There is an old joke that describes two people having a fight. During the argument, one man angrily says that he will shoot the other. The other one taunts him saying, you are a coward and can’t shoot. Hearing this, the first person goes into the house to get his gun. But his wife had already hidden his gun so that no blood would be spilled. He can’t find the gun, but the bullets. To avoid the taunt of being called a liar and a coward, he comes out with these bullets and hits the one in front, saying, see I have shot you!
It is a fact that shooting is a deadly job. But it is also a fact that a bullet without a gun is nothing but a pebble and a gun without a bullet is nothing but a stick. This is the case with Islamic worship and especially prayer. Prayer is the most effective weapon we have been given to kill Satan. It’s gun is it’s Shariah (Islamic law) and it’s bullet is it’s soul. When the prayer is recited according to the rules prescribed by the Shariah, observing the requirements of preservation and continuity and with its soul, which is the remembrance of God, it removes both Satan and sin from life.
Unfortunately, in our society, the Shariah of prayer is polluted with heresies, burdened with jurisprudence, and its spirit has been completely lost. We separate the mosques only on the basis of what time to stand for Iqamah, i.e. standing to start the prayer. We pray five times in which we do not know the meaning of a single word being recited. We perform many rak’ahs in every prayer, but from Takbeer (start) to Salam (end), we do not remember what we said and what we did. Such prayers are nothing but a bullet without a gun and a gun without a bullet.