Voices of Islam (71 page)

The various schools of Islamic jurisprudence differ slightly in the precise details of ritual ablution and bathing. Emphasized in all, however, is the need to use pure water, free from all contamination, for pure water contains the secret of life and of revivifying what is dead. God says in the Holy Qur’an:

We made from water every living thing.

(Qur’an 21:30)

And:

In the rain which God Sends down from the skies, and the life which He gives therewith to an earth that is dead
...
.

(Qur’an 2:164)

If water is unavailable, extremely scarce or its use would harm the worship- per, it is permitted to perform substitute ablution using dry earth. The Holy Qur’an says:

And if ye are sick or on a journey, or one of you cometh from the closet, or ye have had [sexual] contact with women, and ye find not water, then go to clean, high ground and rub your faces and your hands with some of it. God would not place a burden on you, but He would purify you and would perfect His grace upon you, that ye may give thanks.

(Qur’an 5:6)

Besides cleansing the body, the worshipper must also take care to ensure that his or her clothes are free from impurities that would nullify the prayer. Traditionally, shoes are removed before the prayer because of their tendency to retain impurities.

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THE SPIRITUAL SIGNIFICANCE OF PURIFICATION

Ibn Rushd states that the word for ablution,
wudu’,
derives from the word for light in Arabic,
daw,
signifying the resultant spiritual light that accrues to the one who performs it.
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The Messenger of God said:

On the Day of Resurrection, my Community will be called ‘‘those with the radiant appendages’’ because of the traces of ablution. Therefore, whoever can increase the area of his radiance should do so.
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Abu Hurayra related:

I heard my intimate friend (the Messenger of God) saying, ‘‘The radiance of the believer reaches the areas that the water of ablution reaches.’’
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Ablution signifies spiritual purity, which the Prophet was granted when the angels washed his heart, both in his youth and again, later, when angels washed it with the water of the holy well of Zam Zam on the Night of Ascension.

To gain the full benefi of ablution, the worshipper must perform it with the realization of its inner aspects, washing away the burdens and darkness of worldly life that distract him or her from Divine service. By removing both the physical and the mental filth that accumulate through the day, one ignites and seals the latent spiritual energy of one’s being by means of the special attributes of water. The extremities washed during ablution are the primary means of interacting with the worldly life, and these must be cleansed of the taint left by that contact.

Ablution begins with washing the hands, signifying that the fi level of spiritual energy is in the hands. Human hands contain a Divine secret, for they are a refl of the Divine Attribute of Power, which God has bestowed in a limited degree on humankind. They provide the means for the outward manifestations of humankind’s will to change its circumstances. Thus, hands are a source of change, control, and healing. No other creature has been endowed with so great an ability to manipulate its surroundings, and the hands are the main physical instrument of that ability.

The hand can act as a receiver of positive energy. The circle of the body, so clearly illustrated by Leonardo da Vinci’s famous drawing
Ecce Homo,
is reflected on a smaller scale in the circle of the hand. Energy can be drawn in through the hands and channeled throughout the body. When one rubs the hands together during ablution, one activates a spiritual code that God has given us within our hands: the power of the 99 Beautiful Names and Attrib- utes that God has inscribed on every person’s palms.
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The friction between the two hands creates energy in the form of heat and rubbing them together under water locks in that energy, preventing it from escaping. The water

The Importance and Meaning of Prayer in Islam
19

keeps the energy that is generated by rubbing the hands together within the body, where it can be released later.

During the process of ablution the hands are used to convey the water to each other limb and organ, thereby functioning as a dispenser of that divine energy. As the limbs and organs are washed in ablution, each undergoes similar spiritual alterations based on the water, the hands and their energy, and the various movements and recitations that are part of the ablution. For the believer to benefit from the water, it must be pure and clean, otherwise its secret blessings do not reach the body.

On an esoteric level, ablution becomes a metaphor for purifying the heart. Water is always clean in its essence, so the degree of spiritual reception is dependent on keeping the water free from external impurities. If we expand the spiritual metaphor, the water symbolizes the remembrance of God. That remembrance is pure, in and of itself, but can be tainted by the darkness of negativity which derives from wrong intent, wrong will, and wrong action.

