Mastering Humility: A Guide on Attaining Reverence in Your Prayers

A Guide on Attaining Reverence in Your Prayers – In an environment with increasing distractions how will we make our prayers more useful for our selves? Following is an excerpt from “Inner Dimensions of Islamic Worship”, a compilation of Imam Ghazali’s works that can encourage us to expand humility and come to be closer to God via prayer.

God, says within the Quran:

‘And carry out the Prayer in remembrance of Me.’ [Ta Ha, 20:14]

‘Do now not be one in all individuals who are neglectful.’ [al-A’raf, 7:205]

‘Do not method the Prayer whilst you are intoxicated, till you already know what you are announcing.’ [al-Nisa’, 4:forty three]

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Some say that ‘intoxicated‘ means inebriated by many anxieties, whilst others say it method under the influence of alcohol on the love of this world According to Wahb, the meaning is obviously a caution in opposition to worldly attachment, because the phrases ‘till you realize what you’re announcing’ provide an explanation for the underlying purpose.

Many are individuals who pray without having under the influence of alcohol wine, but do no longer understand what they may be announcing in their Prayers!

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Prophet Muhammad  said:

If a man performs two cycles of Prayer without the distraction of any worldly thought, all his previous sins will be forgiven.’ (al-Bukhari/Muslim)

‘Prayer is nothing but submissiveness, humility, supplication, sighing and regret, protecting out your hands and announcing: “O God! O God!” Otherwise it’s far fruitless.’ (al-Tirmidi/al-Nasai)

In the in advance scriptures, we find these words attributed to God, Glorified is He: ‘I do now not receive the Prayers of all people who prays. I be given the Prayers of none but folks that are humble earlier than My Majesty, who aren’t boastful in the direction of My servants, and who feed the bad and hungry for My sake.’ 

Prophet Muhammad  additionally stated:

‘Ritual Prayer become made compulsory, Pilgrimage and circumambulation were ordained, and the rites of sacrifice have been instituted, concerned with the purpose of making sure remembrance of God, Exalted is He. If your heart is with out awe and reverence for the One Remembered, who’s the purpose and the intention, what is your remembrance well worth?’ (Abu Daud/al-Tirmidi)

This advice was given to a person via the Prophet, on him be peace: ‘When you pray, pray like someone who’s announcing farewell,’ (Ibn Maja/al-Hakim/al-Baihaqi) i.E. Pronouncing farewell to himself, to his passions and to his life, earlier than setting off on the journey to his Lord.

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Again God Almighty reminds us within the Quran:

‘O Man, you exertions towards your Lord laboriously, and you shall meet Him.’ [al-Inshiqaq, eighty four:6]

‘Be privy to God, for it is God who teaches you.’ [al-Baqarah, 2:282]

‘Be aware about God, and understand that you are going to fulfill Him.’ [al-Baqarah, 2:223]

Prophet Muhammad  reminds us: ‘If a person’s Prayer does not deter him from indecency and mischief, he profits nothing from God but remoteness.’ (al-Tabarani)

Since Prayer is intimate communion, how can it go together with heedlessness? Bakr ibn Abdullah stated:

‘O believers, if you want to input the presence of your Lord with out permission, and to talk with Him without an interpreter, you have got handiest to enter!’

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When a person asked him how this may be he stated:

‘You do your ablution efficaciously and input your prayer-area of interest … There you are! You have entered your Lord’s presence with out permission and may now communicate to Him without an interpreter.’ 

Said Aisha, may also God be pleased with her:

‘God’s Mes senger  would communicate to us and we to him, however when it become time for Prayer it appeared as even though he did no longer realize us, nor we him.’ (Azdi – mursal) This turned into because they had been completely in awe of God the maximum Great and Glorious.

The Prophet  stated:

‘God has no regard for a Prayer in which a person’s coronary heart isn’t always present as well as his body.’

It is said that when Abraham , God’s special buddy, got up to wish, the throbbing of his coronary heart can be heard from a distance.

When Said al-Tanukhi (Muslim jurist 776/854 CE) was praying, tears used to flow incessantly down his cheeks and onto his beard.

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God’s Messenger  once saw a man playing together with his beard in the course of the Prayer, so he stated: ‘If this man’s coronary heart turned into submissive, each a part of his frame would also act with humility.’ (al-Tirmidi – daif)

It is related that al-Hasan noticed a person gambling with pebbles as he prayed: ‘O God, marry me to the maidens of Paradise!.’ Al-Hasan stated ‘A poor suitor you’re. You advise to the maidens of Paradise at the same time as playing with pebbles!’ 

