Ingrid Mattson – Islamic Daily Prayer 2017 Festival of Faiths
AI: Summary ©
AI: Transcript ©
Good morning, everyone.
Good morning.
Greetings of peace to you. The peace and
blessings of God be upon you. Assalamu
alaikum.
I'm so happy to be back here
today.
It really does feel like spring has come,
being with all of you at the Festival
of Faith in this wonderful city of compassion.
It follows.
How do we keep that compassion? How do
we
restore it? How do we retain it?
The
Quran says that the sun
has been created
for you as a source of brilliant light,
and the moon reflects that light.
We need to try
regularly,
daily throughout our lives
lives to keep shining that mirror of the
soul
so we can reflect the light that comes
to us.
There are so many ways ways to do
that,
and for Muslims,
one of the most important ways is to
perform our
daily prayers.
Now there's many ways to pray. Sometimes I've
said to
some people when I've been describing to them
what Islamic prayer is, they've said, well, I
pray more than 5 times a day.
But this is a specific kind of prayer,
it's an embodied prayer, and within the embodied
prayer are all other forms of prayer like
blessings,
glorification
of God,
supplication,
which is called in Arabic the dua, to
call on God asking for a need. So
we pray throughout the day in many, many
different ways,
but the,
5
embodied prayers are the ones we're going to
be focusing on
primarily today.
You
Prayer is also called,
it's called remembrance,
and it's remembering who we are
and why we're here, who we are
in relation
to our creator,
the creator of all things. And this is
the major
ontological
distinction in Islam is between
the creator and the created beings, and we're
one of the created beings. There are many,
of course.
So we have to know our responsibility
in relationship to our creator and to all
the
other beings that are around us, and prayer
helps us do that.
The prophet Mohammed told his companions
that they should think of prayer like a
flowing river.
He said,
if you
jumped
into a
flowing pure stream, a flowing river, 5 times
a day, do you think any dirt would
be left on you? And they said, no.
He said, this is like your prayer if
you pay attention to it and if you're
mindful of it.
We are
souls
who have been created in the presence of
God
and then are embodied
in our mother's wombs.
Somehow,
we come into this
form of being that includes
our spirit that originates with the divine, but
put in these earthly bodies.
We have this difficult passage into our life,
into the world,
replaced out here,
embodied souls,
And that body can be a great ally
for us in doing good.
It's our companion in this life, and this
is why the companion in this life,
and this is why
the embodied prayer is such an important part
of who we are.
It's not just thinking good thoughts, it's not,
although that's important,
and it's not just feeling a connection
with our creator, although that's part of it,
but it's bringing all of who we are
in this life,
embodied beings,
into
a sense of discipline
and purpose and orientation.
Now, before we
begin our prayer,
there are many things things that we need
to do to prepare.
So first of all,
I have to
know when to pray.
I'll tell you something, we are a little
bit late for our prayer,
our first prayer of the day.
So the prayers are
are timed according to the movements of the
sun.
Of course, the sun, source of light,
and we should
reflect
upon the meaning of that.
So we have to know where the sun
is in the sky.
Our first prayer
occurs
before the sun comes up,
at the first light of dawn, so the
first glimmer of dawn until the sun comes
up, the sun came up today in Louisville,
Kentucky at 7 am.
The first light of dawn was at a
little bit after 5 o'clock, so anytime in
that range.
Now, of course, during the year,
as the Earth moves around the sun,
the time the sun
rises and the time sun sets,
changes every single
day. And of course, this
is like the calendar of our life.
You know, no day is the same as
the one that came
before, so we have to pay attention.
If we're doing everything
the same today as we did yesterday, we
haven't grown.
And that's a problem. The purpose of life
is growth.
So these movements
need to pay attention every day to what
has changed.
So our first prayer is in this early
light of dawn.
Our second prayer is after the sun reaches
the highest point in the sky,
and then we have a late afternoon prayer
before the sunset.
And then when the sun sets,
until
it becomes dark is our 4th prayer, and
the 5th prayer is after full darkness
sets in.
