Understanding Salat — Page 188
Understanding S al A t 188 Hadrat ‘Umar ibn Al-Kha tt āb ra narrated, ‘Indeed the supplication stops between the heavens and the earth. Nothing of it is raised up until you send S al ā t upon your Prophet. ’ ( Tirmidh ī , Book 3, Chapter 21) When a prayer for ourselves is accompanied by an even more fervent prayer for blessings on the Holy Prophet sas , then that prayer becomes an expression of submission to Allah Almighty. ‘Peace be on us’ or ‘peace be on you’ is a prayer that we com- monly observe. However, in Qa‘dah, it becomes an extraor- dinary prayer because of its placement. Earlier, the intensity of our love had made us want to sacrifice our rewards for the Holy Prophet sas. Here, we see that our love makes us want to sacrifice our prayers for the Holy Prophet sas. We pray for peace on ourselves only after we have prayed for peace on the Holy Prophet sas. In fact, we offer a more comprehensive prayer for the Holy Prophet sas than we do for ourselves by not just praying for peace, but also that the mercy and the blessings of Allah be upon him sas This prayer teaches us to make all of our prayers extraor- dinary. Whenever we need to pray for ourselves, no matter how desperate we are, we should forget about ourselves for a moment and pray first for the Holy Prophet sas with greater fervency than the prayer we offer for ourselves. Imagine how beautiful that prayer is in the sight of Allah Almighty. He sees how anxious we are and how urgently we need some- thing, but just out of our love for Allah, we forget about our