Without fail, I invariably get 'heart-burn' when friends or well-meaning Muslims, in public or in private , say they are taking up Yoga, Tai Chi or Chi Gong,in order to 'elevate' or relax themselves, to face the vagaries and stress of everyday living. Of course I am the first to agree to the premise that this is a free world and one can even practice walking with the head down and both feet up to 'de-stress', if one feels so inclined.
But in our daily salat and zikr, well-spread over the day and night, we already have an ideal 'template' ,guaranteed by God, that are the best panacea for all ills and intemperance. Why then expose our ignorance and go for something else?
Some of us have been praying for decades, but our lives and our attitude to life have not change an iota.
All those prostrations and ruku' have not changed our souls.
Prayer for most become a 'mandatory' routine.
Here we have three eminent scholars and 'practitioner-of-the art' to open up the expose on 'Prayer'.
Dr Umar Faruq Abdallah, of Nawawi Institute, will deal with the intellectual and spiritual basis with his opening gambit, " Solatul Muqarabin ", a short treatise written up by a great ulama from Yemen some 200 years ago. Even then, Sheikh al-Habib al-Hasan al-Jufri already noted the progressive degeneration and 'decapitation' of the Muslim ummah of his time and seek to remedy that by writing a short 20-page do-it-yourself manual of sort on salat....it deals essentially about PRESENCE
Next, I present to you guys, Shaykh Abdul Nasir Jangda who will deal with the nitty gritty of the salat itself on issues of 'khusyu' and comprehension.
Lastly, but certainly not the least, if you guys are not yet 'card-carrying,'straight-jacketed, Salafis or Wahabis, feel free to read about the thoughts of an 18 century sufi mystic, Sidi Ahmad ibn Idris. Otherwise, forget about him and have a nice day instead!
This is a free world my friend. You can paint it whatever shade of gray you like to your hearts content, within the ambit of the syariah and the sunnah , of course.
Islam is a spectrum, and thank God it is !
Nik Howk
ps : additional to all these, at the end I have added the basic and meaning and tafseer of our solat.
Finally as an afterthought, Shaykh Hamza Yusuf will wrap up things with a short overview, 'the metaphysics of solat'.
.........................................................
Biodata : Dr Umar Faruq Abdallah
Dr. Umar Faruq Abd-Allah (Wymann-Landgraf) is an American Muslim, born in 1948 to a Protestant family in Columbus, Nebraska. He grew up in Athens, Georgia, where both parents taught at the University of Georgia. His father taught Veterinary Medicine and Organic Chemistry, while his mother’s field was English. In 1964, his parents took positions at the University of Missouri in Columbia, where his grandfather had been a professor emeritus of Veterinary Medicine. Dr. Abd-Allah did his undergraduate work at the University of Missouri with dual majors in History and English Literature. He made the Dean’s list all semesters and was nominated to the Phi Beta Kappa Honorary Society. In 1969, he won a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship and entrance to Cornell University in Ithaca, New York to pursue a Ph.D. program in English literature. Shortly after coming to Cornell, Dr. Abd-Allah read The Autobiography of Malcolm X, which inspired him to embrace Islam in early 1970. In 1972, he altered his field of study and transferred to the University of Chicago, where he studied Arabic and Islamic Studies under Dr. Fazlur Rahman. Dr. Abd-Allah received his doctorate with honors in 1978 for a dissertation on the origins of Islamic Law,Malik’s Concept of ‘Amal in the Light of Maliki Legal Theory. From 1977 until 1982, he taught at the Universities of Windsor (Ontario), Temple, and Michigan. In 1982, he left America to teach Arabic in Spain. Two years later, he was appointed to the Department of Islamic Studies at King Abdul-Aziz University in Jeddah, where he taught (in Arabic) Islamic studies and comparative religions until 2000.
but let us review our basic, the mechanics, movements and meaning of the supplication in our prayer, the prophet's prayer , before we move on to the metaphysics and dynamics of 'solatul muqarabun' :
Solatul Muqarabin [ Prayer of the Righteous ]......
Part 1:
0.18.30 you are representative of existence
0.22.13 prayer of mikraj, 'prayer of ascension'
0:41:00 most prayers are 'empty speech'....
