What’s the key to remaining connected to Allah? Allah gave it to us already – salah. The five daily obligatory sessions are to establish and maintain our direct connection with Allah, not just in these sessions, but throughout the day.
How do we establish prayer? By praying like the person who had the closest connection to Allah – Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him).
Pray as you have seen me praying. (Bukhari 6008)
What was his prayer like? Of course, it is necessary to follow the rules of doing the ritual correctly, such as praying within the specified times, praying the correct number of units, saying the supplications in the correct order, etc.
But those are just like the bricks with which you build the prayer. The actual essence of the prayer lies, not in the physical movements, but in the heart of the worshiper.
The Prophet described the prayer as the “coolness of my eyes”. That exactly describes the feeling you get when you’re at an imaan-high. And that’s what we want to achieve.
Many great people much more learned and experienced than us have written on this topic, on how to find khushu’ and imaan in salah. I share the following advice with you in my humble effort to add to it a personal element.
How to Achieve Khushu
The first thing that helps is bringing a sense of timelessness in your salah, to feel as if the rest of your time on earth is dedicated to praying this prayer only, and that nothing else comes after it.
The Prophet put it this way:
When you stand to pray, pray like a man bidding farewell. (Ibn Majah 4171)
This can seem incredibly difficult to achieve given our hectic lifestyles. And it might take a lot of willpower and mental energy. But even if you achieve one moment of it at a time, it’s worth all that effort. And it gets better insha’Allah.
Finding this sense of timelessness is made easy if you know what you’re saying in salah. So learn the basic Arabic you need to do that. Concentrate on the meanings of what you’re saying, trying to make it personal.
For example, when you say “Allahu Akbar” (Allah is Greater), think of the topmost worry in your mind right now, such as an assignment or your spouse’s illness, and assert in your heart that Allah is greater than all that.
Make Personal Dua
Another way of making the prayer personal is by adding in personal supplications in the steps of prayer where supplications are recommended, such as during sujood (prostration).
The purpose of supplication is not to inform Allah of your thoughts and feelings, because Allah already knows all about those. It is to express to Allah our love for Him, our helplessness and neediness, our submission to Him.
The quotes given above show us some of the more successful human attempts at expressing our feelings for our Creator. If you want to give full expression to your feelings, there’s an easier and more effective way. Memorize duas from the Quran. These duas are actually Allah teaching us how to speak to Him in the best way.
I’ll leave you with an example of the best form of expression of our feelings for Allah:
Say, ‘O Allah, Owner of Sovereignty, You give sovereignty to whom You will and You take sovereignty away from whom You will. You honor whom You will and You humble whom You will. In Your hand is [all] good. Indeed, You are over all things competent. You cause the night to enter the day, and You cause the day to enter the night; and You bring the living out of the dead, and You bring the dead out of the living. And You give provision to whom You will without account.’ (Quran, 3:26-27)
(From Discovering Islam’s archive.)
_____________
* Manuscript Found in Accra