Proofs of Prophethood
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The Islamic Prayer: The Prophet’s ﷺ Message
For a Muslim, prayer is the shade of the soul, an entire devotional framework around which more than a billion people center their lives. The Islamic prayer, salah, was taught to Prophet Muhammad ﷺ by God, and it has many benefits. It brings individuals closer to God, attunes humanity to nature's rhythms, builds community, and offers a sense of purpose. Sh. Mohammad Elshinawy sheds light on the practice of prayer and why the Qur'an asks us to "be of those who prostrate."
The Proofs for the Prophethood of Muhammad ﷺ eBook is available now. Download your copy here.
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Transcript
This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings. Complementing Islam's unique emphasis on God's perfect qualities, it also institutes an entire devotional framework that allows for that belief to become a lived daily experience. First and foremost in this is the Muslim daily prayer, the salah. Linguistically, it means connection, silah, and it's a chance for a person to pull themselves out of the grind of this life and reinforce their relationship with their creator, to water the tree of their faith and moisten their hearts a bit that would otherwise dry up and crack in this desert of pursuing worldly pleasures. For the soul, salah serves the function of turning to the shade of a tree while at work on a hot day. It is a chance to revive our spirituality, remember our origins, rekindle our bond with our creator, remember the purpose behind our existence. And if and when this salah is performed properly and with devotion, it becomes the greatest deterrent against a person committing wrongdoing and aggression against others. Human beings have forever practiced ritual, and in that sense, ritual prayer is the central affirming act of human life. Without it, people are rendered a caricature of themselves, a shell of a human being, frankensteinian if I may, because they are trying to be like a body that attempts to live with its heart ripped out. However, while pagans and idolaters try to connect and pray to the divine through arbitrary or theatrical forms, and while the hedonist kneels for a lifetime at the crude shrine of the ego of self-indulgence, only
monotheists in this entire spectrum, those of them with access to confirmed prophetic teachings, enjoy the real pathways disclosed by God himself on how to authentically connect with him. The Prophet Muhammad taught Muslims that God enjoined them to pray five times a day in a structured format and at specific periods of time. An outsider may see this as cumbersome or some intrusive task, while Muslims, after experiencing the salah first-hand, you would be surprised to know that they volunteer to perform even more of the five in addition to them. What keeps bringing them back? The magnetic force of this special devotional act testifies to its inherent goodness and the goodness of the message that brought it to us. You know this observation was even made by the late John Paul II regarding the Muslim prayer. He says the religiosity of Muslims deserves respect. It is impossible, he says, not to admire their fidelity, their loyalty to prayer, for example. The image of believers in Allah, he says, without a care for where they are or what time it is, falling on their faces and kneeling in prayer, immersing themselves in this devotion, is an image that everyone should learn from. He says it is a model, an exemplar for all those who call upon the one true God. He says and even for Christians in particular, who even after abandoning their magnificent cathedrals pray very little or sometimes never at all. Prayer, salah, has worldly benefits as well. Physically speaking, it attunes us to nature, it stabilizes our
biological clocks for instance with its schedule, and even our sense of belonging to this entire universe which was ordered after it was created by Almighty God Himself. And then there are the emotional benefits. When we consider that nowadays, for instance, London is voted the loneliest capital of the world due to the atomization of modern life and everyone's in their own separate worlds, isolation, alienation, the sense of depression, the sense of non-fraternity, consider the framework of a people, the Muslims, who meet regularly for prayer in their houses of worship, standing foot to foot, shoulder to shoulder, allowing the oxytocin if you will, the bonding hormone, to spread among them, shaking their hands before and after the prayer, coming together also for a common purpose, being part of a greater collective, all of that together does something very special for the brotherhood of humanity. And we actually find this in the Quran when the Prophet Muhammad peace and blessings be upon him, was pushed to the brink so many times by his haters, by his critics, by his persecutors, and sadness would loom over him, Almighty God would reveal, and we certainly know that your heart tightens by what they say, so glorify the praises of your Lord, there is a greater wisdom here, and be of those who prostrate. Be like them wherever you are by performing salah, and be of them, be among them in the communal congregation, for that too will remedy you.
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