Page 38 - 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

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