Does Your Prayer Command You?

What did the people of Shuʿayb say? And this is — you will find something similar in this, and in what the people would say today when you discuss such an issue with them. Qālū yā Shuʿaybu a-ṣalātuka taʾmuruka an natruka mā yaʿbudu ābāʾunā, aw an nafʿala fī amwālinā mā nashāʾ, innaka la-anta al-ḥalīmu al-rashīd. They said: O Shuʿayb, does your prayer command that we leave off what our fathers used to worship, or that we leave off doing what we like to do with our money?

They're stating two things in this response. First of all, they're saying: O Shuʿayb, your ṣalāh. They're talking about the ṣalāh of Shuʿayb. They're telling Sayyidunā Shuʿayb (peace be upon him): what does prayer have to do with the religion of our fathers? And what does prayer have to do with business?

The explanation of this is, number one: what does ṣalāh have to do with the religion of our fathers? In fact, to be specific, they said: does your prayer command that we leave off what our fathers used to worship? They are telling Shuʿayb: go and pray in your room, or in your office, and close your office. What does your prayer have to do with our religion? Why do you pray, and then come and tell us: don't worship the religion of our fathers? What does your prayer have to do with this? You have your religion, we have ours; your ṣalāh should not be involved in this.

They want to separate between the religion of Shuʿayb and their religion. So they're telling him: stay and do whatever you want in your religion, but don't bother us. Don't come and tell us that we're wrong. What does ṣalāh have to do with the religion of our fathers? In your ṣalāh — your ṣalāh is telling you that we should give up our religion?

And we find this similar in the response given by the non-believers. They would say: keep your religion, but don't try to propagate it on us, and don't tell us about your religion. You keep your religion, and we'll keep ours, and we'll be friends, and we'll get along. Now, in the religion of Allah (swt), we have to give out the message of risālah, the message of Islam.