Pray, not because it’s all you can do, but because it’s the best thing you can do.
Tag: Inspiration Page 1 of 3
I’ve been asked to pick one thing I would advise someone who wants to improve their prayer: the big takeaway. I’d never really felt that I had an answer. Intentionality? The Golden Minute? Imagination? All of these things have been valuable, but their hold has waned.
Lately though, I feel like I finally have an answer: Gratitude.
On some late night or another, among many silly videos, a short on how gratitude plants positive seeds in our life popped up in my youtube feed. One rabbit hole later, and it seemed that truly, gratitude actually blocks negative feelings as they arise. When someone tunes into gratitude, it prevents feelings like jealousy and regret. Pulling gratitude into your life also means pushing out the bad, so while in the moment you feel happier and better, you will also feel happier and better later because you blocked the things that bring you down and trap you in negativity. It seems that gratitude’s benefits are really profound.
There is a verse in the Quran in which God says:
وَإِذْ تَأَذَّنَ رَبُّكُمْ لَئِن شَكَرْتُمْ لَأَزِيدَنَّكُمْ ۖ وَلَئِن كَفَرْتُمْ إِنَّ عَذَابِى لَشَدِيدٌۭ ٧
And [remember] when your Lord proclaimed, ‘If you are grateful, I will certainly give you more. But if you are ungrateful, surely My punishment is severe.’”
Ibrahim 14:7
There is an interaction that happened with the Prophet ﷺ which I’ve found very inspiring:
Uthman b. Abu al-‘As reported that he came to Allah’s Messenger (ﷺ) and said:
Allah’s Messenger, the Satan intervenes between me and my prayer and my reciting of the Qur’an and he confounds me. Thereupon Allah’s Messenger (ﷺ) said:, That is (the doing of a) Satan (devil) who is known as Khinzab, and when you perceive its effect, seek refuge with Allah from it and spit three times to your left. I did that and Allah dispelled that from me.
(Sahih Muslim: 2203a)
It may seem simple, but really, it’s so profound. When this man came to the Prophet ﷺ, the Prophet could have answered in so many ways. He could have advised him on clearing his prayer space to avoid distraction. He could have suggested getting more in the zone during wudu. He could have encouraged some time remembering Allah beforehand, to enhance focus. But the Prophet ﷺ chose to say, it’s not you, it’s Shaitan, just blow him away.
How many times have you struggled with some part of yourself? Are you a Debbie downer? Always lose your keys? Can’t keep a secret? How many times have you kicked yourself over the fact that you can’t seem to overcome your bad habits? What’s wrong with me? Why can’t I change? Why can’t I get better?
Recently, at my children’s school, a fellow parent asked me about where I pray when I’m on campus. He was genuinely interested and it even felt like he wanted to talk more about prayer and how beautiful he found the Muslim practice to be. I was so grateful. But at the same time, I found myself trying to shut down the conversation as quickly as possible. Instead of talking more and just asking all the questions I had about how he discovered prayer and what made it interesting to him, I felt like I needed to just smile and change the subject. I walked away so confused.
Why is it so hard for me to talk about prayer? Or to pray in front of people who don’t pray? When I pray in public I find myself so distracted and just wishing to finish quickly. I worry about people walking up to me and talking to me while I’m praying. I worry about looking weird or crazy. The entire experience is anything but spiritually satisfying.
At first it seems like it’s just an embarrassment having to ask for the time or the space. I need to take time away from my commitments so that I can go do this thing. I need to ask for a quiet space. I need to communicate needs that others aren’t asking for. Even more, and especially when I’m out in public, praying with my child next to me makes me feel negligent. I need people to be patient or just understand that for a few moments I need to turn my attention away from my kid. On the surface it seems that I’m worrying about inconveniencing others, but I know that’s not the full answer.
I found the courage to eventually talk to that same parent again. He seemed incredulous that I should feel that I have to hide this practice. “It’s obvious [you’re] not bothering anyone” he said so surely. I knew he was right. It doesn’t make sense – especially if I’m literally praying outside in a field by the school building – that I should think I’m bothering anyone by doing that. Further, it wouldn’t make sense that I don’t even want to talk about prayer. Yet, prayers always feel like something I need to hide from people who don’t pray.
