Q. I attend to my regular prayers but I would like to be a better Muslim and draw closer to God. What should I do?
(Name and address withheld)
A. The Prophet (peace be upon him) quotes God as saying in a sacred, or qudsi Hadith: “Nothing that a servant of Mine does is more pleasant to Me than what I have made obligatory to him. A servant of Mine will continue to offer voluntary worship until I love him.” Needless to say, the masculine pronoun in this Hadith, as in the overwhelming majority of Hadiths, equally applies to women.
This Hadith clearly defines the way to draw closer to God. The most important thing in this respect is to attend to our obligatory worship: Offering the five daily prayers, paying zakah, fasting in Ramadan and doing the pilgrimage when we are able to. When we attend to these we demonstrate that we firmly believe in God and we are willing to do His bidding. We can go further than that by voluntarily doing more in one or more of these types of worship. Some of us are ready to give more to charity than the obligatory zakah. Others are eager to pray more. Some go on pilgrimage several times during their life, while others fast frequently. Any of these actions will draw us more toward God. There are plenty of other aspects of worship that we can do to earn more reward and draw closer to God. However, one of the most important things in this aspect is to do good toward others. We should always be ready to help the weak and the vulnerable, comfort those who are going through hard times, guide those who need guidance and extend a helping hand whenever we can and to whoever needing help. The Prophet says: “All creatures are God’s dependants. The ones God loves most are those who bring greater benefit to His dependants.”