'empty speech is not when you speak nonsense, it is when you pray devoid
of meaning!
0;58:00 how do you want to be guided if you refuse change?
0.59.00 what you get from your mother is not what you can get from your father
1:17:00 Afghanistan and Spain
1.28.00 the prayer of the people who are awake
1:24:25 We are here to be tested
Part 2 :
0:54:20 'alastu birabikum?'
0:59:30 Gabriel's visit......elevated status of the Companions
1:03:20 thinking versus 'kwawathir'. Thinking is essential in our faith.
1:11:40 'hawa'....love for leadership
1:15:10 'madame r' with many shoes and bags.....
1:18:10 'kun fayakun'...things exist from moment to moment
1:21:00 lose yourself in your prayer
1:24;24 we are here to be tested
Question time:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwBQNGbLLdU
3.30 the greatest thing of all is to be witnessing the 'lord of the garden'
5.15 will you still worship ME if you don't get your candy ?
8.20 the awliya are more at home worshiping in a state of 'kab'
[ contraction ] than in a state of 'bask' [ expansion ] for
fear of loss of 'adab'.
13.50 it is god and only god that can change hearts and bring them together
19.20 we have made tawaf together millenium years ago.......
Biodata: Shaykh Abdul Nasir Jangda
Abdul Nasir Jangda is the founder and director of Qalam Institute. He was born and raised in the Dallas area. At the age of 10 he went to Karachi, Pakistan to memorize the Quran. He excelled in his memorization and committed the entire Quran to memory in less than 1 year. He then returned home and continued his school education. After graduating from High School, he went back to Karachi to study the Alim Course at Jamia Binoria. He graduated from the rigorous 7 year program in 2002 at the top of his class and with numerous Ijaazaat (Licenses) in various Islamic Sciences. Along with the Alim Course he concurrently completed a B.A. and M.A. in Arabic from Karachi University. He also obtained a Masters in Islamic Studies from the University of Sindh. He taught Arabic at the University of Texas at Arlington from 2005 to 2007. He has served as an instructor and curriculum advisor to various Islamic schools and Islamic studies programs. He served as the Imam at the Colleyville Masjid in the Dallas area for 3 years. He is a founding member and chairman of Mansfield Islamic Center. Abdul Nasir is an instructor with Bayyinah Institute, where his class “Meaningful Prayer” has traveled the country.
His latest projects include Quran Intensive (a summer program focusing on Arabic grammar and Tafsir), Quranic analysis lectures, Khateeb Training, chronicling of the Prophetic Biography at www.qalaminstitute.org, and personally mentoring and teaching his students.
...the modus operandi to a more meaningful prayer is of course, first and foremost, back to basic: the comprehension of what we 'recite' in our prayer. Comprehension contributes to 'khusyu'.
....and we wrap up our prayer finally with the 'tahashud'....what is its meaning ?
.......................................
Post script::
....and if you still have the 'mental' stamina you may want to proceed to seek to understand the 'spiritual' meaning of our daily prayer. We are just mere mortals compared to Prophet Muhammad, the perfect man.
He had his 'mikraj' more than fourteen centuries ago when, at Siddratul Muntaha, he was given the greatest gifts to convey to us all: 'The Prayer', surah al-Fatiha, and the last two verses of al-Baqarah.
Let us examine what Sidi Ahmad Ibn Idris [ Moroccan mystic, circa 1770 -1837 ] had to say about 'The Prayer'. You are not required to agree with him, if your inclination does not warrant so..
Biodata:
Ahmad Ibn Idris al-Laraishi al-Yamlahi al-Alami al-Idrisi al-Hasani was a mystic and a theologian, active in Morocco, North Africa, and Yemen.
Ahmad Ibn Idris was born in 1760 near the city of Fez. He died in 1837 in Sabya, which was then in Yemen but is today part of Saudi Arabia. He was the founder of the Idrisi order ([ Idrissiya ] and travelled extensively in North Africa and Yemen, instructing the ordinary people using their dialect, and teaching them how to perform such basics as the salat (prayer). He rejected the legal schools of Islam (Madahibs) and criticized the ideology of Wahabbism on many points.
