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yā-bunayya ʾaqimi ṣ-ṣalāta wa-ʾmur bi-l-maʿrūfi wa-nha ʿani l-munkari wa-ṣbir ʿalā mā ʾaṣābaka ʾinna dhālika min ʿazmi l-ʾumūri
O my son! Maintain the prayer and bid what is right and forbid what is wrong, and be patient through whatever may befall you. That is indeed the steadiest of courses.
— Ali Quli Qarai
Surah Luqman – Verse 17
17. “O’ my son! Keep up the prayer and enjoin the good and forbid the evil, and patiently persevere against whatever may befall you, for this (patience) is among the (necessary and) important affairs.”
One of the duties of the parents unto their children is to recommend them to perform prayer. We must train our children to be believers and godly by means of recommending them the prayers, and also through recommending them that they enjoin what is right and forbid what is wrong, we may bring them up thereby some social and responsible persons. However, after strengthening the foundations of Origin and Resurrection, which are the sources of all theological beliefs, Luqman refers to the most important thing, that is the performance of the prayer.
It says:
You must establish prayer because it is the most important link between you and your Lord. Prayer makes your heart awaken, your soul purify, and your living light and bright. Prayer washes out the signs of sin from you, causes the light of faith to illuminate inside your heart, and keeps you away from indecency and sins. Next to the subject of prayer, Luqman refers to the most important social affair, i.e. the subject of enjoining right and forbidding what is wrong.
He says:
After these three practical important instructions, he refers to the subject of patience and perseverance that, comparing with Faith, is like head for the body. He says:
It is certain that there are many difficulties in all social affairs and particularly in ‘enjoining right’ and ‘forbidding wrong’, to which the dominant mammonists, and also the experienced polluted self-lovers will not easily surrender. They even try to hurt, annoy and accuse those who enjoin right and forbid wrong that, without patience and perseverance, it is impossible to become victorious against these difficulties. The Arabic word /‘azm/ means: ‘a firm determination’, and the application of /‘azm-il-’umur/ here either means the things that Allah has ordered to be serious about them, or the affairs that man must have a decided decision and a firm intention unto them. Either of these two meanings points to its importance.
The Arabic word /ŏalika/ here refers to patience and perseverance. This is also probable that it refers to all of the affairs that have been mentioned in the verse, including: prayer, enjoining right and forbidding wrong, but this subject has been mentioned after the subject of patience in some other verses of the Qur’an, which strengthens the first probability.