Dr. Jim Ellsworth1 Ramadan AH 1447 (18 Feb 2026 CE)
JUZ 1: ON WORSHIP
When I was a young lieutenant, branch-detailed to Armor & stationed at Fort Knox, KY in the runup to DESERT STORM following Advanced Civil Schooling, I thought I was terribly enlightened. LOL I was what would now be described as "militantly anti-religious" -- not merely an unbeliever, but convinced that God WAS AN ENEMY OF THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES, and therefore part of what I'd just sworn to defend it against. In those days, one of the arguments I would lob at friends & colleagues who were believers was that a God who would create humankind TO WORSHIP HIM--and then punish those who declined with eternal hellfire--had to be an insecure & narcissistic sociopath. #Astaghfirullah! Back then, God sent me a devout Catholic & fellow young Armor (Cavalry) officer, my friend Christopher Mayer, with the best of sincere naseeha--in this case, a copy of C.S. Lewis' "Mere Christianity" ( https://www.amazon.com/Mere-Christianity-C-S-Lewis/dp/0060652926 )--and while I wasn't to return to belief for another 5 years (AS a Catholic, for the two decades to follow), that one sincere action had started the train in motion.
Yet it wasn't until today, as I read Surah al-Baqarah, that I think I finally grasped--in sha' Allah--God's answer to my long-ago critique. And it was so simple:
"O humanity! Worship your Lord Who created you and those who were before you SO THAT PERHAPS YOU WOULD BECOME GODFEARING." (2:21; emphasis added).
God tells us plainly that He is "Al-Samad," free of all wants or needs (112:1); "Al-Ghani," dependent on nothing--but upon Whom all things depend (35:15). He created us to worship Him not because HE has any need of that worship, but because WE do. This worldly life is designed as a trial of "glitter & distraction" (57:20): as any veteran gamer knows, the better the simulation, the easier it is to get lost in it for a while, forgetting your "real life" outside it--and this dunya is the most sophisticated simulation ever.
Our worship is our regular reminder of that real--eternal--life, as we're immersed in this illusory one...and it's made an obligation upon us because, like eating & sleep during an endurance run of a great game, we might otherwise be prone TO FORGET IT, caught up as we are in our latest quest!
And then we would truly be among the losers (7:99).
One of the things I'm enjoying about Bakhtiar's translation so far is how many times its plain & accessible language stops me in my tracks, and has me thinking "OHHHHHHH." #Alhamdulillah. This, incidentally, is a huge part of why the Islamic tradition of reading the Qur'an though, annually, is so valuable; I would encourage believers of other faiths to establish the same habit with THEIR scriptures as well. Counting my childhood reading, this is my tenth Khatmah--but, like a fan watching their favorite movie for the umpteenth time, it seems like each one brings me new insights I'd never picked up on before. #MaShaAllah.
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