knows the Quran well and is able to adeptly recite

large
portions of it. Every once in a while, an imam might make
a mis take in recitation, and it is the duty of the Mus lims in
the front row to correct him. Thus , a hierarchy of piety is
often found in the rows of s alaat, with elder, res pected
Mus lims toward the front.
With that minor exception, Mus lims take pride in
the equality found in s alaat. From rich men to poor men, s
tates men to workmen, all men line up s ide by s ide and pray
as one. It is a s olemn event, where no one s peaks , no one
cros s es in front of thos e praying, and no one interrupts .
No one except, of cours e, a five-year-old brat
from America. A few times , while running around the wors
hipers during s alaat, s omeone would give me a s wift s pank
to jar me out of my mis chief. My parents were fine with
this ; it took a mos que to rais e a Mus lim child, and the
members of our jamaat trus ted one another deeply.
On one occas ion during the s alaat, I was res tles s
and fidgety. Out of nowhere, I felt a s wift s pank on my
behind. I turned around to s ee who it was , but there was no
one behind me. I s urmis ed it was my uncle, who was s
tanding next to me, s o after finis hing the s alaat, I
tearfully accus ed him of the s panking. Without flinching,
he pointed up to the s ky and s aid, "No, it was Allah." My
eyes went wide, and I thought, "If only I had turned around
fas ter, I would have s een the hand of Allah!" Twenty
years later, he confes s ed it was him, but in the meantime, I
was honored to have been s panked by God Hims elf. I
always s tood with due s olemnity in s alaat after that.
Since the pos tures and words are memorized,11 there
is nothing extemporaneous - indeed, nothing pers onal - about
s alaat. For the vas t majority of Mus lims , it is s imply an
act of
duty, not pers onal or heartfelt expres s ion.
True, one can dwell on the meaning of the words that he is
reciting and by doing s o make it more pers onal, but rare is
the wors hiper who can do that for each of the s eventeen
required
the worsrakaat
hiper, every s ingle
not the leas t day. Even
becaus then,are
e they the inwords
a are
exogenous
foreign
language. to is true even for Arabic s peakers . Arabs s
This
peak
colloquial forms of Arabic that vary by region. If they want
to learn a form of Arabic that approximates clas s ical Arabic,
they have to learn it at s chool. The language of the daily
prayers is not pers onal to anyone.

Jumaa: The name for the

Muslim Sabbath day

This may lead one to wonder why Mus lims continue

to
pray five times a day. What is the point in reciting the s
ame words five times a day, every day, when they don¶t
mean anything pers onally" I wondered that mys elf when
I was young, and when I as ked Abba, he s aid "Nabeel,
before Allah, we are all dirty, and we need His cleans ing.
Now imagine you bathed five times a day. How clean you
would be! The s alaat is the s piritual bath that Allah has given
Mus lims to keep us pure and clean. That is why we pray five
times a day."
There is s ome variation in the prayers . On Fridays ,
the
Is lamic Sabbath day, the imam gives a s ermon and Mus
lims
pray a modified form of the zuhr prayer, called Mumaa
The prayer.
only word MXPDD means "congregated," and it can be
that prayed with three people or more. So important is
Ammijumaa prayer
and Abba theusword
told that )ULGD\
if we mis in Arabic
s ed three and 8rdu is
jumaa
named after it.
prayers
in a row, we would have a black s car on our heart that
could never be cleans ed.
8nfortunately, we could not go to the mos que on Fridays
becaus e of its dis tance from our home and becaus e of
Abba¶s s chedule. Of cours e, we could als o not go to the
mos que for the five daily prayers either. So we us ually
prayed the daily s alaat and jumaa as a family at home.
If ever Abba was deployed and there was no male relative s
taying at our home, I would lead Ammi and %aji in prayer.
That s tarted at a young age, when Ammi felt I was mature
enough.
Although I enjoyed leading prayer, and although s ome
of the imams in our jamaat had melodious voices or
commanding pres ences , Abba was always my favorite imam.
His tempo, his voice, his melody, and his pos ition in front
of the res t of our family jus t s eemed right to me. Even now,
I can hear his voice reciting long portions of the Quran if I jus
t clos e my eyes . That is why I know thos e portions ,
becaus e I heard Abba repeat them s o often. Salaat s olidified
my father as my s piritual leader and indelibly chis eled the
Quran into my heart. That is the power of s alaat.