Learning to Long for Prayer, II
I’ve been meaning to write this for a long time now. What I really want to say to myself is this:
You have to indulge in beauty.
I’ve known lots of “spiritual-but-not-religious” types who really know how to make beautiful rituals, beautiful sacred space. But we Muslims, somehow, we so often think of just getting through what is obligatory upon us. And does that not cut us off from our Lord?
I think we should make beautiful places for prayer in our homes. Sanctuaries of quiet reflection. The Prophet, peace be upon him, retreated into nature, to the cave of Hira where he would reflect on his Maker. This is where he first received revelation, of course. We may not always be able to take private retreats like this, but we can make small spaces into which we can retreat again and again — prayer after prayer, day after day.
Rabia al-Adawiya, the sufi saint, is described as having had a mihrab in her own home. Sufyan Al-Thawri is said to have reported, “I saw her enter her mihrab and occupy herself in prayers until daybreak. In the opposite corner of the house I also performed prayer till dawn. With the sunrise, she suggested we dedicate the rest of the day to fasting to express our gratitude for the grace through which we maintained the night vigil.”
Now, I suppose it was nothing like a mihrab in a mosque. Perhaps the word implies nothing but a place for prayer. But everyone I know throws a run down wherever there’s room and gets to it.
That’s beautiful too. It’s beautiful that Muslims can and do engage in our ritual worship whenever and wherever the time comes upon us. And sometimes it’s beautiful to be praying in the midst of whatever is happening around you.
But I think that if you want to long for pray — and I think you should want that — you have to give it what it deserves. Not just the time, as I mentioned before, but the space. And beautiful space.
A friend told me recently about how fondly she remembers the way her parents beautified the experience of prayer. There was a candle, and a beautiful Quran stand, and prayer mats scented with incense. These small touches left an impact on her, and they helped her to love her faith while some young adults felt overburdened by it.
Ansa Tamara Gray, in her book Joy Jots, describes a vignette in which a woman prepares her favorite coffee, dresses up in beautiful prayer garments, and anoints herself with perfume in preparation for a night of worship. I love this image of a woman beautifying herself for our worship, savoring the pre-ritual ritual of a delicious warm drink, preparing herself up for a sweet and special time with her Lord — not a box to check off the list, but the moment of relief and retreat from the world that it ought to be. Our chance to step outside, for a moment, of this troublesome dream and into the bright, sweet dawn of the Abidingly Real.
A place not in the world.
Sometimes I go into the masjid to pray while I’m out and about, and I’ll have missed the congregational prayer and will just set up to pray on my own and I feel so…relaxed. I’m want to pray all those sunnahs and do all that dhikr and make all that dua and just sit there, alone and quiet, with Allah. No rush. I’m just here to worship. While I’m here, it’s just me and Allah. Everything else can wait.
This is the feeling that I wish to cultivate in my home. A special place to pray that I have to step into so that, when I am there, I am really there. So that the rest of the world is somewhere else, and I’m not rushing to get back to it.
Concretely, I have a vision.
It starts with a mihrab, like Rabia. Well, probably not like Rabia’s — who knows what that looked like — but I’m inspired by this Indonesian design company’s work:
Or you could simply hang a tapestry or drape a beautiful fabric. But something on the wall that says, “hello, pray here.”
And then, of course, beautiful pray rugs. Periodically perfumed.
And beside the place for prayer is a low wooden table, perhaps with a beautiful cloth over it. On it is a Quran, seated on a carved wooden Quran stand. Your tasbih, a favorite perfume. An oud burner, with your oud and your charcoal and everything stashed nearby. Perhaps a small plant, a reminder of the beauty of Allah’s creations. A couple of books: duas, adhkar, qasidas and poems. Reading for worship, for reflection, for filling your heart with love for your Maker. And maybe drop a couple of rose petals over the table just for the prettiness of it.
However done, it should be beautiful. It should be a sanctuary, a place you hurry to. It should remind you that peace is with Allah, available to you any time. And you should go there, often.
