{Yoga
-is union of the individual soul with the ultimate Reality.
It is also the method by which this union is
achieved.}
The Positions of Prayer
The movements of the prayer identify the
one praying with all other forms of creation,
for the prayer’s postures are designed to
remind the worshipper of mortality and the
traversal through the different stages of
life. They also resemble the rising and
setting of the celestial bodies, as well as
the rotation of the planets upon their axes
and the orbits of the moons, planets and suns.
These are signs which demonstrate the
hierarchical nature of creation and its
submission to Divine regulation at every
level, for as the Holy Qur’an states:
Among His Signs are the night and the day,
and the sun and the moon. Adore not the sun
and the moon, but adore God, Who created them,
if it is Him ye wish to serve.
God further draws our attention to their
submissive nature, saying:
Hast thou not seen that before God prostrate
whosoever is in the heavens and whosoever is
on the earth, and the sun, and the moon, and
the stars, and the hills, and the trees, and
the beasts, and many of mankind…?
The postures of prayer, then, are symbolic
of humanity’s relationship to the Divine,
moving as they do from standing in
assertion of existence and strength,
to the bowing of humility and servitude,
to prostration in the face of God’s
overwhelming Magnificence and Power and the
corresponding realization of one’s own utter
nonexistence.
From this station of utter abasement,
the worshipper returns to the intermediate
position, between annihilation and
independence, to sit between the hands of
the Prophet Muhammad, greeting the one who
is the intermediary between the Divinity and
His creation.
The Prophet stands at the Station of
Perfect Servanthood and is the ultimate
exemplar of the condition of servanthood to
God.
Unlike all other creations, Prophet Muhammad
was divested of all selfhood, dissolved in the
Presence of God.
Whithersoever ye
turn, there is the presence of God.
The Prophet said, “Nothing brings the servant
of God nearer to the Divine Presence than
through his secret prostration (al-khafi).” [
In Prostration
the Body is like a Throne and the Soul is the
King Sitting at the Highest Point /The Heart ]
The Prophet also said, “Any believer who
prostrates himself, will be raised one degree
by God.” As for what that degree consists of,
know that it is not something small, for each
heaven might consist of one degree.
For these reasons, many among the pious
observe extra voluntary prostrations to God
after completing their obligatory prayers.
Whenever they encounter a difficulty, whether
spiritual or worldly, they seek refuge in
their Lord through prostration to Him.
One must cut down self-pride and make the
inner-self prostrate, for one who truly
submits to his Lord can no longer submit to
his or her self. Once that state is reached,
prayer is purely for God.
That is why the
Prophet said, “What I fear most for my
Community is the hidden polytheism.” He feared
for his community not the outward polytheism
of idol-worship, for he was informed by God
that his community was protected from that
forever, but the secret polytheism, which is
to do something for the sake of showing-off.
A man came and asked the Prophet, “O Prophet
of God, pray for me to be under your
intercession on Judgment Day and grant me to
be in your company in Paradise.” The Prophet
replied, “I will do so, but assist me in
that.” The man asked, “How so?” The Prophet
said, “By frequent prostration [before God].”
The Prophet related that, on the Day of
Judgment, as the believers emerge from their
graves, angels will come to them to brush the
dust from their foreheads. However, despite
the best efforts of the angels, some of that
dust will remain. Both the resurrected
believers and their angelic helpers will be
surprised that this dust cannot be removed.
Then a voice will call out,
“Leave that dust
and do not try to remove it, for that is the
dust of their prayer-niches, thus will it be
known in Paradise that they are My [devout]
servants.”
This Prophetic Tradition indicates the
spiritual value of the prostration of the
believers, making as it does even the dust
touched by their foreheads hallowed. The power
of prayer has a similar effect on the place of
prayer itself, as exemplified in the story of
the Virgin Mary, as mentioned in the Holy
Qur’an:
Whenever Zachariah went into the
prayer-niche where she was, he found that she
had food. He said:
O Mary! Whence cometh unto
thee this (food)? She answered: It is from
God. God giveth without stint to whom He will.
It was there, in the Virgin Mary’s hallowed
sanctuary, where she used to find her daily
provision in the form of fruits out-of season,
that the Prophet Zachariah went to prostrate
himself before God and beseech Him for a
child, and it was there that God granted his
request.
The places where a Sufi prostrates will bear
witness to his or her devotion on the Day of
Judgment. It is for this reason that one often
sees Sufis changing the location of their
prayers, praying the obligatory cycles in one
spot and then moving to another area to
observe the voluntary cycles (sunnah).
Ibn Abbas, a cousin of the Prophet and the
greatest early exegete of the Qur’an, said,
“When God commanded Adam to descend to Earth,
as soon as he arrived, he went into
prostration, asking God’s forgiveness for the
sin he had made. God sent the archangel
Gabriel to him after forty years had passed,
and Gabriel found Adam still in prostration.”
