God and the sense of gratitude towards Him. The oft-quoted verse from the Qur’ān, Chapter al-Dhāriyāt, verse 56, is interpreted to this cause: “And tell them that I have not created the invisible beings and men to any end other than that they may (know and) worship me.” The intuitive knowledge requires them with conscious willingness to know His reality and conform their own existence to that of God. Analyzing worshipping act is to analyze the worshipper and his nature; so, it is necessary to engage in such a detailed probe of the composition of the human being as it is vital to our goal of showing how the personality of a human being is satisfied with the worshipping act. Therefore, analysis of human being as a worshipper brings us face-to-face such terms as intentionality (niyah), cognition (ma‘rifah) and freedom (hurriyah). Through his intentionality, human beings transcend the natural causal nexuses they are part of. We know that as part of nature and causal nexuses human beings have always been called to ponder about the created beings (how the sky is exalted, how celestial bodies are manifested as ornament, etc.), all of which are intended to affect his ‘will’ and orient it to this cause. Cognition, intentionality/willingness and freedom give the deepest meaning to what the Qur’ān describes as worship/ibādah, which is designed as an instrument for the inner development of the worshipper, who by the act of conscious/intentional self-surrender to the all-pervading Creative Will of God encounters with numinous One. Symbols in the worshipping act and the meaning every single act conveys during worship always remove the tension of this encounter, a phenomenological tide. Through this encounter, a worshipper transforms himself/herself into an ethical agent. The conditions that are necessary before, during and after prayer are intended to meet this essential end. The Qur’ānic verse, “Surely Prayer forbids indecency and evil” as post-condition of prayer is a call to create an ethical subject. And perseverance in prayer will turn this ethical subject into a subjected ethical subject which means ethical codes and norms willy-nilly arises from him. Al-amr bi’l ma’rūf and al-nahy ‘an al-munkar/enjoining the doing of what is right and avoiding doing of what is wrong is not but the manifestation of this exposed subject (determined or oriented subject), which means ethical behaviors necessarily become an indispensable part of him. Worship is a demand for recognition. It is a transpersonal act, aiming to satisfy the desire of finite being to transcend its finiteness. But at the end of worshipping act not unification, on the contrary a total clarification of the limits and borders between the two becomes much more evident.