By Abdullahi Jamaa
Let’s put it this way, you have an appointment with your boss today, a rare chance to meet him and discuss about your employment contract, you are lobbying for a salary increment and a better welfare.
In this meeting your dress code matters a lot, you must pull out all the stops to impress your boss with an exciting tip-toe appearance. You must look like a gentleman because what you wear is who you are. In professional circles it is known as dressing for success.
With a proper dressing attitude you will certainly improve your value as an employee. In it you are promoting yourself by putting up a radiant image. When your boss sees you in clean, fitted clothing he will start to think that you are worth of his time and company. Voila! Keep your fingers crossed.
But this is not the point I would like to make……
Imagine standing in front of the king of kings, the Lord that created you, that blessed you with knowledge, success and satisfaction. Here you are standing in front of the Almighty in an obligatory prayer wearing a ragged shirt, whiffing badly and now with a sullen image.
Sometimes you face your Lord wearing a sleeveless t-shirt, a sweat pant or a kikoi. Or you put on an old dirac with patches of wheat flour, a kanga that is always placed on top of the dresser that comes in handy whenever you want to pray.
We are told again and again that our Lord is pure and clean and loves only that which is pure and clean. You have just impressed your boss for a worldly benefit, isn’t it a shame to face the Lord of the world with a germ-y cloth that testifies hopelessness and failure.
Make your prayer a serious business………
Isn’t it time to pump the breaks on this old habits and make our prayers a serious business between us and our Lord? We are required to keep up the spirit of Ihsan as Muslims so as to achieve success in this world and in the hereafter.
Obligatory prayers require a lot of preparedness both mental and physical. Whenever we stand to pray, there are two motivations: 1. one is to remove ourselves from the obligations of prayer and 2. Is to perform an accepted prayer.
Removing an obligation from yourself for many people means only performing the physical acts of prayers without any meaningful awareness. Starting from your preparations, your bowings and prostrations, all your actions are ritualistically done.
For years and years you performed your prayers without an iota of concentration, praying for the sake of it. That is why you find your daily prayers not protective against all including shame, sin and disobedience.
Prayer is an important act of worship that must be handled with great care and enthusiasm. When we are reading Surah al-Fatiha we are communicating with Allah directly. It means a lot to stand in front of our creator and benefit immensely from this spiritual conversation.
An honourable believer struggles to make his prayer an embodiment of success. It acts as the first and the last bastion that defines his true allegiance to Allah. He not only humbles himself but he takes this act of worship seriously and makes it a worthy venture.
He knows his master very well, he respects him and shows him that as a staunch believer he is here to seek the Almighty’s boundless blessings. So before he puts himself in the right position, he checks his prayer environment very well, his intention and physique included.
For he knows success means excellence, he presents himself before Allah clean with a brimming hope that his prayers will be answered. What he wears in front of Allah matters to him; a definition of self-respect coupled with confidence and optimism.
Putting the effort into what you wear during prayers either in the masjid or at home will have positive effects on your overall performance as a believer. Your spiritual confidence grows and along with a self-perception, you may just open a gateway to accepted prayers- Of course through a sincere intention.
And Allah said:
“‘I am as My servant thinks (expects) I am. I am with him when he mentions Me. If he mentions Me to himself, I mention him to Myself; and if he mentions Me in an assembly, I mention him in an assembly greater than it. If he draws near to Me a hand’s length, I draw near to him an arm’s length. And if he comes to Me walking, I go to him at speed.’
So next time when in front of Allah, put on your favourite attire, the white shiny thobe that signifies respect for the creator. It doesn’t matter whether you are at home or masjid ; what matters is the greatness and completeness of who is before you- Allah.