So where I live in Canada now in
the winter,
these prayers are really compressed in time.
But in the summer though, in the summer,
it's a very early first prayer, and it's
a very late
last prayer.
And when I was tree planting in Northern
Canada,
there were times when
it almost never became fully dark, and then
we have to adjust. And this is an
amazing thing to think about how
humanity has spread across the globe into all
of these places, places
that
we may have thought at one time would
be impossible for human beings to live, but
God gave us these minds, and these bodies,
and creativity
to be able to move, and then we
have to figure out, well, how do we
pray in a place like that?
How do you pray the night prayer if
it hasn't become fully dark?
Which shows that it's impossible to live our
religion fully
and completely
if we don't
pay attention
to new circumstances
and adapt
the principles and purposes of what we do
to the new times.
There have even been some astronauts, and then
they had to figure out, how do I
pray if I'm not even on the Earth?
So humanity is facing all sorts
of challenges, new challenges,
and we have to bring
our fundamental
principles and values and practices
into this full new reality, and figure out
a way
to
live correctly and rightly
and in a good
way. So we need to know where we
are and and when we are, but
second
is the is the
where. Where am I going to pray?
Probably,
when you've seen images of people in prayer,
it's a whole bunch of people in a
mosque. For some reason, usually, they're shooting them
from behind, and there's a big pile of
shoes
there, it's not very attractive.
But,
we don't have to pray in a mosque.
The Quran says,
the earth has been
made, pure and clean for you,
and the prophet Mohammed said that the whole
earth has been made a mosque for you.
Mosque is the English term,
translation of Masjid, which means a place of
prostration.
This means that the whole Earth is sacred,
and we believe that the Earth, the actual
substance of Earth is pure,
like water is pure.
So there's purity to the Earth, and of
course,
one of our jobs and our challenges certainly
today is to keep
this earth and the water
pure so that we can continue
to pray that way. So we can pray
any place,
any place on the earth.
But I have to figure out when I'm
in a new place, when I travel or
move,
I know I can pray here, but what
direction do I pray in?
And all Muslims pray in the direction
of
the Kaaba,
the
holy
sanctuary of God.
Now, that doesn't mean
that Arabia
is more important than any place else in
the world,
certainly not that Saudi Arabia is, that's a
new nation state formed in the 20th century.
Just that place has a
very ancient and sacred history. It's a place
where Muslims believe Abraham came and reestablished
monotheism in the in the region
with the help and assistance
of Hajjar,
his wife, who through her great efforts discovered
the water
well
through which people could make their evolutions,
and built this house as a place of
worship.
So
Muslims everywhere in the world will first need
to figure out which direction
is
the
is Mecca and is the Kaaba.
Now, here,
we figured out it is
in this direction,
if you consider the direction the shortest distance
between two places, which it is. So
it's northeast, which is counterintuitive to a lot
of people because
many of us will look on a flat
map and say, well,
if we're in Louisville, Kentucky,
you must have to pray east.
But, we live in a round earth, so
if I were going to do my prayers
on the stage today, I would do them
in this direction.
Having to figure that out motivated Muslims throughout
history
to understand geography.
They certainly knew
very early on that the Earth was
round. And,
through those calculations,
figured out in every place they
were how to orient themselves.
Now what if you don't know?
If you don't know, the Quran says, to
God belongs
the East and the west.
Wherever you turn your face,
there is the face of god.
And so this is
an important attempt
to find the direction, but in the end,
it's symbolic. It doesn't mean that, you know,
God is only there or holiness or prayer.
No, it's everywhere. It's wherever we turn, we
find we can find the face of God.
And if we're traveling, we just pray in
whatever direction we're traveling in.
So now I know where I am in
the world.
I
have figured out the
orientation of
the sun with respect to me.
So I have the when
and I have the where.
How? How do I pray now?
And for Muslims, this is why the teachings
of the prophet Mohammed, may God's peace and
blessings be upon him, is so important.
We are a religion that follows the traditions
of the prophet in terms of acts of
worship.
