Spiritual Benefits of Prayer


Objectives

·To understand that that the prayer is a means of remembering Allah and increasing God-consciousness.

·To understand the relationship between prayer and repentance, prayer and discipline, and prayer and humility.

Arabic Terms

·  Salah - the Arabic word to denote a direct connection between the believer and Allah.  More specifically, in Islam it refers to the formal five daily prayers and is the most important form of worship.

· Taqwa - Awe or fear of Allah, piety, God-consciousness. It describes a state of awareness of Allah in everything one does.

·  Imam - someone who leads the prayer.

Remembrance of Allah


Almost every person in the modern world is involved in some basic worldly activity like earning a living, going to school, eating, sleeping, and socializing.  Naturally, we forget Allah and the obligations due to Him.  When we forget Allah, this life and its worries become the central occupation of the human mind.  Desires run wild.  A person begins to ‘chase his shadow’, something he can never catch.  For many, money becomes the sole goal of life.  The more you make, the more you spend, the more you want.

Allah has set times to break regularly from the daily chores of life for a few minutes and worship Him.  First thing in the morning before we begin our day, in the middle of the day, in the late afternoon, in the evening, and at night before we go to sleep.  When done with concentration and properly, it awakens and stimulates the soul.  A Muslim reminds himself that Allah is in charge of everything, he is Allah’s faithful servant, and Allah’s pleasure is His aim.  For a few minutes, five times a day, a Muslim leaves this world and meets  His Lord:

And establish the prayers (salah) in order to remember Me.

Quran 20:14

Taqwa (God-consciousness)


The prayers (salah) also makes a person God-conscious.  When a person prays five times a day, he becomes accustomed to feeling the presence of God and develops the sense that Allah is watching Him at all times.  He is never hidden from Allah, even when alone.  A sense of God-consciousness keeps the heart suspended between fear and hope.  Fear of Allah keeps a Muslim away from the prohibited and encourages him to do the obligatory; a mix of divine love and devout reverence that keeps him religiously observant. Regular performance of the prayers increases one’s awareness of Allah.

Seeking Forgiveness


To err is human, and even the most pious of Muslims sin and need to repent.  We all need to constantly ask for Allah’s forgiveness and try our best not to repeat our mistakes.  Without regular contact with Allah, a person is unlikely to feel guilty for his sins and repent.  Sometimes if a person has not asked Allah to forgive him in a long time, he might become insensitive to sinning and may even forget that he fell into it, thus not even seeking forgiveness for it.  Certain prayers in the formal prayers (salah) reminds the Muslim of his sins and makes him seek forgiveness for them  This in turn causes Muslims to feel guilty for their sins and seek repentance as soon as they are committed. A Muslim learns to constantly seeks forgiveness for his sins and never feels too distant from his loving Lord.   The prayer places man directly before Allah seeking pardon for his short-comings.  

The prayer itself is a means of erasing sins, albeit the lesser ones[1].

Messenger of Allah, may the mercy and blessings of Allah be upon him, asked:

“What do you think if there was a river by the door of any one of you and he bathed in it five times a day, would there be any trace of dirt left on him?”  

They (his companions) said, “No trace of dirt would be left on him.”


The Prophet said

This is like the five daily prayers, through which Allah erases sin.

Saheeh Al-Bukhari, Saheeh Muslim

Control and Discipline


The prayer has the capacity to catalyze change for the better in people’s life.  The fact that we give up whatever we are doing and line up behind a prayer leader (called imam) five times a day in the mosque, or find room to pray in at work or school by ourselves, instills discipline in life.  People join the army to learn discipline and everyone admires it.  Similarly, the prayer trains us to go through specific motions and utter special words at specific times.  All the body parts are under control, obeying and worshipping Allah, and if this discipline is broken, the prayer may have to be repeated. 

Islam recognizes that we are all different, so it allows flexibility in many cases.  The prayer leader (imam) should keep the prayer short.  Women are not required to attend the prayers in the mosque.  A sick person may pray sitting, and if unable, he may even pray laying down.  The discipline learned in the prayer is to be acquired in other aspects of one’s religious and mundane life as well.  Just as we should not look around when praying, we should control our eyes outside of the prayer not to fall on forbidden objects.  Just like we use our tongue to praise Allah, outside of the formal prayers we should not let it backbite or lie.  Just as our hands and feet perform controlled motions, outside of the prayers we should not use them to steal, buy or eat what is forbidden.  We should not walk towards the forbidden, but away from it.  This is the essence of which Allah tells us:

…Surely, the prayer (salah) prevents evil speech and bad deeds...

Quran 29:45

Calmness and Serenity by Developing Focus in the Prayers


A very important ingredient of the prayer is the state of calmness and tranquility coupled with humility achieved by deep concentration. 

