Qur'anic Reflections

#12. Team Khushoo

When my tafsir teacher was explaining this verse, she mentioned a video she had seen. It was the recording of a girl who was offering salah. She was distracted throughout her prayer and she said it was quite funny to watch her pray like that.

But with that, she raised a very disturbing question.

What if someone recorded our prayer?

Khushoo in salah is extremely important. It is the essence of salah and the first step to achieving it is to make sure we don't make any untoward movements.

When we submit physically, when we make sure all our actions are done as prescribed by the way of sunnah, only then can we master the art of khushoo in salah.

One thing that helps is to get back to the basics. Open Al-Bukhari and go through the Book of Prayer. Some times in the long run, we forget the basics and lose contact with the essence of what we're doing.

Reading authentic hadiths on how to pray will help us perfect our actions and lengthen our prayer.

The next step to gaining khushoo is to get rid of the inner turmoil.

Declutter your mind before you start. If something is troubling you, do not mess up your salah because of it! Salah is the one thing that'll get you through it. Messing it up would only be counter productive.

Another thing that helps is to know the meaning of what we're reciting. It helps us reflect deeper and understand the purpose of our words.

SubhanAllah, this has been a powerful reminder for me because I know I have a long way to go before I attain the perfect khushoo in sha'Allah.

At one point Allah says that salah is easy for people who truly fear Him and believe that they're going to meet Him.

Love for Allah is proportionate to our love for salah because in salah, we're actually talking to Allah. Anyone who is eager to meet to their Lord, would naturally give their full attention to Him in their prayer.

Ibn Qayyim (May Allah have mercy on him) puts it perfectly and whenever I slack, this always gets me.

Mankind, with regard to the performance of their prayers, are on five levels:

The First: This is the level of one who is negligent and wrongs his soul. He is the one who falls short in performing wudu  properly, performing the prayer on time and within its specified limits, and in fulfilling its essential pillars.

The Second:
This is the level of one who guards his habit of offering his prayers on time and within their specified limits, who fulfils their essential pillars and performs his wudu with care.

However, his striving (in achieving the above) is wasted due to disturbances in his thoughts during prayer that distract him and turn his attention to other preoccupations and concerns.

The Third: This is the level of one who guards his prayers within the specified limits, fulfils their essential pillars and strives within himself to repel the disturbances in his thoughts and extraneous concerns.

He is busy struggling against his enemy (Satan) so that Satan does not steal from the prayer. Because of this, he is engaged in (both) prayer and struggle (jihad).

The Fourth: This is the level of one who carries out the prayer, completing and perfecting its due rights and essential pillars, who performs it within its specified limits and with his heart fully engrossed in safeguarding its rights and specified limits, so that nothing of his prayer is wasted.

His whole concern is directed towards its performance, its completion and its perfection – as it should be. His heart is immersed in the prayer and in servitude to his Lord, the Exalted.

The Fifth: This is the level of one who carries out the prayer like the one mentioned above. However, on top of this, he has taken and placed his heart in front of his Lord, looking towards Him with his heart in anticipation, filled with His love and His might, as if he sees and witnesses Allah.

The misgivings, thoughts and preoccupations have vanished and the veil between him and his Lord is lifted. The difference between this person and others with respect to the prayer is greater than the distance between the heavens and the Earth. This person is busy with his Lord, delighted with Him.

The people whose performance of prayer is at the first level will be punished, those at the second will be held to account, those at the third will have their sins and shortcomings expiated, those at the forth fourth will be rewarded, and those at the fifth will be close to their Lord, because they will receive the portion of the one who makes his prayer the delight and pleasure of his eye.

Whoever makes his prayer the delight and pleasure of his eye will have the nearness of his Lord made the delight and pleasure of his eye in the Hereafter. He will also be made a pleasure to the eye in this world, since whoever makes Allah the pleasure of his eye in this world, every other eye will become delighted and pleased with him.

May Allah make us of those who stand in front of Him with fear, submission and love in our hearts. Ameen.