And those traditions
are passed on
from
mother to
child,
from teacher to student,
from
grandfather to grandson
over the generations.
Of course, there are books that teach these
things, but pretty much no one learns from
a book. They learn from someone
teacher, and he just kept looking over and
making little adjustments the whole time because he
loved his teacher so much and he wanted
to be like him.
And that traditional aspect is important because we
need role models,
we need embodied role models, we need people
to show us
how to be in this
world. And, of course, we'll
figure out our own way,
creativity, and our own perspective, but we are
formed
through community with others and through role models,
and so that's important.
And the prayer can be
alone or it can be with people, so
this is another decision.
We can pray
the same prayer by ourself anytime except for
the Friday
congregational prayer. Congregational, we have to all come
together.
But it's possible to go to the mosque
or to go to a prayer center and
pray in congregation with others, or we pray
wherever we are, in our office or school
or, you know, when the time comes in,
the length of time, the period of time,
we've got to figure out a way to
pray.
And this is,
important too because sometimes we really need to
have that
experience alone.
We need to be able to know how
to do it alone. Sometimes we're going to
be alone. We're not always going to be
around people.
And and many, even though they pray all
of their prayers in congregation,
in
supposed to feel the person beside you. There's
a sense of, you know, supposed to feel
the person beside you.
There's a sense of comfort, a sense of
almost being hugged by the others, a sense
of solidarity,
and that's a beautiful feeling. And that's the
reason why men and women are separated in
congregational prayer, because I'm not sure I want
to be really hugged by
any random man who comes in.
So the women will be snuggled up beside
each other, and the men will be snuggled
up beside each other, and there's that feeling
of acting
together,
a sense of purpose. We're oriented in the
same direction, and we're unified together for a
common purpose. And we need to do that.
There are so many things
that need our attention in society.
So we have to be able to come
together
and put aside,
you know, our own
individual
ideas about
what we want to do for the sake
of the common good, sometimes.
But sometimes, we also need to pay attention
to our own
spiritual needs,
our own tasks because we also have tasks
that are individual,
and
sometimes people disappoint us.
I know we live in an age when
many people
consider themselves spiritual, not religious,
because religion
has disappointed them, or the people who have
been promoting religion have disappointed them.
And there are many Muslims like that.
And to regain that sense of
spiritual wholeness, sometimes people need to withdraw
from others.
There's a beautiful teaching of the prophet Mohammed,
may God's peace and blessings be upon him,
that when a person
prays
alone, you know, if a person is alone
in the wilderness,
sometimes I do this, go out in the
woods,
and they make the call to prayer,
and then they make their prayer with sincerity
that
ranks of angels are praying with them.
So you're never truly alone, we're never truly
alone. The angelic presence comes with us as
well.
And that's important to remember
because this is also an age of great
loneliness.
Of course, we need to be comfortable
when we're not surrounded by others, but we
shouldn't lonely.
And so wherever we are, we should remember
that we
have the potential to be surrounded by these
angelic presences.
And of course, the Quran also says
that
the trees and the grasses
all prostrate to their Lord. We know that
every aspect of creation is also a Muslim
in the sense of being in harmony
with the will of God.
So we also have all of these other
created beings who are praying with us as
well.
And anyone
who lives with
non human
creatures in their house knows
that they're going to come around you
when you're praying,
you know.
Well, I remember,
we used to, my children used to have
rabbits, and as soon as you would start
praying, the rabbits
would would come and they'd start.
And as soon as I start praying, the
cat comes
and is right there with me.
They feel that there's something special, and they
want to be part of it as well.
So the final not the final, but another
part of preparing
for
this embodied prayer
will be
ablution,
ritual ablution,
to take pure water
and to wash
hands and arms, arms, face,
the top of the head, the feet, in
a certain order.
And as we do it, think about this
as an opportunity
to wash away
our sins and our misdeeds
with a strong intention. Spiritual
level
as
well,
to
try
to
purify
ourselves. And spiritual level as well, to try
to purify ourselves.