Someone asked Khalaf ibn Ayyub (Islamic student and poet from Al-Andalus 1013/1081 CE):

‘Don’t the flies bother you so much for the duration of your Prayer that you have to chase them away?

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He answered:

‘I do no longer make a dependancy of something that would wreck my Prayer.’

When requested how he had acquired such staying power, he stated:

‘I have heard that culprits patiently bear the Sultan’s whip, due to the fact this gives them a reputation for being “able to take it.” They boast in their patient endur ance. Here am I, standing earlier than my Lord in Prayer. Am I going to budge for a fly?’ 

It is associated of Muslim ibn Yasar that, whilst he desired to pray, he would say to his family:

‘You may additionally talk, for I shall no longer pay attention you’.

It is stated that he became praying sooner or later inside the Great Mosque of Basra, when a corner of the constructing collapsed. This attracted a crowd, however he became quite ignorant of what had happened till he had finished his Prayer.

Whenever the time of Prayer approached, Ali ibn Abi Talib, can also God be thrilled with him and ennoble his countenance, used to quake and change shade. They asked him:

‘What is the matter with you, Commander of the Believers?’

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To this he might reply:

‘The time has come for a accept as true with which God provided to the heavens and the earth and the mountains, however they refused to hold it; they had been wary of it, but I have taken it on.’ 

It is stated of al-Husayn ibn Ali that he used to turn pale whilst he made his ablution. When his own family asked him what got here over him for the duration of his ablution, he might say: ‘Do you understand earlier than Whom I wish to stand in Prayer?’ 

According to Ibn Abbas, can also God be thrilled with him and his father, the Prophet David, God bless him and deliver him peace, used to mention in his intimate Prayers:

‘My God, who inhabits Your House? And from whom do you be given the Prayer?’

Then God told him with the aid of notion:

‘David, he who inhabits My House, and he whose Prayer I take delivery of, is none but he who is humble before My Majesty, spends his days in remembrance of Me and maintains his passions in test for My sake, giving meals to the hungry and safe haven to the stranger and treating the stricken with compassion. His light shines in the sky like the sun. If he invokes Me, I am at his carrier. If he asks of Me, I grant his request. In the midst of lack of knowledge, I deliver him discernment; in heedlessness, remembrance, in darkness, mild. He stands proud amongst normal people as Paradise towers over earthly gardens, its rivers inexhaustible and its end result no longer problem to decay.’ 

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It is associated of Hatim al-Asamm, might also God be thrilled with him, that he said, in solution to a question approximately Prayer:

When the time for Prayer is handy, I make a proper ablution, go to the spot wherein I intend to hope and take a seat there till all my limbs and organs are in a amassed state. Then I arise to perform my Prayer, putting the Kaba among my brows, the Bridge- over-Hell underneath my toes, Paradise to my right and Hell to my left, and the Angel of Death in the back of me, thinking all of the at the same time as that this is my very last Prayer. Then I stand between wish and fear. I carefully pronounce “Allahu Akbar!” Then I recite the Quran harmoniously, bow in humility and prostrate myself submissively. I then sit down again on my left haunch spreading out the top of my left foot and raising my right foot at the toes. I comply with this with sincerity. Then I surprise whether or not or now not my Prayer has been universal.’ 

Ibn Abbas (Cousin of the Prophet), can also God be thrilled with him and along with his father, once said:

‘Two modest cycles of Prayer, performed in full awareness, are higher than a whole night’s vigil whilst the heart is inattentive.’ 

Abu Hamid al-Ghazali (450-505 AH / 1058-1111 AD) Also referred to as Imam Ghazzali is a distinguished Muslim jurist and theologian of the twelfth Century. He wrote on a extensive variety of topics including jurisprudence, theology, mysticism and philosophy.

Categories: PRAYER (Salat), ALMS (Zakat), SAWN (Fasting) HAJJ (Pilgrimage) & DUA (Supplications), Hadith and Tafseer, The Holy Quran, Quran Jaz 1- 114

Topics:  Ushr and Zakat, Hijab, Arabic Corner, Faith, Islamic History, Biography, Sirat ul Nabi PBUH,  Islamic Studies, Halal & Haram

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