SALAT

Batoota — Sat, 22 Jul 2017 16:17:42 +0000

SALAT. The Qur’anic meaning of salat can be distilled from a number of verses that describe the characteristic features of worship and its ethical and social aims.

In its Meccan phase, the Qur’dn associates salat with recitation, tasbih (divine praise), zakat (almsgiving), and sabr (patience). The Qur’dn commands the believers to, “Establish regular prayers at the sun’s decline till the darkness of the night, [and to establish] the morning prayer and reading: for prayer and reading in the morning carry their testimony” (surah 17.78). Worshiping God can be adequately fulfilled only if the believer is guided by patience and perseverance. This was perhaps a historical necessity for the besieged Muslim community in Mecca in the first twelve years of Islam, “Nay, seek [Allah’s] help with patient perseverance and prayer: It is indeed hard, except to those who bring a lowly spirit” (surah 2.45).
In its shift from a doctrinal emphasis to a more behavioral one, especially with the Prophet’s political triumph in Medina, the Qur’an attaches additional meanings to salat. The Qur’dn seems to indicate that prayer in itself can be a valid mode of spirituality only if it is accompanied by a host of positive behavioral characteristics, such as commanding good, forbidding evil, and paying zakat, “[They are] those who, if We establish them in the land, establish regular prayer and give regular charity, enjoin the right and forbid the wrong” (surah 22.41). Also, “Recite what is sent of the Book by inspiration to thee, and establish regular prayer: for prayer restrains from shameful and unjust deeds: and remembrance of Allah is the greatest [thing in life] without doubt. And Allah knows the [deeds] that ye do” (surah 29-45). In numerous Qur’dnic verses, salat is synonymous with zakdt (see Qur’an 2.83; 2.110; 2.177; 9.18; 11.114; 17.78; and 58.13) Also, salat, as a concept as well as a practice, must reflect a deeply engrained attitude in man that manifests itself in acts of humility and patience. The Qur’dn tells us that the believers can succeed in this life and the hereafter only if they humble themselves in their prayers (surah 23.1, 2).
In general, the Qur’dnic meaning of patience (surahs 2.153; 13.22; and 22.35) reminds the believer of the necessity of constant perseverance and struggle against the evils of the self and life’s hardships. To elevate the self to the level of obedience to the divine majesty, believers must observe salat on time, since it is a kitab mawqutit is enjoined on believers at stated times (surah 4.103). It is clear from the above that the intention of the Qur’an is not to merely prescribe prayer as a ritual or an institution, but as an immense personal and communal commitment to order, punctuality, change, and coherence. Salat, in a sense, is the meeting point between the sacred and the secular in Muslim life. It is a reflection of a divine desire to change the world in the direction prescribed by God in the Qur’an.
Since one of the main goals of Islam is to establish an egalitarian and just moral and social order, the purpose of salat should be to enhance this outward political and social tendency. And in this regard, Imam Shafi’i defines worship as consisting of Bawl (word), `aural (deed), and imsak (abstension from the forbidden deeds) (Majid Khadduri, trans., Islamic Jurisprudence: Shafi`i’s Risala, Baltimore, 1961, p. 121). Humility, perseverence, devotion, remembrance of God and the Day of judgment, are attributes of the believers who perform salat.