He had not raised his head for forty years in
sincere and heartfelt repentance before God.
The Holy Qur’an tells us that, after God
created Adam, He ordered the angels to
prostrate before the first man.
When We said to the angels, “prostrate
yourselves to Adam”, they prostrated
themselves, but not Iblis [Satan]: he refused.
Imam al-Qurtubi, one of the great
commentators on the Holy Qur’an, writes in his
exegesis, at-Tadhkira, that one of the
four
Archangels, Rafael, had the entire Qur’an
written on his forehead.
God had given Rafael
knowledge of the Holy Qur’an and wrote all of
it between his eyes, and he is the angel who
inscribed the destinies of all things in the
Preserved Tablets before they were created.
Rafael’s name in Arabic, which differs from
his Assyrianic name Israfil, is Abdur-Rahman,
servant of The Merciful. This theme of mercy
pervades Islamic thought, for it was through
God’s Mercy that the Holy Qur’an was sent down
to the Prophet, about whom The Merciful
said: We sent thee not but as a Mercy for all
creatures.
When God ordered the angels to make
prostration to Adam, Rafael was the first to
obey, making prostration and placing his
forehead, containing the entire Qur’an, on the
earth, out of respect and honor for Adam,
for
he perceived the whole of Qur’an written on
Adam’s forehead. [Nur Muhammad (S)]
Other commentators say the
angels fell prostrate before Adam for they
perceived the Light of Prophet Muhammad
shining from his form. There is in reality no
discrepancy here, for God said in the Holy
Qur’an:
Yasin, By the Qur’an, full of Wisdom.
The Prophet Muhammad
said that Yasin, the thirty-sixth chapter of
the Holy Qur’an as well as one of his own
blessed names, is the heart of the Holy
Qur’an, the very Qur’an that the Prophet was
carrying in his breast.
Thus, the light that shone
forth from Adam was the Light of the Prophet
within him, who in turn was blazing with God’s
Holy Words.
The Inner-Meanings of the Different
Positions of Prayer
Shah Waliullah ad-Dihlawi said:
Know that one is sometimes transported, quick
as lightning, to the Holy Precincts (of the
Divine Presence), and finds one’s self
attached, with the greatest possible
adherence, to the Threshold of God.
There
descend on this person the Divine
transfigurations (tajalli) which dominate his
soul. He sees and feels things which the human
tongue is incapable of describing. Once this
state of light passes away, he returns to his
previous condition, and finds himself
tormented by the loss of such an ecstasy.
Thereupon he tries to rejoin that which has
escaped him, and adopts the condition of this
lowly world which would be nearest to a state
of absorption in the knowledge of the Creator.
This is a posture of respect, of devotion, and
of an almost direct conversation with God,
which posture is accompanied by appropriate
acts and words…
Worship consists essentially
of three elements:
(1) humility of heart
(spirit) consequent on a feeling of the
Presence of the Majesty and Grandeur of God,
(2) recognition of this superiority (of God)
and humbleness (of man) by means of
appropriate words, and
(3) adoption by the
organs of the body of postures of necessary
reverence… Still greater respect is displayed by
laying
down the face, which reflects in the highest
degree one’s ego and self-consciousness, so
low that it touches the ground in front of the
object of reverence.
[ We are
Created in Gods Image and Granted The Highest
Esteem in Divine Presence all that is asked of
this Honor is in Gods Presence Bow Down
subject the Holy Head to the Essence of the
Divine Mirror from which you were formed]
Al-Jili says:
The secrets and inner-meanings of prayer are
uncountable so what is mentioned here is
limited for the sake of brevity.
Prayer is a
symbol of the uniqueness of the Divine Reality
(al-Haqq), and the
[position
of The Alif ]
standing
in it is a symbol of the establishment of the
uniqueness of mankind in possessing something
from the Divine Names and Attributes, for as
the Prophet said, “Verily God created
Adam in His Image.”
[Alif is
Upright and symbolizes the Heavens, in the
beginning there was the essence and then an
opening of Creation of heavens- Alif opens to
Alif, Lam/kingdom, Fa/Fatiha.]
Then the standing towards the Qiblah is
an indication of the universal direction in
the quest of the Divine Reality. [
We are Like the
Electrons Curcumbulating the Center Nucleus,
we are under the authority of these 4 forces
of the
atom/adam
that is why 4 Takbirs. Nucleus is Kabah and
we are electrons]
The intention therein is an indication
of the connection of the heart in this
direction. The opening magnification of
God’s Greatness (takbir) is an indication
that the Divine Proximity is larger and more
expansive than what may manifest to him
because nothing can limit its perspective.
Even so, it is vaster still than every
perspective or vision that manifests to the
servant for it is without end.
The recitation of the Opening Chapter,
al-Fatihah,
is an indication of the existence
of His Perfection in man because man is the
opening of creation, for God initiated
creation by him when He brought from
nothingness the first creation.
