In his Friday Sermon of March 7, 2025, Hazrat Khalifatul-Masih V (may Allah be his Helper) said:
“When Allah the Almighty says, ‘When My servants ask you…’ (2:187), the servants referred to here are the lovers of Allah. Now, when someone is truly in love, they do not say that for eleven months they will not express their love and will do so only for one month. Rather, it is the way of a lover of Allah—and indeed the way of Allah’s servants—to strive constantly to act upon those commands which Allah the Almighty has given. And if there were shortcomings during eleven months, then during these days one should make special effort and careful arrangements so that such weaknesses and deficiencies are not repeated.
“True lovers obey every word of their beloved. People engage in worldly love, and worldly beloveds possess many flaws; they can cause harm, or at the very least, one does not always benefit from them. But in the love of Allah the Almighty, there is nothing but benefit. Indeed, there are only benefits. He is the source of all goodness, the One who protects from every evil, and the One who delivers from every hardship. He says, ‘Ask Me; pray to Me, and I will respond to you.’ And a true lover seeks nearness to Allah. Therefore, we should strive to seek closeness to Allah the Almighty.
“In our acts of worship—especially the worship of Ramadan—we should not pray only for worldly gains. Rather, we should pray to attain the nearness of our Beloved. We should supplicate: ‘O Allah, grant us Your nearness; grant us the ability to offer prayers that are accepteed; grant us Your meeting; accept our fasts. When this happens, then after Ramadan one will do no evil; instead, one will continue to be granted the ability to perform righteous deeds.”
[Friday Sermon, March 7, 2025; Al-Fazl International, March 28, 2025, pp. 3–4, translated from Urdu]