He came to Cairo in 1799 and in 1818 went to Mecca for a second time and settled there. He became one of the most eminent teachers in the holy city. However, due to opposition from the exoteric Ulema, he had to flee to Zabid in Yemen in 1828.
After Ahmad’s death the Idrisiyya split into new lines and his more influential pupils embarked upon independent courses. The most important of these was the influential Muhammad al-Sanusi, founder of the Senoussiya Sufi order, who had taken over Ahmad's school in Mecca in 1828.
Two important teachings of Sidi Ahmad ibn Idris regarding Salaat:
1) Why is it very important to pause at the end of every verse when reciting the Fatiha in Salaat?
2) An explanation of the takbir that begins the salaat, and the takbirs during the salaat, and the taslims at the end of the salaat. In effect, it is an explanation of the deeper meaning of the entirety of the salaat.
1) Why is it very important to pause at the end of every verse when reciting the Fatiha in Salaat?
2) An explanation of the takbir that begins the salaat, and the takbirs during the salaat, and the taslims at the end of the salaat. In effect, it is an explanation of the deeper meaning of the entirety of the salaat.
Sidi Ahmad Ibn Idris:
"Assalatu M’iraj al-Mu’min
The greatest gift that Allah bestowed on the Muslim Ummah during the Mi’raj, or Ascent of the Prophet Muhammad, salla Allahu alayhi wa sallam, is the 5 daily Salaat prayers.
And it is as if Allah Most High, out of His great generosity, wanted the rest of the Ummah to have their own mi’raj and so made our salaat our mi’raj. “The Salaat is the M’iraj of the Believer” is a famous Islamic teaching, attributed to the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh). I want to share my thoughts on some of the aspects that make this prayer like the mi’raj.
1) The Ascent of the Messenger of Allah took him to such a nearness to Allah, that the archangel Gabriel, made of light, said that if he accompanied him to that last station he would burn up. Now, this nearness is not in a physical sense, Exalted is Allah above such a thing.
The great Imam Ibn Daqiq al-Eid, considered the greatest scholar and mujaddid of the 7th Islamic century, was asked the following question: What is the meaning of the Prophet’s saying, pbuh, “Do not say I am better than Jonah son of Amittai” despite the fact that he said, pbuh, “I am the master of the children of Adam.” He said to his questioners, “I will not tell you until you pay off the debt of this friend of mine”, for he had a friend who had a debt, and they paid it off. So he said, “What is meant by that is: My nearness to Allah Most High during my ascent to the Tree of the Uttermost End, nay to the Divine Throne, is like the nearness of Jonah when he was in three darknesses, there is no superiority between us in that.” In other words, when Jonah prayed to Allah from within the belly of a whale in the dark depths of the ocean, he was as near to Allah as the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) when he was beyond the 7th heaven, where the lights were so powerful that they would burn Gabriel. There is a tradition: that an angel came from above the seven heavens, and one from below the seven earths, an angel from the far west and an angel from the far east, and they all said “I came from where Allah is”.
Thus just as the Mi’raj took the Messenger (pbuh) to the greatest nearness to Allah Most High, so does our Salaat prayer, for the Messenger peace be upon him told us, “The nearest a servant of Allah comes to his Lord is when he is prostrating himself”, that is, during the sujood, “so make supplications in that state.”
2) When the Messenger of Allah ascended into the Divine Presence he said, Attahiyyatu lilLahi, wassalawatu waltayyibat, “Greetings to Allah, and prayers and all good things.” To this Allah replied, Assalamu alayka ayyuhal Nabi, wa rahmatulLahi wa barakatuhu, “Peace be upon you, O Prophet, and the mercy and blessings of Allah”; so the Prophet said, Assalamu alayna wa ‘ala ibaad Allah as-saliheen, “Peace be upon us, and upon Allah’s righteous servants.”
You should recognize these words, for we speak them during the time we sit up after every two rak’as of prayer. It is said that the rest was also spoken during the Ascension: that the Messenger of Allah said, “I bear witness that there is no god but Allah” and that Allah Most High replied, “And I bear witness that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah.” Thus in our own prayer, we repeat the dialogue between Allah and His Messenger during the mi’raj.