Origin of the Practice. One of the earliest and most elaborate sources on saldt in Islam is the often-quoted Sahih of the famous traditionist Imam Bukhari (810-870). In the section, “The Book of Salat,” Bukhari recounts how prayer was made obligatory on Muslims. He relates that prayer was prescribed on the night of the Isra’ Ascension (surah 17) when Muhammad was taken up by the angel Gabriel to the highest heaven. There Muhammad met with Moses, Jesus, Abraham, Adam, and other celebrated personalities whom Muslims consider prophets. Muhammad, Bukhari tells us, was led to a mysterious spot in heaven where he heard the creaking of the pens, and there God enjoined fifty prayers on Muslims. When Muhammad returned to earth, he passed by Moses, who asked him about the number of prayers imposed on the Muslim community. When Moses heard it was fifty a day, he asked Muhammad to go back and ask God for reduction, “for your followers will not be able to bear with it.” Muhammad did as he was told, and God reduced the number by half, and Moses once again informed him it was still too much. Muhammad went back and forth between God and Moses until God granted him five daily prayers, which Muslims could tolerate. Bukhari sums up this interesting anecdote by quoting a hadith qudsi (a holy hadith attributed to God): “These are five prayers and they all [equal to] fifty [in reward] for My word does not change” (Muhammad ibn Isma’il Bukhari, Sahih alBukhari, translated by Muhammad Khan, Chicago, 1976, P. 213)
When Islam took its political, social, and legal shape in Medina, and more so in Arabia after the conquest of Mecca, Muslims focused their attention on three major elements of the new religion: prayer as an institution; the qiblah (direction of prayer); and the mosque as a place for both individual and congregational worship.
The act of prayer, although following certain welldefined movements, involves the following required steps: ablution (wudu’ or taharah or ghusl), intention (niyah), bending the back (ruku’), and prostration (sujud). To perform ablution adequately, one has to go through two intertwined processes: spiritual purity and physical cleanliness. In the first process, you cleanse your mind and heart from any thoughts related to this world and try to concentrate on God and the blessing he has bestowed on you. In the second, you wash the face, hands, mouth (unless you are fasting), feet, and forehead. You begin the ablution with recitation of the formula, “In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate. I am proposing to perform ablution so that God may be pleased with me.” When you complete it, you say, “I bear witness that there is no god but Allah; He has no partner; and I bear witness that Muhammad is His servant and Messenger.” In its totality, the act of worship presupposes certain traits that Islam encourages: humility, knowledge, presence of the heart, wisdom, and devotion.
Because of the central position salat occupies in Islamic thought and life, Muslim jurists and theologians have discussed at length the act of individual and group prayer, the conditions surrounding it, who must pray or who can abstain from praying, characteristics of the prayers’ leader (imam), significance of the Friday prayer, and prayer times and making up missed prayer. On the whole, Muslim jurists agree that salat is obligatory for sane Muslim men and women who have reached puberty. In the words of the thirteenth-century Sunni jurist, Ahmad ibn al-Nagib al-Misri, any person, growing up in a Muslim society, “who denies the obligatoriness of the prayer, zakat, fasting Ramadan, the pilgrimage, or the unlawfulness of [alcohol] and adultery, or denies something else upon which there is scholarly consensus and which is necessarily known as being of the religion, thereby becomes an unbeliever” (al-Misri, p. 109). Al-Misri also gives the following description of the arkan (pillars) of prayer, which summarizes the opinion of the majority of Muslim jurists, both Sunni and SKIT He says that the pillars of prayer consist of the following seventeen items: (i) intention (niyah); (2) the opening “God is the Greatest” (“Allahu akbar”); (3) standing (wuquf); (4) reciting the fatihah (the opening surah); (5) bowing (ruku’); (6) remaining motionless a moment therein (tuma’nina); (7) straightening back up after bowing (i’itidal); (8) remaining motionless a moment therein (tuma’nina); (9) prostration (sujud); (io) remaining motionless a moment therein (Ntiddl); (1 I) sitting back between the two prostrations (al -julus bayna al-sajdatayn); (12) remaining motionless a moment therein (i’tidal); (13) the prayer’s final Testification of Faith (altashahhud al-akhir); (14) sitting therein -julus (15) the Blessings on the Prophet (al-saldt `ala al-Nabi); (16) saying “Peace be upon you” (“al-salamu `alaykum”), the first of the two times it is said at the end of the prayer; and (17) the proper sequence of the above integrals (ibid., pp. 153-154).
The above features of prayer have always made saldt a distinctive Islamic practice and defined Muslims in a unique way. Thus, although Islam might share the same general spiritual aims of Judaism and Christianity, in that it seeks to establish an ideal state in both the believers’ hearts and in this world, it has helped Muslims to set themselves apart from both Jews and Christians by just following certain rites and practices related to their performance of salat.
