Sollu 'ala Rasoolillah ﷺ
Writer : Abdul Nasir Jangda @ muslimmatters.org
There are lots of things we can do. Books are written by the scholars which list dozens of things we can do to bring greater quality and implement khushū' in our prayers. To keep the conversation flowing and brief and concise, I would like to group the things that we can implement into three areas of improvement.
1. A change of lifestyle.
What that refers to is really very simple. We can't expect to live our lives however we want (lying, cheating, backbiting, cussing) and then expect that when we stand up to pray and say “Allāhu akbar”, magically we have khushū'. There is no instant khushū'. The way I live my life outside of the prayer and the way I conduct myself normally throughout the day will affect and impact the quality of my prayers. If I want more quality in your ṣalawāt, then I have to lead a better life, a more honest and truthful life. I have to cut some of the sins out of my life in order to improve the quality of my prayers.
2. Make ṣalāh an event.
Treat ṣalāh like an important part of your day. Let me give you an example.
You have to be at work or school at 8 am, and you live about 10 minutes away from work, so you try to leave your house at 7:45 am so that you can drive there, park your car, and be at your desk at 7:59 ready to roll. If you leave your house at 7:45 am, do you wake up at 7:40 and roll out of bed and get ready? No – don't do that! Typically, if you have to leave your home at 7:45 am, how much earlier would you wake up? The average answer is 45 minutes. Some people take a little bit less and others a little bit longer. Why do you wake up 45 minutes before? You would say it is your job and is important. You have to wake up and brush, shower, clean and comb, eat something, pack your stuff and dress nicely. You have to take it seriously. That is why you invest the time and give it importance and treat it as something important.
How you prepare for it shows the importance. It is an event and you prepare for it. Compare this to ṣalāt'l-fajr. I realize that is the most drastic comparison. Let me explain to you the proceedings of ṣalāt'l-fajr. First, before you sleep you have the route from your bed to the sink completely mapped out so that you can get do it with your eyes closed. Why? When you wake up for fajr, you don't like to turn on all of the lights because it takes the sleepiness away and you want to pray fajr and go to sleep. You make it to the sink and have perfected the art of the 15 second wuḍū' – it is like a magic trick. You make your way back over to your bed, and you pray next to your bed and then engage in a procedure I like to call: stop, drop and roll over. You would pray on your bed if possible.
How sad is that? That is the condition of our prayers. I'll give another example from sports. When we watch a game, what is the quality of our prayer? First of all, it's a blessing if somebody actually prays during the game. Even if they do pray during the game, what is the quality of that prayer? We wait for a time-out or a commercial and then hurry. We leave the volume a little bit on so that we can hear if something big happens during the game. That is how we pray, unfortunately.
I joke just to keep it light, but we have to realize what a tragedy it is we pray like this, especially compared to how we seriously we take everything else. The second area of improvement to gain quality in the ṣalāh is to treat ṣalāh as something important. Makeṣalāh an important part of your day.
What that involves is to prepare and get ready. Make wuḍū' properly – it is an act of worship that leads you into the prayer and puts you in the right mindset. Pray when it is the time of the prayer. Don't keep putting it off. Dress appropriately.
3. Understand the basic structure and technicalities of prayer (fiqh), which will give you the outline of the ṣalāh. The most important thing, which is actually the life and spirit of the prayer is when you understand what you are reading and saying in your ṣalāh.
Ṣalāh is about reflection and pondering. It is about comprehending and understanding. It is about feeling what you are saying and then delving into it and being absorbed by the experience of the ṣalāh. This can only be done when you truly appreciate and understand what you are saying in the ṣalāh.
16 Jamadilawal 1433H
22:17 near malaysia.
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