The Prayer is not an idea or a
practice innovated by Islam but it has principally been a common
phenomenon in all the heavenly religions like Judaism and
Christianity and it rather represents the identity of the
religious man whatever his belief, or religion has been and even
the attendants of the man-made religions have been practicing a
number of worshipping rites which can be highly regarded-within
what contains of movements and words-which are reminiscent of
something like a Prayer.
Religious people believe that: as
long as man is keeping on establishing his prayer at the required
times, he will be regarded as having a continuous contact with
his Lord for it is "Man's link with his Lord" and therefore, this
connection and the continuation of this connection have a great
impact on man's conduct.
From this thought emerged the
importance of urging on performing and establishing it over the
tongues of the prophets- and this is the wise Luqman (P.B.U.H.)
who while preaching his son, says to him:
"O my son! Establish the Prayer
(Luqman:17) But the Prophet Muhammad (Peace of Allah and His
blessings be upon Muhammad and his pure progeny) used to regard
the prayer as being "the pupil of my eye".
But in Judaism for instance, the
worshippers take the Prayer as being doing the function of
nourishing the human self in a process reminiscent, to some
point, of the process of nourishing the belly and believing, too
that the more the human soul gets farther away than the prayer,
the more the soul will get to be disturbed and grievous and as
similar to this state of being can be seen in Christianity but it
surpasses this connection to the level that it is not a mere
(meeting with Allah) but it extends till it reaches that the
establisher of the prayer submits his gratitude to Allah, the
Almighty and asks him for forgiveness, then he forwards between
His Hands his demands.
Like Judaism, worshippers of
Christianity believe the Prayer develops in man his faith in
Allah, and reinforces it considering it as the spiritual
nourishment without which man's power weakens and becomes as an
easy morsel in Satan's mouth.
But as far as our Prayer to Allah
is concerned-we as Moslems-we initiate this topic by highlighting
on it with the following question:
What is meant by the Prayer?
The Prayer, linguistically, is
"dua" a sort of politely beseeching, begging and invoking Allah,
the Almighty, to fulfil our needs or help us whether we are in
weal or woe.
But the Islamic outlook to "dua"
is that it is a worshipping imposition which, in essence, is: a
number of special movements with short sentences and phrases
which are to be performed by a Moslem during fixed hours of a
day-the obligatory prayers-within special binding conditions,
terms and divine formalities-among the most important of them
are: purity and the prayer opening: "Allah is the
Greatest".
Thu -
4 Shawwal 1446H -