The Qur’an discusses, somewhat at length, the meaning of qiblah and the selection of Mecca as the place toward which Muslims turn their faces when praying. After the death of Muhammad in 632 and the dramatic expansion of Islam beyond its Arabian origins, Muslims were in direct contact with people who held different religious and cultural views. Muslims accepted for a while the idea of worshipping in non-Muslim places of worship, that is, Christian churches, and recent research indicates that the early Muslim prayer was toward the east (Sulayman Bashear, “Qibla Mushariqqa and Early Muslim Prayer in Churches,” The Muslim World 81.3-4 [July-October 1991]: 268; Tor Andrea, Der Ursprung des Islams and Christentum, Uppsala and Stockholm,1926, p. 4; A. J. Wensinck, “Kibla” Encyclopaedia of Islam, new ed., Leiden, 1960-, vol. 5, p. 82). Salat, as the institution of worship, became one of the main manifestations of the power of nascent Islam. This can be corraborated by the Qur’anic verse, “To Allah belong the East and the West: Whithersoever ye turn, there is Allah’s countenance, for Allah is AllEmbracing, All-Knowing” (surah 2.115). In the opinion of Bashear, although the church, as a non-Muslim place of worship, was not favored by the Prophet as the place of worship for Muslims, he definitely did not prohibit Muslims from using it as such (ibid., p. 274). With the further evolution of Islam and the establishment of a large empire in the eighth and ninth centuries, Muslims became more conscious of the need to establish their own separate places for worship, and thus the idea of praying in non-Muslim places was forsaken gradually. Bashear contends that “as far as the first century [seventh century CE] is concerned, one cannot speak of `one original qiblah of Islam,’ but rather of several currents in the search for one. It is also plausible that this search was eventually decided after Islam acquired a central sanctuary, prayer places, and religious concepts and institutions of its own” (ibid., p. 382).
The Prophet’s mosque in Medina, as the first Muslim place of worship, functioned as a gathering place for worship, meditation, and learning. Because of such quality invested in this Muslim sacred space, the mosque has exerted an ideological influence on the believers, and this might explain why modern Islamic movements have paid special attention to the social and intellectual significance of the mosque as a place from which the organization of society and state emanates.
Mystical Worship. Sufi literature abounds in references to prayer, its virtues, and various characteristics. Great Sufis, especially those defining themselves as ahl al-shari `ah wa-al-hagigah (followers of shamah and the esoteric truth), have viewed the Qur’anic verses of dhikr (invocation or remembrance of God), du’a (supplication), and tadarru` (beseeching God in great humility) as the heart of worship, without which salat becomes a meaningless ritual. According to `Abd al-Qadir al-Jilani (d. 1166), remembered by some as al-qutb al-a’zam (the greatest [Sufi] pole), when the remembrance of God is invoked, at any time of day or night, the heart of the believer hears the invocations and is “enlightened with the light of that which is remembered. It receives energy and it becomes alive-not only alive in this world, but alive forever in the hereafter” (`Abd al-Qadir al
Jilani, The Secret of Secrets, London, 1992, p. 48; see also Muhammad ibn `Allan al-Bakri, Al -futuhat alrabbaniyah `ald al-adhkar al-Nawawiyah, Beirut, n.d.; Ibn `Ata’ Allah, Al-hikam al-`Ata’iyah, Cairo, 1969; and `Abd al-Halim Mahmud, Al-madrasah al-Shddhiliyah alhddithah wa-imdmuha Abu al-Hasan al-Shadhili, Cairo, 1969). Being close to God and obedient to His injunctions should be the main goal of the Muslim. A true Muslim has to exert the necessary effort in order to bridge the gap or the chasm that may exist between him or her and God. Besides being the heart of Islam, salat is an obligatory duty that each Muslim woman and man has to perform five times a day. Although salat, as described above, involves a well-known ritual, .its final aim is to transcend any formal barrier between God and a person. The Prophet expresses that clearly in one of his sayings: “God, most blessed and most high, says, `Nothing brings humans near to Me like the performance of what I made obligatory for them. . . . Through works of duty, My servant comes ever nearer to Me until I love him, and when I have bestowed My love on him, I become his hearing with which he hears, his sight with which he sees, his tongue with which he speaks, his hand with which he grasps, and his foot with which he walks.’ ” Taken metaphorically, the righteous, those who follow the divine path, will be guided by the mercy and compassion of God.
