After reciting the Tauz, the Tashahhud and the first chapter of the Holy Qur’an, Hazrat Amir ul Mo’meneen Zafrullah Domun said:

We will continue to talk about prayer again today. Last week I said a few words about “Allaho Akbar”. I tried to give you an idea of how important these two words are when we are praying; how we should try to inculcate within ourselves the Grandeur of Allah every time we pronounce these words in our prayers. I hope that as I told you last week you have immediately started practicing these fine points in your prayers if you really want to profit by what Allah has kept for you in the five daily prayers. I request that parents encourage their children to read these sermons on the net and ask them a few questions about them to make sure that they are reading. I am trying to make them aware of certain aspects of the daily prayers that they would not be able to know unless they try to study for years to know them. This is not at all something burdensome. On the contrary it will bring them lots of spiritual benefits of which they are unaware now.

So once we say “Allaho Akbar” what should we read? We have been taught since our childhood that we should read the “Sanaa” i.e Subhaanakal lahoumma wa behamdeka wa tabaarakasmoka wa ta’aala jaddoka wa laa ilaha ghairoka”. The translation is as you are aware: “Pure You O my Lord with Thy praise and blessed is Thy Name and exalted is Thy Majesty and there is no one worthy of worship except Thee.” The worshipper having recognized Allah’s greatness by saying “Allaho Akbar” to start his/her prayer starts by praising Allah. After praising he immediately declares that there is no one worthy to be worshipped but Allah. Here we may see that in the prayer itself the worshipper makes a statement that should keep him or her from worshipping anyone else besides Allah. He knows only Allah as an object of worship and he does not recognize anyone else. This is a declaration that the worshipper makes several times per day but yet the majority of Muslims read this statement without thinking about its meaning and hence they miss the great spiritual benefits that accrues from them. Hence one can think how important it is to learn understand and meditate upon all the words that we read in our prayers. If we are unaware of what we are saying then we will definitely come under what Allah says in the verse of the Holy Qur’an “Wayloul lil Musswalleen allazina houm an salaatehim saahoune”. The translation as I told you last time is “So woe to those who pray But are unmindful of their Prayer [107:6] Hence it is very important for us to understand what we are saying when we pray.

Once the worshipper declares that Allah alone is his object of worship, he should now try to concentrate all his attention on Allah because he is in a state of worship. He should see to it that his attention does not stray to his other preoccupations or that he becomes distracted from what he is engaged in. He should make a personal effort to stay focused on Allah in order to remember Allah because Allah says in the Holy Qur’an “Aqemis salaata le zikri” which means “establish prayer to remember me”. So prayer is for the remembrance of Allah and hence prayer devoid of the remembrance of Allah is no prayer at all; at best it may be considered a bodily exercise. So ask yourself this question “how many prayers you have done but they were not prayers according to the criteria that I am describing. However you should not at all feel any type of discouragement. There is still plenty of time for you to learn to do better. Allah has been very generous with us. He has given us plenty of opportunities to achieve the purpose for which He created us. But He also left a few things for us to do. Therefore If you are conscious that you have been inadequate in your efforts you should renew your efforts to do better in all the remaining days of your life. The sooner you decide to improve the way you pray the better it will be. Soon you will come to know as our beloved master Hazrat Mohammad saw said “my heart find solace in prayer”. He is the perfect example that we should follow and there is no one else.

Now you may rightly ask what we  should do to achieve this elusive concentration. Remember that first of all you should know the meaning of all the words that you recite in your prayer. This is the key. You might have noticed that when you offer supplications to Allah in your own words how focussed you become in your prayers. Similarly if you know all the meanings of the Arabic words that we use and you can match meanings with words you will be on your way to achieving thorough concentration during your prayers. In addition never allow yourself to forget that Allah sees you even if you do not see Him. This realization is the key to achieve greater concentration in prayer and also to get free from the bondage of sins which will only come about because of the all pervading presence of Allah in your life. Once you know what you are saying in your prayers, you should just fix your attention on the words. If during the recitation your mind strays you should bring it back by repeating what you were saying from the beginning. For example if you started praying by unmindfully saying sanaa you should start sanaa again by trying to focus. By doing this a few times you will discipline yourself to fully concentrate on what you are doing and saying in prayer. By practicing this technique continuously your capacity to concentrate will increase and then in prayer you will think of no one else but Allah. Once you achieve this stage your prayer will be given the honour by the Grace of Allah to be accepted.

