WORSHIP

Considered as one of the four essentials of the Qur’an, worship
expresses intentional behavior reflecting the attempt to obey Allah’s consent, as
a result of the person’s respect and love for Allah, in Islamic literature.

Found in any religion in different forms and considered as an indicator of servitude,
worship is worth being examined and kept in agenda due to the different areas it
addresses such as religious, philosophical, ontological and socio-psychological
areas etc.

The fact that modernism failure to provide solutions for socioeconomic depressions
resulted from its tendency to exclude-ignore religious rituals, which arose upon
enlightenment, made people of modern era, who destroyed their relation with their
creator, completely restless. Together with the disease which spread to Islamic
societies as well, some problems in personal and social areas arose. In this context,
the things that worship, bearing the key qualities for worldly and ethereal happiness
may provide to the people who suffer from many diseases and are looking for the
meaning of life should not be disregarded.

Forming the second ring after belief in Islamic thought, the worship also means
“disciplining and reinforcing religious provisions which are reasonable”. From this
perspective, belief-worship unity and emphasis on worship’s aspect concerning belief,
is important for making a type of Muslim with devotion and good works visible. Moreover,
emphasizing that in Islam worships and other areas are complementary parts and that
religion should be lived and considered holistically is important for ensuring that
the religion, personal, social and political life can be seen as a whole.

Nevertheless, the fact that worship bears a meaning to contact with the creator
in different dimensions and manners and that it spreads through life’s all moments
and aspects, addresses this concept’s different functions. Worship is important
in developing human relations and improving social structure, since in Islamic literature
any act of the created for gaining Allah’s consent is considered and awarded as
worship, any positive behavior for personal and social benefit gains a religious
and spiritual meaning. The fact that all acts by all beings in the universe are
considered as a prayer and act of worship in Holy Koran and that everything is in
an act of worship in any single moment, reveals the wide perspective of the issue.

And in the aforementioned framework, we determined the file of this issue as
“worship”. We planned to examine the issue in the light of below written questions
and in the framework of the following concepts: “worship, belief, Fear of Allah,
prayer, pure worship, patience, gratitude, forgiving, mercy, total adoration, freedom,
justice, fraternity, weakness, shelter, elevation, love, fear, will, tesbih, salaah,
fast, zakat, hadj, jihad, force of wrath and defense, reason, powers of anger and
lust, universe’s worship, observances of worship, social worships”:

What is worship? What are the issues determinig conceptual framework of worship
in religious literature? How can Bediüzzaman’s interpretation of worship as a fact
raising “person to his/her predestined perfection” and his evaluation of worship
as the fruit of life and purpose of universe be explained? How important are prayer
and worship in terms of physical and spiritual health? What are the socioeconomic
effects and benefits of worship in general? What is the worship-freedom relation?
What are the similarities and differences between Islam and other religions, when
they are compared in terms of worship? What can be said on worship-ethic relation?
What is the importance of worships aiming at maintaining and sustaining observances,
which is whole society’s responsibility as well as personal worships? What is the
importance of worships in terms of social solidarity and integration? What can be
said on worship-justice relation? Based on the hadith “One-hour/Thinking meditation
is better than a year of voluntary worship”, what is the importance of “meditative
worship” in Islam?

With the hope that you can find the answers to above written issues and questions,
we submit our journal to you, and hope to present our next special issue on Bediüzzaman
Said Nursi’s 50th death anniversary.