The real object of prayer is better achieved when the act of prayer becomes congregational.
The spirit of all true prayer is social. Even the hermit abandons the
society of men in the hope of finding, in a solitary abode, the
fellowship of God.
A congregation is an association of men who, animated by the same
aspiration, concentrate themselves on a single object and open up their
inner selves to the working of a single impulse. It is a psychological
truth that association multiplies the normal man’s power of perception,
deepens his emotion, and dynamites his will to a degree unknown to him
in the privacy of his individuality.
Psychological Mystery
Indeed, regarded as a psychological phenomenon, prayer is still a mystery; for psychology has not yet discovered the laws relating to the enhancement of human sensibility in a state of association.
With Islam,
however, this socialization of spiritual illumination through
associative prayer is a special point of interest. As we pass from the
daily congregational prayer to the annual ceremony round the central
mosque of Makkah, you can easily see how the Islamic institution of
worship gradually enlarges the sphere of human association.
Prayer,
then, whether individual or associative, is an expression of man’s
inner yearning for a response in the awful silence of the universe. It
is a unique process of discovery whereby the searching ego affirms
itself in the very moment of self-negation, and thus discovers its own
worth and justification as a dynamic factor in the life of the universe.
True to the psychology of mental attitude in prayer, the form of worship in Islam symbolizes
both affirmation and negation. Yet, in view of the fact borne out by
the experience of the race that prayer, as an inner act, has found
expression in a variety of forms, the Qur’an says:
To every
people have We appointed ways of worship which they observe. Therefore
let them not dispute this matter with you, but bid them to your Lord for
you are on the right way: but if they debate with you, then say: God
best knows what you do! He will judge between you on the Day of
Resurrection, as to the matters wherein you differ. (Al-Hajj 22:67-69)
The form of prayer ought
not to become a matter of dispute. Which side you turn your face is
certainly not essential to the spirit of prayer. The Qur’an is perfectly
clear on this point:
The East and West is God’s: therefore whichever way you turn, there is the face of God. (Al-Baqarah 2:115)
There is no
piety in turning your faces towards the East or the West, but he is
pious who believes in God, and the Last Day, and the angels, and the
scriptures, and the prophets; who for the love of God disburses his
wealth to his kindred, and to the orphans, and the needy, and the
wayfarer, and those who ask, and for ransoming; who observes prayer, and
pays the legal alms, and who is of those who are faithful to their
engagements when they have engaged in them; and patient under ills and
hardships, in time of trouble: those are they who are just, and those
are they who fear the Lord. (Al-Baqarah 2:177)
The Islamic form of association in prayer is
indicative of the aspiration to realize this essential unity of mankind
as a fact in life.
Unity & Equality
Yet we cannot ignore the important consideration that the posture of the body is
a real factor in determining the attitude of the mind. The choice of
one particular direction in Islamic worship is meant to secure the unity
of feeling in the congregation, and its form in general creates and
fosters the sense of social equality inasmuch as it tends to destroy the
feeling of rank or race superiority in the worshippers.
What a tremendous spiritual revolution will take place, practically
in no time, if the proud aristocratic Brahmin of South India is daily
made to stand shoulder to shoulder with the untouchable!
From the unity of the all-inclusive Ego who creates and sustains all egos follows the essentialunity of all mankind. The division of mankind into races, nations, and tribes, according to the Qur’an, is for purposes of identification only.
The Islamic form of association in
prayer, therefore, besides its cognitive value, is further indicative
of the aspiration to realize this essential unity of mankind as a fact
in life bydemolishing all barriers which stand between man and man.
Post a Comment