Page 19 - Prayer in the Qur'an

PRAYER IN THE QUR'ANIC SENSE 17

Allah's existence and His help. Yet a person ought also to feel
Allah's existence, might and grandeur while praying during times
of ease. In fact, not only during prayer, but at every instant of daily
life, a believer should retain this awareness. At every moment he

must feel Allah's existence and closeness and pray, for only some-
one who is cognizant of Allah's existence acknowledges the mean-
ing and importance of prayer. Prayer is an intimate and personal
bond between people and Allah. Through prayer, people express all
their troubles and wishes to Allah and implore Him to assist them.
In return, Allah answers His servants' prayer.
As said earlier, prayer in the Qur'anic sense can by no means be
limited to a few rituals. As the verse "… remember Allah standing,
sitting and lying on your sides." (Surat an-Nisa: 103) maintains,
one can bring Allah to mind and pray to Him at any time and under
all conditions, without necessarily performing any particular ritual
or ceremony. That is because what matters is not the outward per-

formance but one's sincerity.
Misunderstanding this strips prayer of its actual meaning and
causes it to be perceived as a form of magic or spell. We can see this
by the superstitious practices of some ignorant people such as fas-
tening clothes to trees or blowing into water. It is well to remember
that superstition is the opposite of the Qur'anic rationale. Instead of
directly turning to Allah and asking for their needs from Him, these
ignorant people devise some superstitious rituals or symbols and
pray through these means. Meanwhile, they are unaware on whom
they call. They attribute supernatural power to those objects they

pray to, yet they fail to describe the nature of this power. This in-
cludes the superstitious practice of visiting tombs and praying to
the dead to ask for help, whereas visiting tombs should be to re-