Supplications are the heart of the Sufi understanding of salat. The Qur’an expresses that in a succinct fashion, “When My servants ask thee concerning Me, I am indeed close [to them]: I listen to the prayer of every suppliant when he calleth on Me: let them also, with a will, listen to My call, and believe in Me: that they may walk in the right way” (surah 2.186).
Sufis, from Abu Harith al-Muhasibi (d. 857) to Abu al-Hasan al-Shadhili (d. 1256), wrote beautiful poetry extolling the meaning, virtue, significance, and final goal of salat. The true Sufi is in constant contact with the divine through daily, if not hourly, prayer. Sufis usually ask God to provide them with yaqin (incontrovertible certainty), tawhid (unity), which is unassailed by shirk (association), and an obedience that no insubordination can confront. They also ask God to grant them neither love nor preference of any worldly thing and neither fear of or for any thing. Since one of the main goals of Sufi worship is to converse with God through association with and comprehension of divine secrets (asrar rabbaniyah), there is a constant reminder of human fragility and imperfection. Sufis tend to often repeat the Qur’anic verse, “O my Lord, I have indeed wronged my soul” (surah 27.45) A Sufi meditative prayer might end by asking God to prescribe a way out from all sin, anxiety (hamm), grief (ghamm) and anguish; from every carnal impulse, desire, alarm, involuntary thought, idea, will, and act; and from every divine decree and command. The supplicant, in the final analysis, cannot attain any of the above goals without divine mercy. The Sufi, and the Muslim in general, remains hopeful, since God’s mercy comprehends everything. In Islamic meditative practices, salat has been used as a means of healing and remover of worry and anxiety.
Changing Function: The View of Islamic Resurgence. Muslim revivalist movements in this century have looked for inspiration to the past, when Islam was in its strength and glory. Their main goal is socioreligious: to bridge the increasing gap between state and religion in modern Muslim society. They advance Islam as an all-encompassing ideology, and some contend that a true Muslim individual and family can exist only in a genuine Muslim state, that is, a state that is based on shafah. The teachings of Hasan al-Banna’ (d. 1949) of Egypt, Abu al-A`la Mawdudi (d. 1979) of India/Pakistan, and Ruhollah Khomeini (d. 1989) of Iran, illustrate the new dynamic meaning given to salat and the mosque as a sacred place in modern Islam. All went about organizing their movements with ceaseless zeal and energy and preached the message of revolution and change. They viewed the mosque not merely as a place for worship, but as a place where radical transformation and renewal might take place. In this, they follow the Qur’anic maxim: “The mosques of Allah shall be visited and maintained by such as believe in Allah and the Last Day, establish regular prayers, and practice regular charity, and fear none (at all) except Allah” (surah 9.18).
In the view of modern Muslim revivalists, the mosque offers a multiplicity of functions. First, it is a place of worship; it links the people of this earth with the affairs of the heavens. In addition to reflecting man’s spirituality, worship, in Hasan al-Banna’s view, for instance, reflects the social, political, and ethical values of the three major systems known to man: communism, dictatorship, and democracy. Banna’ captures the connection between Islamic prayer and the three systems in the following:
Islamic prayer . . . is nothing but a daily training in practical and social organization uniting the features of the Communist regime with those of the dictatorial and democratic regimes. . . . the moment [the believer] enters [the mosque], he realizes that the mosque belongs to God and not to anyone of his creatures; he knows himself to be the equal of all those who are there, whoever they may be; here there are no great, no small, no high, no low, no more groups or classes. . . . And when the muezzin calls, “now is the hour of prayer,” they form an equal mass, a compact block, behind the imam. . . . That is the principal merit of the dictatorial regime: unity and order in the will under the appearance of equality. The imam himself is in any case limited by the teachings and rules of the prayer, and if he stumbles or makes a mistake in his reading or in his actions, all those behind him . . . have the imperative duty to tell him of his error in order to put him back on the right road during the prayer, and the imam himself is bound to accept the advice and, forsaking his error, return to reason and truth. That is what is most appealing in democracy. (“New Renaissance,” in Political and Social Thought in the Contemporary Middle East, edited by Kemal H. Karpat, New York, 1968, 121.)
