How to Be Humble before God?
Ayatollah Mohammad Bagher Tahriri, a teacher at Tehran’s Marvi seminary school and one of the prominent students of late Allameh Tabatabaei, pointed to the issue of humbleness in a speech. Here is the summary of his remarks:
One of the virtues defined by God for believers is the feature of being humble in prayers as verse 2 of Surah Al-Mu’minun: “who are humble in their prayers”.
Believers feel humility before the Greatness of God and this comes from a deep feeling and belief. As the prayer is a manifestation of one’s humbleness before God, there are instructions on what Muslims should do before, during, and after the prayer. These are indications of man’s belief in the unseen and God as the Absolute Perfection. The more one who recites the Quran or says prayer pays attention to this issue, the more his/her spirit will be affected; this influence is called the state of being humble.
This feature is sometimes seen in the body as some parts of the body find a special form. For instance, ruku and sujud in the prayer demonstrate humbling oneself before God.
The quality of this feature depends on the extent of one’s knowledge about God. The stronger one’s knowledge is, the deeper will be the influence. According to hadiths, one whose heart is humble will also have this feature in other body parts, and if this is realized, that person’s attention during prayers is only focused on God Almighty. Meanwhile, believers may also find another feeling of anxiety that comes from the fear of one’s ability to preserve his/her relation with God. This is sometimes accompanied by fear.