Here I would like to tell you that although the majority of Muslims read Sanaa in the beginning of prayer but from the hadith we also learn that the Holy Prophet ^saw used to offer some other prayers at the beginning of his Salat. I am telling you this piece of information so that you might be aware about this matter. But we will not go into the details of what supplications he used to make in this sermon. May be some other time I may say some more words about this matter. There is no hard and fast rule. At times he read sanaa and at other times he read some other supplications.

Now I would like to say a few words about the way we should stand when we pray. According to the Sunnah we should be alert and respectful and our two hands should be crossed just above our navel. The palm of the right hand should grasp the back of the left arm. You know here also there are no hard and fast rules.  At times the Muslims have been at odds with one another about where and how to cross the arm. The most common well known way is the way we are doing as I have explained above. Above all we should stand alert and show no signs of laziness because we are standing   in-front  of Allah who is worthy of the greatest respect. But as I said in my previous sermons what is most important in prayer is what goes on between you and Allah and your bodily posture plays an important but a minor part in the whole enterprise. So be aware of the essence without forgetting the minor details also.

Now immediately after we have read sanaa we seek refuge from Allah against Satan the accursed one. We say what is known in Arabic as Ta’uz and the words are as follows: “A’ouzo billahe menash shaitaan ir rajim”. You should remember that seeking refuge with Allah from Satan is very important. Whatever is the nature of Satan we understand that it is here to prevent us from following the path of virtue.  Satan always incites us to do everything that is against Allah’s bidding. So when instead of waking up for prayer in the morning we continue to enjoy sleep by covering our ears in order not to continue to hear the words of the Adhan we are doing exactly what Satan wants us to do. Man’s struggle in life is that he should try to convert his own Satan so that he might say like our beloved prophet Mohammad ^saw some words to the effect that “My Satan has become a Muslim”. This is our life struggle. And we will never be able to succeed in this struggle without the help of Allah. That is why once we say that we recognize Allah as the real object of worship we are taught to seek refuge in Allah Himself against Satan. Satan will do everything in its power to prevent man from worshipping Allah in the true sense of the word.

Man is weak by nature. Allah says in the Holy Qur’an “kholeqal insaano za’ifa”(4:29). Out of compassion for mankind Allah sends His Messengers so that they might help mankind to live a life contrary to what Satan prescribes and in complete obedience to what Allah and His Messengers prescribe in order to win Allah’s Pleasure. The purpose of man’s creation as spelled out by Allah in the Holy Qur’an is “And I have not created the Jinn and the man but that they should worship Me” (51:57). Satan will try its best to prevent man from achieving this purpose. Satan will try to deceive man in many ways. Allah knows this quite well and that is why He teaches us to seek refuge in Him so that we might not fall in the trap that Satan will weave everywhere for us.

After this seeking of refuge against Satan we are taught to read the first chapter of the Holy Qur’an. Incha Allah I will explain with some details what we have been taught through the hadith and specially the commentaries of Hazrat Masih Maood ^as about this most important chapter of the Holy Qur’an. Besides, no prayer is complete without its recital. But since we will need some time so I am not going to start talking about it today. Incha Allah next week.

Before ending I would like to say a few words about Pakistan again. For those of you who may be aware of the news, you should know that this country is drifting more and more in a state of chaos. It was built because the Muslims wanted a place where they would live in peace. But unfortunately due to the inability of the leaders of the country to usher in an era of national development, this Muslim country which was built with great Islamic ideals is groping these days with problems that threaten its own survival. It is the most if not one of the most dangerous places in the world these days. Many of the Ulemas of this country have persecuted the Ahmadis since the creation of the country in 1947 and unfortunately since then the country has not known what peace is. The level of literacy is one of the poorest in the world. Being Muslims they should have been amongst the best but unfortunately they are among the worst. You may go on the net and read the articles that are written by its own people to know how bad a Muslim country which says it implements the Islamic Shariah can become. It appears that some of these people live like wild animals in the forests. Recently some brave voices made themselves heard condemning the persecution of Ahmadis and the deprivation of their rights in the country. Bigoted Molvis also started making themselves heard condemning these brave voices like Mr Altaf Hussein and the governor of the Punjab. Since this country declared the Ahmadis a non Muslim minority in 1984 for the purposes of law, the social conditions in the country has gone from bad to worse. The leaders backed by bigoted Mullahs are taking this country into the pit of fire and yet they do not realize it.  We can only pray that Allah protects all the Muslims around the world. These days most of the Muslim countries are cursed with leaders that cannot rise to the occasion to do what is best for the world of Islam and for their own citizens. We will find more time to talk on these matters in sermons or in articles on our website later on incha Allah.