Grateful To Allah

In the name of Allah, most Gracious, most Merciful,

I recently bought one of those mini Creative Zen mp3 players in order to be able to listen to Qur’an and lectures on my way to classes. Alhamdulillah it has improved my Qur’an recitation a lot and helped me to learn better. Because of this I went on a lecture-downloading frenzy and just tonight had the chance to listen to one of the lectures all the way through: Yusuf Idris’s “Why Don’t You Pray?“

The first line of the first mp3 begins with the statement that when we are born, the first thing we hear is the adhan. I was not born a Muslim, so I did not have this experience, but Alhamdulillah the adhan is one of the first things that I heard upon reverting. It goes on to say that when we die, the last thing that is said over us is the funeral prayer. So our lives begin with adhan and end with salah; our whole lives are lived between adhan and salah.

This lecture was especially powerful for me because salah has been one of my biggest struggles as a revert. I have heard from other reverts that I know that it has been difficult as well for them. Many other things have been easy masha’Allah, but salah is something that, although it has become easier, I still sometimes find difficult. When I first reverted, the biggest challenge was learning how to pray. I didn’t know any Muslims here and only a couple of Muslims online, one of whom was a new revert herself (and was and still is instrumental in helping me in this deen). So I took to Google. It was frightening. I was terrified to pray and so anxious because everything I read was different and I was afraid I would do something wrong. I still don’t even know how to do the prostrations you are supposed to do when you do something wrong in salah! Finally my friend and sister explained the issue of madhhabs to me and once I had chosen a madhhab it was much simpler to find a uniform explanation on the actual method of prayer.

But then, once you’ve figured out where the feet go and where the hands go and what to say, in horrible, broken Arabic, at which point, it still does not feel like salah. You have learned that you must wash this body part this many times and that body part that many times, but it still does not feel like wudu. For me, although I finally got the technicalities of prayer, it continued to be a struggle because I felt like I just had a mental block against it. One of the issues is that I am disabled, and finding information other than the very general “pray sitting or lying down” on how to pray when you cannot make sujood or you cannot stand is somewhat difficult. Alhamdulillah my sister Khadija, who is teaching me Arabic and tajweed now, finally explained to me what to do when I cannot prostrate (and also when I am in the car or in some other situation when it’s necessary to modify prayer).

Somewhere along the way wudu stopped being a long, arduous production of difficulty and technicality and became this amazingly refreshing experience that I could complete even in a couple of minutes if I needed to…now I want to make wudu all day just because it feels so cleansing, not only physically. And finally, blessedly, I began to understand what the saying, “If you take a step towards Allah, he runs towards you,” means, when I actually began to look forward to prayer.

Because I reverted only several months ago and much of that time has been spent trying to figure out the technicalities and also broken by not being able to do prayer, I am still struggling somewhat to establish a regular prayer routine and to make it something that is integral to every day for me. I have not, as Shabana Mir writes, yet begun to live my life from prayer time to prayer time, although insha’Allah someday soon I will. Then will come the struggle of, “Ya Allah, how am I going to pray…” without being seen, without being kicked off of the plane, without being fired, without making someone uncomfortable, etc. I have come very far with salah, but somehow I feel that there is always further to travel.

This salah lecture is so powerful for those of us who have had times in our life where we’ve left salah, even if only briefly, because of the myriad reasons that the dunya gives us to do so. Idris addresses many of the excuses Muslims give for not making salah, as well as detailing the benefits of doing salah and the downfalls of not doing salah. He also quotes much Qur’an and hadith about salah and its importance. One of the things he says in the lecture is that many people, if offered a chance to meet with a celebrity or someone they like, would do so, and would stay as long as they could and not cut short the meeting. But when offered a chance to meet with Allah, five times a day or more, even, we try to get out of it. It feels like an obligation. We try to cut it short. Other people try to get us to cut it short. I am slowly coming to look at it as really being a communal experience Alhamdulillah, and appreciating it as such. Still, though, I mostly appreciate it during the time of the month that I cannot do it, and even though I do dhikr and other things, I can feel the space that is left by the daily prayer in a way that I do not when it is required.

I thank Allah subhanu wa ta’ala for this opportunity He has given us. He wants to communicate with each and every one of us, all day, every day. He cares about our wants and our needs and our concerns. He cares about our praise. I am grateful for salah and insha’Allah I hope that I can learn not to take it for granted.

also posted at Labyrinth Walk