Throughout the world billions of people are involved daily in various forms of worship. Whereas for some people religious believe is not scientifically reasonable or provable, there are various people who testify to be capable of apprehending the connection to the unseen in a rational way.
The believe in the existence of a supernatural being that rules over the destiny of the world has been documented in religious scriptures and cultural practices for thousand of years. And the devotees have been practising various forms of worship among which prayers are one of the most common.
In the age of enlightenment, the advancement of science and the discoveries and explanations of some human behaviours that went in contradiction to some primitive beliefs still spread by some of the world’s major religions has brought a few, if not more people, to doubt of the effectiveness of religious teachings and prayers . Fortunately religious belief has survived a lot of critics, and whereas the world elite in interested in the implementation of some recent technological discoveries especially in the fields of artificial intelligence and robotics, there are still mosques and temples or churches being erected everywhere in our world. There have been warnings from the low voice of some religious scholars and experts of the spiritual about the necessity of the inclusion or at least the consideration of some major ethical teachings that only religions can provide.
Prayers are known to be one of the most common religious ritual. Practising Christians pray at least twice a day if not much more. Muslims pray at least 5 times every day. Religious scholars have brought a lot of evidence about the effectiveness of prayers. However there are situations in which many sincere devotee can be bought to doubt if the prayers they offer are really answered or no. The scriptural evidence is without doubt, weather you are a Christian or a Muslims, the scriptures are clear about the fact that God answers prayers. In the Christian Bible you can read: “Ask and it will be given to you, seek and you will find. Knock the door and it will e opened to you. For everyone who asks receive; the one who seeks finds” (Matthew 7:7-9) .
Basically there is a common view that even the prayers of idolaters and polytheists are also answered when they are sincere in their art of faith which is mostly related to a tradition or a way of live. However is is said that they have no share in the hereafter as the things they ask for are part of what is due to them in this ephemeral world. That is why their prayers may help only attain trivial things but mostly fail in times of major trouble. The view of the quran is that if the Tawhid is sound then the prayers of the monotheistic believers are answered even in times of major trouble as a proof of the oneness of God. They are granted things that will also protect them from the punishment of the hereafter. God says in the quran:
“Say: Tell me if God’s penalty comes upon you, or the Hour comes upon you would then call upon any other that God? Reply if you are truthful! Nay! O he alone you call, and if he will, he will remove that which you call upon him, and you forget at the time whatever partners you joined with him”(Quran 6:40)
The fact that supplications are granted when we pray directly to God without any intermediary of partner is a proof that God is one and one one for all human beings . Some doubts are just due to the fact that the people don’t know how God answers prayers but there is a guarantee in monotheistic religions that sincere prayers and supplications are granted. Basically supplications are granted in various ways:
1. What we ask for is granted directly
In this case the sincereness of the faith of the one praying is a preconditioned. A corrupted hypocrite may never have any prayer granted as his faith is weak. If the heart and tongue are combined to the prayers are the intentions are not harmful, for example the things we are asking for are not permissible by the law of God, what the Christians call the commandment of God or the shariah, then the supplication cannot be granted. But if the conditions are fulfilled, the believer will see the solution either by people coming to him and advising him how to get what he is asking for or by signs from God
2. The answer is postponed until some conditions are fulfilled
If you ask for something you are not qualified for, God may postpone the answer until you get the qualification or until the conditions are fulfilled.
3. God keeps us away from an evil that is equal to what we ask for.
This is one of the main response to the divine decree. If something or a certain condition has been decreed for us it will come to happen. No one can escape but a well experienced devotee will have the capacity to escape some condition by a sincere supplication or prayer.
Jabir ibn Abdillah stated that the Prophet(pbuh) said:
“There is no person who asks God for anything except that God gives it to him, or keeps away from him a similar evil, as long as he does not ask for something evil or for severing the ties of kinship.”