As a friend of mine put it:
If you’re not ashamed of it, why are you hiding it?
If you asked any Muslim what prayer they struggle with the most, a majority would say fajr – the dawn prayer. Fajr times can vary drastically between summer and winter. Sometimes getting up for fajr is no thing. Actually sometimes you can get up, get ready for work, drive to your job and start your day, and then have to find a decent corner to pray in. Other times though, fajr is at 3 am. It can feel like an impossible challenge to maintain your prayer (never mind emotionally communicating with the Divine) through such transitory shifts. Don’t fret though, that’s why we’re at it again with another Around the Web edition dedicated just to the first prayer of the day.
Get Inspired
Fajr has a special place in the prayer repertoire of the Muslim. Beginning at dawn and extending until the sun begins to rise, it’s the closest prayer to the night prayer and can often elicit the same feelings of intimacy and wonder. Additionally, being so early in the morning, it can set a mood for the day and allow each person to clarify their daily intentions. Starting your day with the freshness of a renewed connection with God is such a blessing.
Often though, many of us who make fajr prayer on time do so bleary eyed and at the very last moment of the window. It may feel like a simple thing to put off prayer and even feel good that we at least made it on time, but putting off the prayer creates long term issues for the rest of our day. Just from an etiquette perspective, constantly running late to a recurring meeting would indicate a lack of interest and commitment to who and why you are meeting. How can we say that to Allah? How can we be so flimsy in our devotion? Fajr prayer needs to mean more to us.
What feelings do you feel when the time for prayer comes in?
How about what you feel when you knock on the door as you’re about to enter your best friend’s house?
What about other people? When you’re going to see:
your kind mother
your funny best friend
your angry boss
your distant cousin
your unresponsive teacher
your generous neighbor
your loving husband
your cold uncle
Each of these conjures up a different feeling but essentially: a rejoice at or recoil from the actual meeting. You naturally have a different relationship with each person and so you will feel differently about meeting them. The question though is, does that feeling have more to do with them or with you …
You are you. Your personality traits are the same: your faults and strengths within you. It’s true that what you show or hide can change depending on who you’re with, but that’s simply a choice. It’s not that you have changed or that you are necessarily a different person each time you see one of them, it is that your perceptions of how they view you and will respond to you is different. It’s your beliefs about who they are and how they will treat you that causes you to anticipate and respond to them differently.
Which brings us back to the first question … How do we feel when we are about to meet with Allah?
The following is an excerpt from Jeffrey Lang’s book: Losing My Religion: A Call for Help. In it he answers the question put to him on why it is that despite our sincerest efforts, sometimes we still don’t feel anything in our prayers. So pertinent to the quest here on Sillah to find more connection in prayer, the excerpt felt fundamental to the conversation and we are so fortunate that the publishers allowed us to share it. May Allah bless this author for sharing his perspective and grant us all steadfastness in seeking Him throughout all the experiences of life. The excerpt begins with the author noting the question put him by a young Muslim. You can also find a PDF of the excerpt for easier reading below. Happy Reading!
Question 3 (part of a lengthy conversation I had with a young immigrant Muslim [woman] who struggles to find peace of mind and spirit in her inherited faith; this struggle is a frequently mentioned frustration of many young Muslim Americans):
I think that in my last e-mail I mentioned to you that the more I study Islam and the more I learn about it, the less I feel connected to God. I am sure that this sounds strange to you since you have come to know God through Islam. But the fact is that the more I go through the do’s and don’t’s of our faith, the further away I feel from God. For example, for about four months or so, I was extremely religious about my prayers: five times a day, on time and all of that stuff. Well, not even once in my prayers did I feel God’s presence or any sense of peace. I would pray that He would guide me to the truth and show me His way.