You should recognize these words, for we speak them during the time we sit up after every two rak’as of prayer. It is said that the rest was also spoken during the Ascension: that the Messenger of Allah said, “I bear witness that there is no god but Allah” and that Allah Most High replied, “And I bear witness that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah.” Thus in our own prayer, we repeat the dialogue between Allah and His Messenger during the mi’raj.
3) In this ascension of ours, we do not merely repeat the dialogue of the Messenger’s mi’raj, but we have our own dialogue. The Prophet’s companion Abu Hurayra repeated three times that our Salaat is deficient (or not even accepted) if we do not personally say the Fatiha during it, even if the Imam says it, because the Messenger of Allah said,
Allah (mighty and sublime be He), has said: I have divided prayer between Myself and My servant into two halves, and My servant shall have what he asked for. When the servant says: Bism Allah ar-Rahman ar-Rahim, Allah says: dhakarani abdi (My servant has mentioned me). And when he saysAl-hamdu lillahi rabb al-’alamin , Allah says: My servant has praised Me. And when he says: Ar-Rahman ar-Rahim , Allah says: My servant has extolled Me, and when he says: Maliki yawmi d-din, Allah says: My servant has glorified Me. And when he says: Iyyaka na’budu wa iyyaka nasta’in, He says: This is between Me and My servant, and My servant shall have what he asked for. And when he says: Ihdina as-sirat al-mustaqim, sirat al-ladhina an’amta alayhim ghayr al-maghdubi alayhim wa la ad-dallin , He says: This is for My servant, and My servant shall have what he has asked for.
Thus we have our own dialogue with Allah most High during our mi’raj, our Salaat. Now the Qur’an commands us to recite the Qur’an in the form of tarteel, or to pause between the verses, and the great scholar Ahmad ibn Idris emphasizes the importance of doing this during the Fatiha in the Salaat, saying “Stopping at the ends of the verses is for the sake of his Lord’s reply, and that is because for the servant to start saying the next part before his Master’s reply to his first speech is ill-mannered.” So when reciting the Fatiha in our Salaat we must be conscious of Allah’s response to what we are saying, and that we are engaging in two-way speech with the Divine.
4) Our ascension, our journey to Allah, begins with the first takbir, when we raise our hands above our shoulders in a movement that many scholars have likened to that of the throwing off of a garb. As if you are saying, Allahu Akbar, God is Greater than this world, which I throw behind me; God is greater than all worries and distractions, which I throw behind me; God is greater than the ego that does not like to obey commands or to prostrate itself, and so I throw it behind me; God is greater than myself, so I leave it behind me. And thus begins your journey, your mi’raj, in which you get as near as possible to Allah, and act out parts of the Messenger’s own mi’raj. Then, you return to the world, and you say to those around you, whether human or angel, what every traveler says upon his arrival, you greet them with Assalamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuhu, the Islamic greeting formula: Peace be upon you, and Allah’s mercy and blessings."
Thus I end with a translation from the Iqd al-Nafees, The Precious Necklace in Arranging the Jewels of the Teachings of Ahmad ibn Idris:
The Takbirat al-Ihram for the Salaat (The commencement of Salaat by saying Allahu Akbar): It is that he who is praying forgets everything except Allah and swims in the Kibriya’ * and Greatness (of Allah). Then every time he reaches an end of Kibriya, Allah is even greater in exaltedness above that, and so he renews the takbir in the Ruku’ and says: God is Greater, meaning Greater than the end I have reached while swimming in hisKibriya; and it is like that until the middle of prayer. At that point, your inability to swim in a creak from the oceans of his Kibriya is verified, so you return (to the beginning). Then at the end of the prayer you return to Creation and so you say: “Peace be upon you and Allah’s mercy”, for the greeting is not said except by someone returning from a journey. As for someone who has been present, for him to turn to his right and say “Peace be upon you” and then turn to his left and say “Peace be upon you”, that would be considered insanity, because that is not required of him by the law.
And so the Salaat is a journey of Witnessing, a journey of Nearness, a journey of Divine Address- a journey to Allah and then back again to the world of Creation.
Huwallahualam.
May your prayer and mine bring us to Divine nearness.
Dr Nik Howk
Postscript:
Shaykh Hamza Yusuf on 'The metaphysics of Prayer'
