Lessons from Salah

We perform salah five times a day, everyday. It must be more than just a sequence of utterances and movements. A few of the real life lessons we must learn from our daily prayers are as follows:


OBEDIENCE
When the call to success is made for salaah, everyone leaves what he is engaged in for the worship of Allah. There, we submit ourselves to His instruction and His recommendation in the way we worship. This sort of obedience and response to the call of Allah should be imbibed in our psyche. When anything is mentioned from Allah or His Messenger, we should be able to detach ourselves from worldly activities and respond to Allah. We need to live in willing submission; the meaning of Muslim.


SELF-DISCIPLINE
While in salah, we learn self-control. Our movement is curtailed, even our gazes are restricted and distractions are shunned. Nothing matters while we are in the presence of our Lord (except emergencies). In life, we should easily do away with haram, and life�s distractions. Such self-discipline is part of the teachings of salaah for our everyday use.


COHESIVE COMMUNITY
Salah is best performed in congregation (25-27 times more rewarding). While performing it we move in unison and though we are many we are like one integral body. In life, we need to live like one. We are one body, and when a part is hurt, every part of the body feels the pain. Isolation and disunity is discouraged. When the congregation is established, it is forbidden to pray outside of it. Hence the cohesion which salaah exemplifies indicates that our goal should be a common one, the pleasure of Allah.


UNITY & EQUALITY
We stand shoulder to shoulder and we are equal before Allah except in terms of our piety. Our dress, origin, age, education, colour, nationality, language, profession, status, sex and physique do not matter; we are all brothers and sisters. This is an apt blueprint for the way we live and relate in everyday life, this is the path of success, which Allah has promised us.


FORBEARANCE AND SYMPATHY
While lined up for salaah, we are able to forbear the lowly status, the shabbiness and the mistakes of our fellow worshippers, for all are pure and blessed in the court of Allah. We even notice their needs and try to fulfil them. We notice their absence and seek to find out their condition. Salah gives us patience and sympathy. When we carry this over to our daily living, we are able to tolerate and appreciate each other. Our brotherhood will be strong and unflinching, blessed and functional.


LEADERSHIP
Even when only two people form a congregational prayer, one of them must lead while the other follows. He who must lead will be decided based on competence, knowledge and experience. He would lead and act within the permissible framework and he must show compassion for the old, women with children, the sick and the busy. He must be acceptable to most of the followers and he must be obeyed, except when he contradicts Allah and His Messenger, upon which obedience ceases. If his ablution vitiates (he is no longer fit to lead), he must vacate his position (handing over to one of the followers) without a feeling of humiliation. These are true lessons in living as an organised community.