The Vision of Islam

The Four Pillars the Prophet’s closest companions, addressed his contemporaries in these words: “You fast more than the Companions of the Prophet; you pray more than them, and strive more than them; but still they were better than you.” People asked him why. “They were totally disinterested in this world, they were extremely eager for the next,” was Ibn Masud’s reply. (Hilyatul Awliya, Vol. 1, p. 136) Prayer (Salat) The essence of prayer is remembrance of God (Quran, 20:14). The Arabic word for remembrance is dhikr. It means to bring something to mind. One might say, for instance, dhakkartuhu fa tadhakkara (I reminded him and that brought it to his mind). God requires man to remember Him. Time and time again, His greatness, wisdom, creativity and sovereignty should spring to mind. Prayer has, therefore, been prescribed as an obligation to bring about this state of constant remembrance. The Quran states that everything in the universe is constantly engaged in praising God. When God placed Adam in charge of the earth, and commanded the angels to bow down before him, the angels replied: “We continuously sing Your praises and sanctify Your name.” (2:30) This shows that the angels thought that to be worthy of this trust God placed in man, one had to be continually praising God. According to Bukhari, the number of prayers initially decreed on the Prophet’s heavenly journey was fifty. Clearly, if one prayed fifty times in a 24-hour day, one would spend almost all of one’s time in prayer. In order to lessen the burden on people, this number was later reduced by God to five, although fifty remained the ideal. Prayer is an acknowledgement by God’s servant of the divinity of the Almighty. So many are the aspects of His divinity and so countless the forms in which it is made manifest to man that, even if one lives in a constant state of remembrance of God, one cannot