The most powerful energy we carry as human beings is our spiritual energy. Second to that is the physical energy of creativity, which manifests during the act of procreation. In the course of physically expressing this creative energy God has placed within us, we enter into a state similar to the spiritual state of annihilation, but not related to the Divine Presence; on the contrary, it is related to the lower self. When this occurs, it is essential to wash the body completely, with the intention to restore the spiritual state of purity lost during the act.

Purifi of the heart blocks the infl of Satan on the believer. For this reason, the Prophet is reported to have said:

Ablution is the weapon of the believer.
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Ablution protects the believer from four enemies of the soul: the lower self or ego (
nafs
), worldly desire (
hubb al-dunya
), lust (
hawa
), and Satan. However, only through the remembrance of God can the believer maintain this defense throughout the day. When the heart begins to beat with God’s Holy Name, ‘‘Allah,’’ Satan is prevented from entering, and the gossips and insinuations of the lower self are gradually reduced until they are no more than a whisper.

At an even higher level of understanding, ablution signifi the state of dissolving the self in the Divine Presence. According to the Sufi master Jili:

...
the requirement of using water signifies that purity is not achieved except by the emergence [in the worshipper] of the manifestations of the Divine Attributes, which is the water of life, for water is the secret of life. Dry ablution (
tayammum
) as a substitute [for ablution with water] is the station of purity by necessity, and is thus a symbol of purifying one’s self by opposing one’s lower-self, combating the tyrannical selfish ego and spiritual exercises. However, even after someone is purifi d, there is still a chance for [the ego] to exist.
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This is what the Prophet alluded to when he supplicated, ‘‘O my Lord give my self its piety and its purity, for You are the best one to purify it.’’
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His saying ‘‘Give my self its piety,’’ is an indication of [the need for] combating the lower-self by means of spiritual exercises. His saying ‘‘...and its purity, for You are the best one to purify it,’’ is an indication of the heart’s attraction to the Divine, for this [attraction] is far more effective than purifying by means of action and opposing the lower-self.
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Prayer Times

The five times of obligatory ritual prayer are

• Fajr:
  From dawn to sunrise;
  

• Zuhr:
  From noon until mid-afternoon;
  

• Asr:
  From mid-afternoon to sunset;
  

• Maghrib:
  From sunset to early evening;
  

• Isha’:
  From early evening to the middle of the night.
  

These times coincide with the significant temporal changes that are part of each day’s cycle on earth as this planet moves through its various stations in relation to the Sun. The Sun, which is the focal point of the solar system, thus becomes a guiding light for the worshiper, indicating the beginning and ending of each prayer’s interval. In this way, Muslims are reminded of the story of Abraham, as mentioned in the Holy Qur’an.

In his yearning and seeking for God, Abraham holds a metaphorical debate within himself. His first inclination is to bow before a bright star that shines forth at night, taking it as his Lord. However, when that star sets, his intellect rejects it, seeking something greater as Lord. Seeing the Moon, he deter- mines it to be his Lord until it too sets and he seeks something greater still. Seeing the Sun rise, he supposes it must be his Lord, but despite its blazing glory, it too sets. Finally, Abraham concludes that none of these heavenly bodies—and by inference, no created thing—could be his Lord, and thus sets himself firmly on worship of the Unseen Lord:

...when [the sun] set he exclaimed: O my people! Lo! I am free from all that ye associate (with Him). Lo! I have turned my face toward Him Who created the heavens and the earth, as one by nature upright, and I am not of the idolaters.

(Qur’an 6:75–79)

Muslims consider the day to begin at sunset, with the evening (
Maghrib
) prayer. This holds tremendous significance on an esoteric, or spiritual, level. The masters of the science of Islamic spirituality, Sufi see the cycles of prayer as symbolic of the cycles of creation itself. The sunset prayer represents

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the station of leaving existence. The night prayer, which follows it, represents the station of darkness and death, annihilation, and nonexistence.

