Page 17 - Prayer in the Qur'an

PRAYER IN THE QUR'ANIC SENSE 15

to pray humbly and secretly:
Call on your Lord humbly and secretly. He does not love those

who overstep the limits. (Surat al- A'raf: 55)
Remember your Lord in yourself humbly and with awe, with-
out loudness of voice, morning and evening. Do not be one of
the unaware. Those who are in the presence of your Lord do
not consider themselves too great to worship Him. They glo-
rify His praise and they prostrate to Him... (Surat al-A'raf: 205-
206)
In the Qur'an, Allah calls our attention to solitary prayer that is
performed with a deep feeling of dire need. In this sense, the place,
the sophistication of the outward performance, the number of par-
ticipants, or the supplicants' loud voice can by no means be the cri-
teria for a successful prayer.
One must be aware that a loud voice in prayer is not an element

that makes it heard by Allah. As already mentioned, Allah, the All-
Knowing, knows even our inner thoughts and He is closer to us
than our jugular vein. In this sense, it is needless to raise our voice so
as to be heard by our Lord Who is close to us. One can either pray se-
cretly or in a tone of voice audible only to oneself.
From the verses below we understand that both while praying or
going about our daily business, a person needs to use his or her
voice at a moderate level:
Be moderate in your tread and lower your voice. The most hate-
ful of voices is the donkey's bray. (Surah Luqman: 19)

Say: "Call on Allah or call on the All-Merciful, whichever you
call upon, the Most Beautiful Names are His." Do not be too
loud in your prayer or too quiet in it, but try to find a way be-
tween the two. (Surat al-Isra: 110)