ASH-HADO ALA ILAHA ILLAL-LAHO VAHDAHOO LA SHARIKA LAHOO WA ASH-HADO ANNA MOHAMMADAN ABDA-WHO WA RASULO AMA-BADU FA-A-OOZO-BILLAHE MINASH

SHAYE TA NIRAJEEM BISMILLAH HIRAH MA NIRAH HEEM

Respected judges, fellow nasirat, and other members of the audience: As-salamu alaykum!! Prayer is one of the pillars of Islam and can be in the form of salat or dua. For us nasirat who strive to remove all our wrong doings and mistakes as well as trying to get closer to Allah, the only way to accomplish this is through a pure mind by praying to Allah. Today I want to discuss how prayer promotes purity of Mind. So what is prayer?! Well, prayer and its derivatives have been mentioned over 70 times in the Quran. Salat means the remembrance of God while dua is simply a form of prayer outside of Salat. Prayer, in general, is a way to get closer to Allah and acquire his mercy and forgiveness. Allah has created us and bestowed upon us his endless bounties and blessings. In the Holy Quran, Allah says:

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This verse shows that prayer promotes purity of mind because it says that if someone prays, Allah will help them and allow them to be free of bad thoughts or anything type of evil thought swirling around in their mind which ultimately brings them closer to Allah.

Another important thing is that worldly gains such as wealth or property cannot give us purity of mind because the continuous appetite for more and more worldly objectives never ends and creates one problem after another. It is in human nature that if a person has 100 dollars they would strive for a 1000 dollars. In essence, we are stuck in a viscous cycle, a cycle only a pure mind can break through by praying to Allah. The question arises on what should we do to help us escape from this black hole of worldly pursuits? The answer is very simple. We should turn to Allah. We should pray to him. He will surely listen to our prayers and will guide toward purity of mind. In Reality, only prayers can shield us from these worldly ideals and bring us closer to our Creator by making our minds pure. Allah Ta'ala says in the Holy Quran:

Hear in this verse Allah is telling us that that only praying can bring us at ease and protect us from our worldly pursuits and truly help us attain a pure bound to the will of Allah. This is because only a pure mind feels comfort and breaks away from its worldly pursuits. Allah Ta'ala also clearly says in the Holy Quran only he can bring about a pure mind:

Who answers the cry of the distressed person when he calls upon Him, and removes the evil? (21:63) In this verse Allah says that only he can dispel Evil and bring relaxation of purity. The only way to get close to Allah or connect to him is to pray. Therefore, this verse restates that purity of mind can be attained through prayer.

It is related in a Hadith that our beloved Holy prophet, Muhammad, peace and blessing of Allah be upon him, said:

The prayer of a person is, in reality, a light in his heart, so whoever desires, can illuminate his heart by means of prayers. This Hadith tells us that by praying we illuminate our heart which means we can purify our mind through prayer and the more we pray the more purer and closer to god our mind will become. In his book Essence of Islam, Volume 2 the Promised Messiah (as) said that:

Humility alone is not enough for prayer, but righteousness, purity, truthfulness; perfect certainty, perfect love and perfect attention are all needed.
Here the Promised Messiah (as) tells us that for prayer to be complete purity of mind along with the many other principles of prayer is required. Which simply means when you pray you automatically in a sense receive at least some purity of mind but like the Hadith mentioned the more prayer the better.

Zik-ray khuda pay zoar day zulmutay dill mit-tie-eh jah

This legendary verse from Kalam eh- Mahmood tells us quite simply and very eloquently that prayer should be our focus and the purity of mind we seek will come through prayer. I pray that we all pray to Allah to get rid of our vices and evils and truly become pure because he is Ar- Rahman and Ar-Raheem and he has the ability to grant us purity and the fact that true purity comes through prayer and submission to the will of Allah. May Allah bless us all and grant us the power to do so. Ameen!!!