What al-Jili is referring to here is the Light
of Muhammad, known also as the First Mind, the
Universal Man, and the Microcosm of the
Macrocosm.
He continues: [Ha
Al-Hayat ]Then there is bowing, which is an indication
of acknowledging the nonexistence of all creation under the existence of divine
emanations and power. [ Fana and Hamd/Praise]
Then
Re-standing in the
prayer is an indication of the station of
subsistence (al-baqa).
[Alif
is Upright and symbolizes the Heavens, in the
beginning there was the essence and then an
opening of Creation of World of Form-
Alif opens to Alif, Lam/kingdom
Fa/Fatiha.]
Therefore,
one says in his prayer,
“God
hears the one who praises Him,”
…
an indication of subsistence in that he is
the Vicegerent of the Divine Reality. In this
way, God relates about Himself by Himself by
relating on hearing its truth through the
praising of His creation. [
Prophet is Li wal Hamd
/Flag of Praise]
[Meem]
The prostration is an
expression of pulverization of the traits of
humanness and their extermination before the
unending manifestation of the sanctifying
essence.
The
sitting between the two prostrations
is an indication of obtaining the realities of
the Divine Names and Attributes. This is
because the sitting is being firmly
positioned in a place as indicated by the
verse where God says:
The Merciful was established on the Throne
The second prostration is the indication of
the station of servanthood and it is the
returning from the Divine Reality to creation.
The salutations [upon the Prophet] are an
indication of the attainability of human
perfection, for they are an expression of
praising God, His Messenger and His righteous
servants. This is the station of perfection,
for the saint is not complete except by his
attainment of the Divine realities, by his
accord with the Messenger and accord with all
of the servants of God.
The two sections of the testimony of faith are
La ilaha ill-Allah, “there is no diety except
the one God” and Muhammadun rasulullah, “and
Muhammad is the Prophet of God.”
Scholars say
that La ilaha ill-Allah represents the Creator
and Muhammadun rasulullah symbolizes the
entirety of creation.
The prayer is considered a dual
communication: one is between worshipper and
God, the second is between the worshipper and
God’s perfect servant, Prophet Muhammad, the
archetype of all the prophets and messengers.
Thus one part of the prayer is a communication
with the Divine, by means of God’s Holy Words
revealed in the Qur’an and through bowing and
prostration, reciting God’s glorification,
magnification and praise.
The other part is
the salutation on the Prophet, in
which the worshipper addresses the Prophet
personally and directly, as leader of the
worshippers and the believers, followed by
invoking the Lord’s blessings on him and on
his family.
These realities in fact reflect the doctrine
of the Prophet’s having attained the zenith of
servanthood (‘ubudiyyah) to God, and thus the
entirety of prayer in itself is built around
his person. For the Words of God recited are
the words revealed to the Prophet and the
remainder of the prayer is acknowledging his
leadership and spiritual primacy in both this
life and the next.
Thus scholars
assert that even the positions of the prayer
are an indication of the Muhammadan Station,
for the physical positions reflect the shapes
of the letters of the Prophet’s heavenly name,
Ahmad, where the first
letter
Alif is represented by the standing position,
Ha by the bowing stance,
Mim in the
prostration and Dal in sitting for salutation.
.jpg)
The movements of the prayer identify the
one praying with all other forms of creation,
for the prayer’s postures are designed to
remind the worshipper of mortality and the
traversal through the different stages of
life. They also resemble the rising and
setting of the celestial bodies, as well as
the rotation of the planets upon their axes
and the orbits of the moons, planets and suns.
These are signs which demonstrate the
hierarchical nature of creation and its
submission to Divine regulation at every
level, for as the Holy Qur’an states:
standing
in it is a symbol of the establishment of the
uniqueness of mankind in possessing something
from the Divine Names and Attributes, for as
the Prophet said, “Verily God
created
Adam in His Image.”
[Alif is
Upright and symbolizes the Heavens, in the
beginning there was the essence and then an
opening of Creation of heavens- Alif opens to
Alif, Lam/kingdom, Fa/Fatiha.]
[
the nonexistence of all creation under the existence of divine
emanations and power. [ Fana and Hamd/Praise]
[Alif
is Upright and symbolizes the Heavens, in the
beginning there was the essence and then an
opening of Creation of World of Form-
Alif opens to Alif, Lam/kingdom
Fa/Fatiha.]
The
sitting between the two prostrations
is an indication of obtaining the realities of
the Divine Names and Attributes. This is
because the sitting is being firmly
positioned in a place as indicated by the
verse where God says:
The salutations [upon the Prophet] are an
indication of the attainability of human
perfection, for they are an expression of
praising God, His Messenger and His righteous
servants. This is the station of perfection,
for the saint is not complete except by his
attainment of the Divine realities, by his
accord with the Messenger and accord with all
of the servants of God.