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He will of His servants; and the other is that which men acquire by dint of study and fair knowledge.’ (Q.) ‘Thou hast answered well. Where is the seat of the understanding?’ (A.) ‘God casteth it in the heart, whence its lustre ascendeth to the brain and there becometh fixed.’ (Q.) ‘How knowest thou the Prophet of God?’ (A.) ‘By the reading of God’s Holy Book and by signs and proofs and portents and miracles.’ (Q.) ‘What are the obligatory ordinances and the immutable institutions?’ (A.) ‘The obligatory ordinances are five in number. (1) Testification that there is no god but God alone, that He hath no partner in divinity and that Mohammed is His servant and His apostle. (2) The scrupulous performance of the enjoined prayers. (3) The payment of the poor-rate. (4) Fasting Ramazan. (5) The performance of the Pilgrimage to God’s Holy House [at Mecca] for all to whom it is possible. The immutable institutions are four in number; to wit, night and day and sun and moon, the which build up life and hope, neither knoweth any son of Adam if they will be destroyed on the Day of Judgment.’ (Q.) ‘What are the obligatory rites of the Faith?’ (A.) ‘Prayer, almsgiving, fasting, pilgrimage, fighting for the Faith and abstinence from what is forbidden.’ (Q.) ‘Why dost thou stand up to pray?’ (A.) ‘To express the devout intent of the slave submitting himself to [or acknowledging] the Divinity.’ (Q.) ‘What are the conditions precedent of standing up to pray?’ (A.) ‘Purification, covering the privy parts, the avoidance of soiled clothes, standing on a clean place, fronting [the Kaabeh,] a standing posture, the intent[1] and the magnification of prohibition.’[2] (Q.) ‘With what shouldest thou go forth thy house to pray?’
