Aslam

mind of one who knows this and it is not limited only in prayer. It is narrated that a sage did not raise up his head for forty years being ashamed and fearful of God. The saint Rabi-b-Khasem used to close up his eyes so tightly that the people would think that he was blind. He used to go to the house of Ibn Masud for twenty years. Whenever his female slave saw him, she used to say to her master. Your blind friend has come. At this Hazrat Ibn .
Masud used to laugh. Whenever he used to knock at the door, the female slave would come to him and see him with closed eyes.
Hazrat Ibn Masud told him : Give good news to those who are humble By God. Had the Prophet seen you he would have surely been pleased with you. One day he went with Ibn Masud to the shop of a blacksmith. When he saw him blowing and fire coming out, he at once fell down senseless. Ibn Masud sat near his head up to the prayer time but still he did not regain his senses. Then he bore him to his house and he did not recover sense till his prayer for five times passed away. Ibn Masud sat by his head and said : By God this is real God-fear.

The saint Rubi said : I did not observe such prayer in which I had other thing in mind except what I uttered and what was said to me. Hazrat Amer-b-Abdullah feared God in prayer very-much.
When he prayed, his daughter beat drum and the women of the house hold conversation but he did not hear them. One day he was told : Does your mind think any matter in prayer ? He said, Yes, it thinks about its stay before God and going from this world into another world, He was told : Do you see what we generally see about the affairs of the world ? He said : I consider it better that my teeth should go from one side to another than what you see. This is not attention in prayer.

Moslem-b-Yasar was one of them, it is said that while he was one day praying within a mosque, one of its corners fell down but he did not come to know of it. The limb of a certain pious man was damaged and it required operation but it was not at all possible. Some said : When he prays, he will not be able to feel its pangs, Accordingly the limb was operated while he was engaged in prayer. Some said : Prayer belongs to the next world. When you enter prayer, go out of the world. Hazrat Abu Darda said : It is the rule of religion that when a man goes to prayer, he should perform all his necessary things, so that his mind becomes free from

Vol-I PRAYER 149