In the Name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful
Daily prayers are a gate which has been opened to everyone in the Ummah. With this gate, we can achieve divine guidance and mercy and lead a good life which is imbued with blessings. The spiritual health of every individual is dependent on daily prayers. The straight path and the good life of every society is only achieved by saying daily prayers. So much emphasis has been placed on saying daily prayers in the Book and Sunnah and there is only one purpose behind doing so: letting the gate of mercy remain open to everyone in society and in the Islamic community and helping everyone benefit from it.
This slogan has been chanted in Islamic Iran for many years: “They are those who, if We establish them in the land, they establish daily prayers” [The Holy Quran, 22: 41]. This annual conference is held with the efforts and determination of the mujahid and untiring scholar – Hujjatul-Islam Qara’ati. In this conference, firm recommendations are offered about promoting daily prayers and achieving the necessary quality in saying daily prayers.
Nonetheless, we should acknowledge that this divine obligation – which is a cure for our main individual and social agonies – has not been appreciated. We officials, we speakers, we who have the affairs of the country in our hands, we clergy, we promoters and teachers of religion, and we masses of people are all shareholders in the responsibility to promote daily prayers.
All of us should endeavor to know and help others know daily prayers – which itself is the Holy Quran and the unspoken hadith – and to improve our individual actions in proportion to that.
I ask Allah the Exalted to bestow increasing success on all of you and on Mr. Qara’ati.
Greetings be upon you and Allah’s mercy
Sayyid Ali Khamenei
December 7, 2016