Meditation and Islamic Prayer (Namaz)
Since ages, meditation is considered to be a great source of acquiring inner peace and elevating one spiritually. It is deep rooted in many religions of the world, including Islam. Holy Prophet P.B.U.H. used to meditate in Cave Hira. There are many ways of performing the act of Meditation. However, in Islam, the best way to meditate is to establish prayer(namaz).
I am talking about establishing prayer not just reading and performing rituals. During prayer, one should keep in mind that he is standing before Allah S.W.T and Allah is continuously watching him. From the start of prayer to its end, this thought should be present and besides this, every action during prayer should be performed thoughtfully. To understand this, let me give you an easy example of Traffic Sergeant who is standing at a busy intersection and is controlling the traffic. That sergeant's mind and thoughts are fully concentrated in traffic. He does not get his mind involved in any other thought than traffic. If he does, then cars would collapse into each other and at the end that particular sergeant, who was day-dreaming, would be held responsible. The Sergeant is fully attentive on every single movement of his body during duty. He is aware of his actions. Same should be the state of a person who is standing in front of his lord, the Almighty Allah. He should be attentive about his "qiyam", "ruku", "sajda", etc. During Ruku(bowing), he should keep in his mind that he is bowing in front of the creator of the universe, the great lord and then with a submissive tone he has to say Subhana-rabbi-yal-alah. Similarly prostration and other actions in prayer should be performed in order to establish prayer not merely read it. Holy Prophet P.B.U.H said that Prayer is the ascension of a believer.
There a lot of other ways of doing meditation such as closing eyes and then focusing on breathing etc. But I must say, for Muslims, Allah has given the best way to fulfill this spiritual need and that is Prayer. Allah gave this gift to the Prophet, when he called him to Mairaj(Ascension). So, from now onwards, pray regularly with an intention to make your prayer physically and spiritually alive.
For dry lips
Do you get tired? Then come here
Why Surah Fatiha is read in Prayer
The Act of Giving Charity - Sadaqah
Spending in the way of Allah is a proof of one's faith, because on the orders of Allah S.W.T and Muhammad S.A.W.W. he spends his most loved thing i.e. wealth. It shows that he believes in the unseen more than that what can be seen.
This also gives us the message that we should do what Allah and his Prophet told us, not what we think. For example, you have 100 dollars, and you lend it with interest, and you'll get back 110 dollars. On the other hand, instead of lending it, you give 10 dollars from it as sadaqah. As a result, you'll be left with 90 dollars. Now, If we take a look at both amounts, one is 110 and the other is 90, now human mind says that 110 is greater than 90 but Allah's message says that 90 is greater and 110 is lesser. ''Allah destroys interest and gives increase for charities. And Allah does not like every sinning disbeliever.'' [2;276]. Human brain's thinking capacity is limited. Therefore, we should do what Allah and his messenger has ordered us instead of blindly following our limited understanding vision.
