What is Salat?

Abdul Wahid

 Salat does not refer to ‘worshiping of God/Allah” as majority believes. In fact throughout Quran, no where does this word refers to worshiping. In one verse it does refer to this word as worshiping, but this verse is explaining that Salat does not mean worshiping the Divine Being by some customary traditions.

Salat refers to a system; a system which encompasses the entire life and every aspect of a Muslim and of a Muslim State.

“What is this system? This is that system in which, throughout your life, every step you take should lead you towards the destination prescribed for you by the Almighty. And you should remain fully conscious of His Laws. To achieve this, establish the Salat. In this obedience and following, do not include anyone else’s laws or decisions. This will create uniformity of thought and action amongst yourselves and, as such, all humanity will become one Nation. Thereby they will overcome all the differences. This is the very objective of Deen [30: 31].”

This ayah is very comprehensive, and needs to be sectioned to understand the depth of information it is giving. According to this ayah, Salat will be:

1)      a system to be followed throughout one’s life,

2)      based on the orders of Allah which are in Koran,

3)      a system, whence, only Allah’s Laws will be followed and no other human will have the right to outweigh them,

4)      implemented so that everyone can reach the destination of humanity, which is the evolution of humanity,

5)      responsible to create a brotherhood of humanity, and

6)      responsible to achieve the objective of Deen.

The word “Deen” refers to the ideology which when implemented achieves the sovereignty of Allah and its objective is to help in the evolution of humanity so that human beings can cross over to the Jannah (Heaven) in the next life. We also know that in Islam no law is personal and implemented individually. Everything is to be implemented by the Islamic Government. Hence, if Salat is something to be implemented by the government, it automatically becomes a “system”.

This being confirmed that Salat is a system, which is to be implemented by Islamic State, one can see from this ayah, that it is a system via which a Muslim will be able to evolve his humanity. For this, Allah is saying to implement the system of Salat in every aspect of life and every decision in this system is to be based on the commands of Allah. This is where an Islamic Country is needed, whence the laws of Allah can be implemented and the citizens have the environment to evolve to the next level of humanity.

In an Islamic State the power of decision is only held by the government officials. Hence, “System of Salat is a system implemented by Islamic State to enforce Allah’s Laws via its officials.”

This is a small but pact description of Quranic Salat.

Thank You

Reproduced here with permission of the author