MAY 15

Salat

Ibn Khaldun has recorded an incident regarding Salat in his Muqaddama. It was during the days of the second caliph, ‘Umar Faruq, that the army of Sahaba entered Persia. There were no mosques there at that time, so Muslims prayed in the open fields.

Rustam, the general of the Persian army often saw Muslims saying their prayers out in the open. He saw all the Muslims standing in straight lines in rows, their leader standing in front, and amazingly, all the Muslims assuming the same postures as their leader. All the Muslims stood together, kneeled together and sat together as indicated by their prayer leader. On seeing this, Rustam once remarked. “Umar has eaten my liver (Umar has undone me completely). He is teaching the dogs the adab (discipline) of life.”

Discipline is the outward form of namaz (prayer). When a non-Muslim observes the namazis at prayer, he will arrive at the same conclusion—that they are taking lessons in discipline.

Discipline is the external aspect of salat. The internal aspect of salat is khushu and taqwa. Just observing the external aspect of salat gave Rustam a scare. Now you can understand, when the external aspect is combined with the internal aspect, how powerful namaz could become!

Namaz is the greatest form of worship for Muslims. It is moreover, the greatest power of Muslims. If we could tap this power fully, we should receive all the blessings of this world as well as the next.