In other words, the mosque, far from being an abstract metaphysical locus, is placed by Banna’ squarely within this world and its secular systems.
The mosque is the abode of the newly found religiosity. Here, secular domain and space ceases to exist. The mosque is also the criterion against which the religiosity of society is judged. It is the symbol of Islamic rule. “Mosques,” in Hasan al-Banna’s words, “are the schools of the commoners, the popular universities, and the colleges that lend educational services to the young and old alike” (Mudhakkirat al-da’wah wa-al-da`iyah, Beirut, 1979, p. 128). Briefly, A mosque should have the triple function of being a place of worship for people; a place of education; and a hospital for the spiritually, mentally, and physically sick. In this Banna’ invokes the early experience of the Prophet in Medina when the latter saw the mosque as the concrete embodiment of Islamic belief and as a culmination of many of the ideals that he had preached in Mecca.
At the surface, modern Islamic revivalist movements use conventional Islamic terminology which is common to all who share the Muslim cultural space. Their use of the mosque as a key term is significant for the meaning it denotes and for the social and political functions it can render. The physical space, that is, the mosque, is interpolated with the cultural and religious space, or the mosque’s functions. Thus they put emphasis on the mosque as a key term in order to demonstrate its usefulness and in order to cleanse it of the meaning other religious groups, especially the `ulama’ (community of religious scholars), had attached to it. Above all, the mosque purifies the intentions, and physical outlook of the person in prayer, and initiates a new meaning of religiosity that compels the believer to conquer the secular domain of life.
In sum, Islamic revivalism elevates politics to the level of prayer. Sacred space is the center of political activity, and prayer is just one of its many expressions.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Ghafuri, ‘Ali. The Ritual Prayer of Islam. Translated by Laleh Bakhtiar and Mohammed Nematzadeh. Houston, 1982.
Ghazali, Abu Hamid al-. Ghazali on Prayer. Translated by Kojiro Nakamura. Tokyo, 1973. Reprinted as Invocations and Supplications. Cambridge, 1990.
Heiler, Friedrich. Prayer: A Study in the History and Psychology of Religion. Translated and edited by Samuel McComb. London, 1932.
Jeffery, Arthur, ed. A Reader on Islam. The Hague, 1962.
Misri, Ahmad ibn al-Naqib al-. The Reliance of the Traveller: A Classical Manual of Islamic Sacred Law. “Translated by Noah H. M. Keller. Evanston, Ill., 1993
Muhammad Zakariya Kandhalavi. Virtues of Salaat. Lahore, 1982. Mutahhan, Murtaza. Fundamentals of Islamic Thought: God, Man, and the Universe. Translated by R. Campbell. Berkeley, 1985.
Nasr, Seyyed Hossein. Ideals and Realities of Islam. Boston, 1975. Padwick, C. E. Muslim Devotions. London, 1961.
Rahman, Fazlur. Major Themes of the Qur an. Minneapolis, 198o. Zayn al-`Abidin ‘Ali ibn al-Husayn. The Psalms of Islam (Al-Sahifat al-Kamilat al-Sajjddiyya). Translated by William Chittick. London, 1988.
Zwemer, Samuel M. Studies in Popular Islam. London, 1939
IBRAHIM M. ABU-RABI`

SALAT – Hybrid Learning

SALAT