Alislam.org: Today is the first day of the New Year and the year is starting with the blessed day of Friday. It is tradition to wish each other a Happy New Year, as such people are sending messages of good wishes to Hazrat Khalifatul Masih and they would be wishing each other as well. The New Year is celebrated in the Western, developed world by partying and drinking through the night and by firework displays. In fact this is also how it is now celebrated in Muslim countries. Television news was reporting last night with images of a 63-storey building on fire in Dubai alongside firework displays and it was repeatedly announced that notwithstanding the building on fire, the firework display would go ahead. Most Muslim countries are in a bad way these days but it is the way the wealthy show their materialism. Even if there had been no fire, it was the need of the time for wealthy Muslim countries to state that rather than spend on wasteful matters they would help the affected Muslims. But such is the state of affairs that a few days ago it was in the news that the most exclusive hotel in Dubai had the most expensive Christmas tree in the world at a cost of $11 million. These are now the preferences of wealthy Muslims.
Conversely, there are many Ahmadis who spent last night in worship of God or woke up early to offer optional Prayers to start the New Year. Tahajjud Prayers in congregation were offered in many places. Yet we are deemed as non-Muslims while those who create a rumpus are Muslims. In any case, with the grace of God, we are Muslims and we do not need anyone’s testimonial for this. If we are desirous of any testimonial it is to be true Muslims in God’s sight. And this does not come to pass by offering individual or communal optional Prayers on the first day of the year or by alms-giving or doing some other virtuous act. No doubt pious practices attract God’s grace but there needs to be consistency and resolve in them. God desires constancy in piety. Along with offering Tahajjud Prayers what is needed to please God is to bring about a revolutionary pious change of hearts. This cannot be achieved by being pious for the odd few days. We should reflect as to what sort of practices do we need to adopt that will gain us God’s pleasure. To this end, Hazrat Khalifatul Masih related some advisory extracts of the one commissioned by God in this age, the Promised Messiah (on whom be peace). The extracts elucidate how to try persistently and with conviction to attain God’s pleasure, how to make 12 months of year and 365 days blessed to garner Divine grace.
The Promised Messiah (on whom be peace) said:
‘Look at the state of the world! Our Holy Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be on him) showed through his practice and his life and death and everything was for the sake of Allah the Exalted. As for the Muslims in the world today, if one of them is asked if he is a Muslim, he will respond by uttering, Alhamdolillah. The life principles of the one he professes to follow were for the sake of God, but the Muslim of today lives and dies for the world until such times that he is in the throes of death. The world remains his object of desire. How can he then say that he follows the Holy Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be on him)?
This matter is most thought-provoking, do not consider it something trivial. It is not easy to be a Muslim. Do not be content until you instil obedience of the Holy Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be on him) and the Islamic model in you.
If you are known as a Muslim without practising obedience then your [faith] is a mere shell and the wise do not suffice on mere shell and epithets. A Muslim asked a Jew to become a Muslim. The Jew replied, do not suffice on mere name. I called my son Khalid (long-living) but buried him before evening fell. Thus, seek the reality and do not be happy on mere epithets. How disgraceful it is that one is known to be from the Ummah of the magnificent Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be on him) but spends life like disbelievers. Demonstrate the model of the Holy Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be on him) in your life and generate the same condition. Be mindful that if you do not have the same condition, you are a follower of Satan.