In some Islamic traditions, funeral prayers for those who have passed away during the preceding day are read immediately after the sunset prayer, indicating this time’s correlation with death and the afterlife.

The Holy Qur’an says:

It is God that takes the souls (of men) at death; and those that die not (He takes) during their sleep: Those on whom He has passed the decree of death, He keeps back (from returning to life), but the rest He sends (to their bodies) for a term appointed.

(Qur’an 39:42)

Awakening to pray just before dawn represents the return to life, the descent through the darkness of the womb to emerge into the light. Metaphorically, the worshipper moves from the station of nonexistence and annihilation back to the station of existence and rebirth. A new day has come, and with it the worshipper is reborn.

The apex of existence is marked by the noon prayer, which begins just as the Sun reaches the peak of brightness. At the zenith, two kingdoms are present and the prayer joins them: the kingdom of heaven and the kingdom of earth. The afternoon prayer takes place at a time that signifies the approach of the end, autumn, and the last era of worldly life. According to Islamic tradition, the Prophet Muhammad and the community of believers he raised appear at the end of humanity’s spiritual history, just prior to the Day of Judgment. The coming of the afternoon prayer thus represents the approach of Judgment Day and the Divine Reckoning that it brings. With the setting of the sun, life comes to an end. The worshipper returns to God, taking with him an account of his deeds. With the darkness comes annihilation in the oceans of God’s Endless Mercy. It is for this reason that Islam places a strong

emphasis on the afternoon prayer.

Thus, each day is a full life cycle, from creation out of nonexistence to Judgment Day and annihilation. Each day has its birth, life, and death. In similar fashion the prayer times reflect the five major stages of life: infancy, childhood, youth, maturity, and old age.

Direction

The worshipper faces the Ka‘ba, the holy shrine of Islam, as determined to the best of his or her ability by simple means. This directional focus is called the
qibla.

The Ka‘ba is the House of God, located in the holy city of Mecca in Arabia. It is the goal of the pilgrimage, which is the fi pillar of Islam. In Islamic

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teachings, the Ka‘ba is said to mark the location where the Divine House in the Seventh Heaven, beyond which stands the Supreme Throne, which angels constantly circle in praise and worship of God, descended to Earth after the first man and woman, Adam and Eve, were cast out of Paradise for their mistake. In the time of Noah’s flood, this heavenly sanctuary was taken up to heaven again. Millennia later, Abraham and Ishmael built the Ka‘ba in the same location, where it stands today, the first house of worship dedicated to God. By facing this location in prayer, each Muslim aims and hopes to reach that holy location at some point in his or her life.

Initially, in the early days of Prophet Muhammad’s mission, the believers faced Jerusalem when they prayed, out of respect for the Temple there. This direction represented respect for the previous Divine dispensations brought by Moses and Jesus and the Israelite prophets. Later, Divine legislation altered the direction of prayer to face the Holy House in Mecca:

We see thee (O Muhammad) turning of thy face for guidance to the heavens: now shall We turn thee to a prayer-direction that shall please thee. Turn then thy face in the direction of the Sacred Mosque [Ka‘ba]: Wherever ye are, turn your faces in that direction.

(Qur’an 2:144)

Thus, wherever Muslims live, their prayers have a common focus: the Ka‘ba.

Because of the presence of this blessed shrine, the area surrounding the Ka‘ba is holy. These environs are called the
Haram,
literally ‘‘prohibited,’’ meaning a place where sins are prohibited. The Ka‘ba itself is located within the ‘‘Prohibited Mosque,’’
al-Masjid al-Haram.
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The name Prohibited Mosque was given because no one may act on bad desires there. While it is called a mosque, God made it more than that. In reality, it is a place where sins are utterly rejected, not only in their outward forms but also in their inner realities. There, even negative thoughts and intentions are considered blameworthy. Only pure, positive desires, and good thoughts are accepted. Indeed, within the confi of that holy sanctuary, no hunting is allowed; even the cutting of trees and vegetation is proscribed.