Allah says in the Quran

Successful indeed are the believers, those who humble themselves in their prayers

Quran 23:1-2

The purpose of the prayer is not just to fulfill an empty ritual.  For the prayer to be acceptable, it must be done with a passion.  Learn the meaning of the Arabic words used in the prayer, focus on their meaning and whatever portions of Quran you will recite.  Know that Allah responds to prayers and He is listening to you.  Focus your eyes on the place of prostration, or shut them if something present causes you to be distracted and can not focus otherwise.  By concentrating on the words of the prayer said in different postures, by raising one’s consciousness of being in front of Allah, by choosing a comfortable, clean place with no distractions, one can increase their presence of mind in the prayer.  There will always be room to improve it.  Remove the clutter in the mind and focus on Allah’s blessings in life, feel your insignificance in front of the Magnificent Creator, feel guilty for your sins.  It will help you reduce stress, worries, and anxiety.  There is only so much our mind and body can take.  The prayer is relaxing and will help regain lost focus in life.  The prayer is healing for the soul.  But for your salah to  reach this state of concentration it requires patience, practice, and asking Allah for help.  The postures of the prayer are important.  For example, in prostration the believer is closest he can be to Allah, and thus he should feel this closeness and supplicate even more.

To reach a high level of concentration and humility in prayer requires constant work, and struggle.  There will be lows - but one should never give up the prayers (salah).  Remember!  It connects you to your Creator.  You don’t just pray while you feel it is working for you and easy to do.  Frequently, a new Muslim is overcharged with zeal on accepting Islam, reading a lot, listening to tapes, surfing the web, talking to friends, but after some time they burn out.  It is at that critical moment when the real test comes, one feels weak in faith and it is difficult to pray.  Take some good advice for those times, and keep on praying.

The ritual prayer (salah[1]) is the heartbeat of Islamic worship, a living expression of Islam.  It keeps a Muslim in permanent contact with Allah.  The recitation of the Quran, the sacred scripture of Islam, is an inseparable element of the prayer.  In it, one finds the purest expression of the essential elements of Islam.  Being a ritual act of devotion to Allah, it has two faces: the legal prescription and the spiritual dimension.  We shall discuss the latter in this lesson.

The first duty on a person upon becoming Muslim is the performance of the prayers. The prayers are obligatory on every Muslim man and woman five times a day throughout their life once they declare Islam.  The prayer (salah) is the second pillar of Islam, after the two Testimonies.  Whether one is rich or poor, healthy or sick, traveling or resident, a Muslim must pray.[2]  Every Muslim should learn the rules and regulations of praying correctly and pray five times a day.  Learning and performing the prayer should be the first priority of every new Muslim.  If you are new to Islam, incorporating a new religious practice done in an unfamiliar language may feel strange and intimidating, but soon with patience and Allah’s help it will become part of your life.  Prayer to a Muslim is as important as breathing, and  it isn’t as difficult as it may seem!

The prayer revolves around three supreme realities in a Muslim’s life: Allah, His Prophet, and the community of believers.  Allah is constantly praised, glorified, thanked, and remembered in prayer (salah).  A Muslim turns himself inwardly and outwardly to Allah.  The method of the prayer is that of the Prophet in which he is mentioned as well.  Lastly, the prayer ties one to the community of the faithful, especially when performed in the mosque with a local congregation.

The prayer (salah) is considered the most important act of worship prescribed for human beings.  It is the backbone of religious observance of a Muslim. Without a spine, the human body would collapse. Similarly, without the prayer a person’s Islamic practice would fall apart.

The Prophet himself compared it to the spine

The head of all affairs is Islam, its spine is the prayer (salah)

Al-Tirmidhi, ibn Majah

Emphasizing its importance,

the Prophet said:

Between a person and disbelief is discarding the prayer (salah).

Saheeh Muslim

What this means is that if a man stops to pray completely, he slides into disbelief.

There are quite a few other points which emphasize the importance of the prayer (salah), from them the following:

- The Prophet at his death bed advised the Muslims to pay attention to salah.[3]

- It was the first act of worship made compulsory on Muslims who were required to observe the prayer while in Mecca before migration to Medina.  Compulsory charity (Zakat[4]), fasting, and pilgrimage were made compulsory in Medina.

- The first matter we will be questioned about on the Day of Judgment is salah:

“The first matter which a slave will be held to account for on the Day of Judgment is the prayer (salah).  If it is good, all the rest of his deeds become good, but if it is bad, all the rest of his deeds become bad.”[5]

- Abraham asked his Lord to give him descendants who would abide by their prayers:

My Lord! Cause me and (some) of my offspring to remain constant in prayer.  And O our Lord!  Accept my supplication

Quran 14:40

The Quran is full of commands to pray to emphasize its importance.  The prayer has been divinely transmitted to us in two ways.  First, Allah Himself commanded Prophet Muhammad, may the mercy and blessings of Allah be upon him, when he ascended into the heavens in a journey known as the Mi’raaj (The Ascension).  The commandment for the prayer (salah) was not brought down by an angel to the Prophet, but the Prophet was taken up to the heavens, and Allah addressed him directly in its obligation.  Second, the great angel Gabriel descended to teach the Prophet the five prayers and their times.