A very important night in the blessed month of Ramazan is the night of Qadr. It is the night of contemplation, evaluation of one's pros and cons and annual planning.

It is the night of determination of destiny and revival. As it was said earlier, zekr (remembrance of God) plays a very significant role in controlling man's words, deeds and thoughts. It was also discussed that daily ritual prayer is a very obvious example of remembrance of God. Islam has planned daily congregational prayer, weekly Friday prayer and the huge world Hajj gathering to show its culture and make cooperation a prominent aspect of this religion. To show the status of Friday prayer, God has revealed a surah by the name of Friday. Ayah 9 of this surah reads, "O you who have faith! When the call is made for prayer on Friday, hurry toward the remembrance of Allah, and leave all business. That is better for you, should you know."

The congregational Friday prayer is a symbol of the world Hajj gathering in a small scale. But there are a lot of commonalities between them. One of the goals of both of these rituals is the convergence of Muslims to manifest their consistence, solidarity and might. Another goal is to discuss and bring their thoughts together to solve problems gripping the Islamic Ummah. A third goal can be awareness of cultural, social, political, economic and military events. That's why Friday prayer is often called the political-ritual prayer. Prophet Mohammad (SAWA) said that whoever considers Friday prayer insignificant or denies it God will make him distraught, will not bless his life, will not accept his prayer, zakat, Hajj and other good deeds as long as he repents.

 These remarks of the Prophet indicate that Friday prayer has an inseparable bond with other individual and social deeds of man and leaving it intentionally is like a sin which should be repented. It would be noteworthy that the Friday prayer leader is recommended to read surah Munafiqun and surah Jum'a in the two rak'ats of the prayer. Mufaiqun means hypocrites. They are the people who are Muslim in appearance while they cooperate with the enemies secretly. Imam Ali (AS) narrated from the Prophet of Islam as saying, "I am not fearful for my Ummah either of the faithful or the polytheist. As for the faithful, God prevents him from evil deed through his faith. And as for the polytheist, God exterminates him because of his polytheism. I am fearful for you of the double-faced hypocrite who speaks just like what you know whereas he acts just like what you hate."

Here it would be appropriate to remind that Imam Khomeini (God's mercy upon him) said, "The hypocrites are worse than the faithless." This indicates how much they are harmful for the unity of Muslims.

The Friday prayer is not a mere ritual ceremony. As a matter of fact, Islam is not an isolated religion to be studied and put aside. It is the religion of life and in Islam politics is not separate from religion. In view of this, the Friday prayer leader should be a knowledgeable person well aware of the world affairs to deliver enlightening sermons. He should make people informed of the enemies' plots. If the capacities of the Friday prayer are exploited properly, many of the conspiracies hatched by the enemies will be foiled and the enemies will be frustrated. We hope that Friday prayer will turn into a bulwark against the enemies and ill-wishers of the Islamic Ummah.        

AS/ME