Understanding Salat — Page 146
Understanding S al A t 146 have no choice but to fall before Allah Almighty and beg for His help. Sajdah is simply coming to terms with reality; its beauty is in its simplicity. The Holy Prophet sas said, The nearest a servant comes to his Lord is when he is prostrating himself, so increase supplications while prostrating. ( S a hīh Muslim, Book 4, Chapter 42) Prostration and prayer are inseparably linked to each other because humility is a necessary prerequisite for any prayer. Without it, there is no prayer. Any prayer offered without humility is just a formality because it is not born of necessity. With each progressive stage of understanding our fragil- ity, we take a step down and come closer to our reality. With each progressive stage of understanding Allah Almighty, we take a step up and come closer to His reality. When we are in the posture of our greatest lowliness, we are also at our closest to the loftiness of Allah. On the surface, it seems like a contradiction to pray ‘raise me up’ ( ْ ارْفَعْنِي ) right before we go down into our second Sajdah. However, the lower we go in humility, the nearer we come to the loftiness of Allah Almighty. We bow towards loftiness because we have bowed to the one who is the Most High. One difficulty many of us face is finding pleasure in S al ā t. The mistake we make is that we directly look for pleasure in Looking for pleasure in prayer