After a while, my prayers started feeling like a burden. I felt like I was doing them because “that is the way it is,” or “God commanded us to do them.” I wanted to get them over with. This just does not feel right to me. Isn’t prayer supposed to be our quiet time with God, where we feel a connection rather than resentment and burden and consequently a disconnection and moving away from God? I do not feel that I should be feeling all these negative emotions in my worship to Him. In other words, I felt like a total hypocrite just going through the motions of prayer while resenting the fact that I had to do it.
All You Need
Down
Up
Down
again
Yoga helps the mind
the soul
Helps you rewind
And start over again
Down
Up
Down
again
Salah helps the mind
The soul
And Helps you rewind
I often wonder how the companions of the Prophet ﷺ were able to transition to praying and connecting with Allah ﷻ so naturally, while I, raised in the embrace of Islam since birth, find it so mysterious. While its true that some companions like Abu-Bakr رضي الله عنه led lives of spiritual cleanliness and maybe even sensitivity up until the point of revelation, others were not1 While sources are not sited, this link gives a good description on the life of Abubakr before Islam . The general culture and atmosphere of Makkah prior to the message was hedonistic and self centered at best. Brothels were common and crime both petty and obtuse was rampant. While we often look back at the past with lenses of purity and simplicity, its safe to say that Makkah life in the pre Islamic period was neither2 See Aspects of Pre-Islamic Arabian Society – Social LIfe of the Arabs in The Sealed Nectar pg. 28. So, given all of this – given growing, living, and breathing in such a place, how did the companions, so entrenched in it all, not only shift to leading spiritual lives, but actually quickly and seamlessly begin to pray with diligence and devotion? How did the companions know how to connect to Allah through their prayers so easily?
I used to think the answer was complex and multifaceted, but the more I pondered on the role of duaa in salah, the more simple the answer appeared. While this is a website devoted to discussing, growing, and connecting around the idea of salah, prayer, I wanted to diverge a little to talk about another type of prayer – duaa.
Sometimes living in a modern society so focused on the self, for a Muslim, the idea of self care can seem a difficult pill to swallow. Islam calls on us to give and to care and to advise. Self care can feel so antithetical to an Islamic worldview which calls on us to do good in order to reach God. Centering ourselves at our own love doesn’t feel giving; doesn’t feel Islamic. And yet, the self cannot be denied. We burn out. We are spent.
How is it that the Prophet ﷺ was able to give so constantly? Maybe I am setting the bar too high. The Prophet ﷺ was able to garner his energy almost superhumanly, but how is it that our mothers or grandmothers gave so much and so often? How has our ummah been built on the backs of fighters and thinkers, herdsmen and builders and yet, there were no spa days and no vacation time. In my own home, I don’t seem to be able to manage even the simple tasks of everyday living without overwhelm consuming me.
So many times a day, my children call out to me ‘Look at me, mama’. My children seem to call on me endlessly, their needs draining me to the point of tearful exhaustion, and yet there is so much trust they have in my ability to respond. They beg to be seen; they beg to be heard. They know deep inside them that to be seen, to be heard, without criticism and with affirmation, is to be loved. And so, I do my best to respond because I know that to be loved is to know that you are worthwhile and therefore builds in you the confidence to become the person you so wish to be.
But who is there to see me: to pour into me the love that can light my path and inspire my wings? Especially in the daily trenches of motherhood it is easy to feel forgotten or belittled. Even if I take time for myself and do some ‘self care’ it is only me feeding myself. My weaknesses and fears compound within me and there is no one there to look me in the eye and say I see you and you can do this.
But I tell myself, Allah is Here. Allah tells us He is close; closer than our own veins1 Quran Verse 50:16. I have my prayers, don’t I? I have my time with Allah 5 times a day.
When we stand in prayer, we are there as ourselves, truly, without pretension or mask. Your heart is fully exposed to your Maker. Not only that, but regardless of the state of it, beaming with faithfulness or dirtied by the desires of this life, Allah asks for your presence. That is because He is, in every moment, willing to accept you as you are and thus assure you that you are known and that you are loved. He wants to inspire in you the sure confidence that you are able to be that person you so wish to be.
Is it possible that I may be known and seen?