At the mosque, men and women pray in separate rooms while performing a series of movements in a sequence. This involves bowing and kneeling as well as prostration and reciting praises to God. Salah encourages self-discipline and keeps Muslims in close contact with Allah. It is a sign of solidarity with all other Muslims and it shows that everyone is equal in their worship of God. Before praying, Muslims prepare by performing an important set of actions so that all of their focus can be on God:.
Sunni Muslims only combine the five daily prayers if they have a good reason to, for example if they are travelling. Shi'a Muslims have more freedom to combine certain prayers, such as the midday and afternoon prayers. Therefore they may only pray three times a day. In order to become a Muslim, a person simply has to declare the Shahadah in front of witnesses. This highlights the key importance of the Shahadah in Islam. The Arabic can be transliterated into the Roman alphabet like this:. Muslims use the name 'Allah' for God in the Shahadah.
Tawhid is the groundwork of all righteous actions, of all morality in Islam. It also means the Omnipotence of Allah, which in turn indicates that all things depend absolutely upon Allah, derive their total reality from Him and will ultimately return to Him.
This utter dependence of all things on Allah makes [human beings] truly conscious of their origin and ultimate becoming. From the shahada , this profoundest of acknowledgements, salat , or prayer, directly and inevitably follows. If we believe God is the Owner of our soul, and the only One worthy of being worshiped, we will naturally want to connect with Him through prayer, which is the second most important tenet of Islam.
The obligatory prayers are performed five times a day, at dawn, noon, mid-afternoon, sunset, and after dark. Muslims face Mecca while praying and engage in prostrations and movements that, similarly to those of yoga, have been proven to have positive, soothing, and healthy effects on the mind and body.
Prayer grounds us, gives us time away from worldly concerns to reflect and meditate, and connects us with our own spirit. The importance of salat is such that some scholars and sheikhs are of the opinion that a Muslim who does not pray regularly can no longer be considered a Muslim.
Prayer is for our benefit and well-being. It is tremendously powerful. It grounds us, gives us time away from our worldly concerns and occupations to reflect and meditate, and connects us with our own spirit, the part of ourselves that is beyond matter and worldly attachments. It is our conversation with God, and therefore, a communion with the noblest part of our nature. Mindful prayer is deeply transformative. Prayer moves us towards a purposeful, profound life, one that is closer to God and centered on higher, eternal values.
What we systematically focus our attention on expands and manifests in our lives. This is in fact the purpose of prayer: to move us towards a purposeful, profound life, one that is closer to God and centered on higher, eternal values. The words we use to pray symbolize our feelings and so, they are extremely potent. We pray with what is in our hearts. And if our hearts are absent from our prayers, the result will be a life that is correspondingly empty.
It is therefore of utmost importance to understand the words we use in prayer and make praying a meaningful experience. A good approach is to find a form of prayer that we connect to, and spend time in understanding the meaning and feelings associated with each uttered word and sentence.
For example, we can take a verse of the Quran that we feel particularly attracted to, think about it, learn about it, reflect on how it relates to our lives, and what it means to us personally. Then go to the next one and continue this way until we have connected deeply with each Quran verse that we recite when we pray.
We can also pray in our own language because our innermost thoughts and feelings are the essence of prayer.
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