And of course, this isn't just
a cheap and easy way to be forgiven.
It has to be done with
a real sense of
sincerity.
We're gonna try to do better next time.
And if water isn't available,
if there's no clean water, we can take
a little bit of pure earth
and take it,
and wipe our face and
just wipe down our arms.
And this is a way also
to purify ourselves,
which again shows the importance of the purity
of the Earth.
So now that I've done this,
and I'm ready to pray,
I think about the purity of my surface.
Many of the early Muslims
refused to pray on anything
but
the earth.
They
felt that it was more
humbling,
it was in line with their asceticism,
that they were quite wary of
fancy Persian
carpets, actually.
And the prayer carpet is simply a way
of having a clean
place. So for me, I have this handy
little bag.
I keep it in my purse at all
times, my sort of it's kind of like,
you know, Superman
runs, puts on his cape. So this is
my
super
prayer rug.
And I'm going to slip off my shoes
because they may be a
a little dirty
from what I've been stepping on. It's not
necessary, but I will.
And I'll lay out my prayer carpet,
And that will give me a nice, clean
little surface so I can pray.
I'll take off my glasses.
And now I'm standing
we'll pretend
this is the right direction.
I'm standing and getting ready for my prayer.
First thing thing is to make my intention.
I can say it out loud or I
can say it internally,
that this is a prayer I'm making
to worship God
out of obedience
to God.
There can be all sorts of wrong intentions,
doing it to show other people that I'm
a very prayerful person.
That's not the right intention.
Now,
as I stand here,
I may be in just a
really excited mood to pray.
I'm really feeling it right now.
Or
I may not be feeling it.
I may have had a late night, I'm
really groggy, I am not a morning person,
frankly.
So I'm like, I'm doing it because I
have to do it.
And that's that's so important.
Many of the things that we do, that
we're required to do in terms of
our embodied rituals are the so called pillars
of Islam, whether it's prayer or fasting,
giving charity,
sometimes we don't really feel it.
But there's something about
if you do it, you'll start feeling it.
It's kind of like,
you know, you're not feeling very happy,
smile.
And you smile, and you know what?
Inevitably, it works. It starts to make you
feel happier.
So whether we're feeling it or not, we're
going to do it. I'm making my intention.
And I have to remember which of the
5 prayers it is because each one is
a little different.
Some of the prayers
have each prayer is a certain number of
cycles,
and we have no,
indication of why sometimes it's 2 cycles or
3 cycles or 4 cycles of standing, bowing,
and prostrating.
We don't know what's one of the many
mysteries
of the universe.
The acts of worship
have purposes,
but some parts of them
can't really be explained,
and that is like so much of life.
So if I'm going to be praying my
morning prayer, it's 2 cycles of worship,
and then I have to think, is this
one where I recite the Quran out loud
or quietly?
In some cases, in the morning prayer, I
recite it out loud, and in the evening
and in the night prayer. In the day
prayer, it's
quiet. And I've thought about this before, about
the meaning of it, because we aren't given
the meaning.
But I think it's,
in terms of
effectiveness,
the most difficult thing is to really pay
attention when it's a quiet prayer,
when I'm silently reciting the Quran. Because as
soon as I'm silently
engaged in prayer, it's very easy for my
mind to start
zinging all over the place.
My mind starts wandering. I have
parts of the Quran that I've memorized that
I'm going to be saying, and I can
just go through the
motions.
This is truly the biggest challenge of prayer
is to have full
awareness. And it's a struggle within ourselves.
And so reciting out loud,
it allows us
to say those passages of the Quran, say
those prayers out loud to have others correct
us if we're wrong, that's helpful.
But silently, it allows us to have that
greater discipline of being paying attention, being mindful
of what we're doing.
So now I'm going to be praying the
morning prayer,
I have 2 cycles of prayer,
and I'm going to be
reciting the Quran out loud.
And so I stand in my direction and
I begin
with what's called the the
opening, glorification of God, Allahu Akbar.
Now
Allahu Akbar means god is greater.
What is god greater than?
God is greater than
every
image we can have of who God is.
God is greater than
all of the things that we love, all
of the things that we desire,
all of the things that we say about
god,
and that is
the acknowledgment
that our
our understanding is very limited,
always limited, never complete, and it should make
us humble
vis a vis all others who have different
perceptions and understandings.
So I begin and I I open
and then either I fold my hands across
my chest or I hold my arms
at my side, and this depends on the
tradition. There are many traditional schools,
of
thought and practice in Islam, and all of
them are they're all good, and we can
all pray together with these different postures.
And I say some internal,
prayers that I am turning
myself, I'm turning my face to the one
who has created the heavens and the earth,
all of the things that have created.
As someone who's trying to follow this primordial
religion of God, which is
very ancient,
the Quran says that Islam
simply means submission to God. It is
what we are all born with, a desire
to be in harmony and in submission to
our creator.
And so I begin by praying, and I
will pray
part of the Quran. I'll always start with
the first Surah, the first chapter of the
Quran,
and
after I've made my opening prayer,
I will bow my head, and I'm starting
in the standing position because we are human
beings, and we have certain dignity
that God has given us. The Quran says
God has
placed dignity
in all human beings, so we have this
dignity of standing,
but humility.
And I'll begin with the opening chapter of
the Quran.
Amen,
amen, is followed by
Amin. And then I'll recite something else, a
little passage of the Quran, and it can
be from,
you know, anything that I
know.
If I were to stand here and recite
the whole Quran, it would take over a
day.
So there's a lot to choose from depending
on my mood, what's in my mind, what
I feel.
And then once I go through this,
I will move to the next cycle of
prayer, which is the one
of bowing.
And each
each position, I should try to be still,
take my time in that. So bowing is
a
form
of submission,
knowing that I am worshiping and
then I come up, commanded me. So I
bow
and then I come up,
and then I will go to prostration,
which is the,
place where I feel
the most humble but also
somehow the closest to God.
I feel I'm coming very close to the
earth, and the earth is
from where I have come. Quran says human
beings were created out of earth,
out of soil, out of clay,
and we know that we will go back
to the earth. So I come and I
make my
prostration,
and
then go back to a sitting,
and then I'm going to repeat that.
That's one cycle of prayer after I've done
that twice.
And I'm going to sit and then I'm
going to repeat that until I come to
the end.
And in each position that I move to,
I make some glorification
of God,
and I make my own prayers. And so
this prayer is a combination
of both
what is traditional and required,
but also my own needs that day, praying
for my family, my friends, for this earth,
for you,
for whatever is on my mind and in
my heart and feeling very close in doing
that. And then at the end, I will
say,
And I may turn this way and say.
And that's giving greetings of peace to those
who are on my right and left,
humans,
angels,
and whatever else is in creation.
And then afterwards, I may follow
this prayer with some
supplications,
some remembrances
of God.
And so there's the before preparation and there's
the after to kind of
come
to finish it up.
I'm feeling
refreshed
spiritually.
I'm feeling a sense of
community,
I've reoriented myself, I have a sense of
purpose,
I'm going to get up,
and I'm going to be going back now
out to my day
until the next time comes
for another prayer.
And between this prayer and the next one,
I'm
going to forget myself,
I'm going to be irritable sometimes,
I'm going to,
you know, maybe say some things
that are
not very kind to people,
but the time for prayer will come again.
And I'll tell you, the only thing I
miss,
the only thing I miss
when I'm not in a Muslim majority country
is hearing that call for prayer.
It's so lovely when it floats through the
air and is the reminder to you,
but many of us have an app on
our phone.
It's not the same thing.
But when it comes,
then I'll start again,
I'll reorient myself, I'll remember where I am,
I'll come back to my sense of purpose,
I'll recommit myself
to who I am and to what I
have to do.
So that is our prayer.
Thank you so much for your attention today,
and
my prayer is that God blesses all of
us
and allows us to grow
and to
be those people who reflect
this beautiful
light of compassion. Thank you.