daily prayers
Someone asked the Prophet, peace be upon him and his family, about the timings of the Daily Prayers, and the Prophet, peace be upon him and his family, replied: ‘Jibraeel came to me and showed me the timings. He prayed Zohr when the sun passed the meridian as it declined to his right, and then he showed me the time of Asr, when the shadows of every object become equal to its size. Then he prayed Maghrib when the sun set, and he prayed Isha when the twilight disappeared. And he prayed the Subh prayers in the last part of the night’s darkness (near dawn) as the stars flickered. So you say your prayers on these times, and remain constant on the known tradition and upon the clear path. (narrated by Imam Ali (AS) attributed in al-Amali ch. 31, # 3)
(comment: The more we depend on printed paper schedules the more we become distant from our ecology and environment. The time for fajr is not “between 5:03 A.M. and 6:25 A.M. standard time). The time is: “the last part of the night’s darkness (near dawn) as the stars flickered”. Yes, given our present circumstances it is difficult to be in touch with our natural environment that we are a part off - do we even know what the words of the Prophet mean, without looking at that schedule stuck on our refrigerator? But still, we can atleast try, to the best of our abilities, inshallah).
October 30th, 2006 at 9:34 am
How right you are, Brother. A wonderful post about the real prayer times.
Ya Haqq!
October 31st, 2006 at 11:35 am
As salaam alaykum,
This is so important and so true. When I first started practicing, I didn’t have consistant access to prayer schedules and depended on the sun for estbalishing prayer times. I was never wrong and there was something very…humanizing about having a direct relationship with nature as a part of my spirituality.
October 31st, 2006 at 12:21 pm
Salam
I would have put the sentence opposite -the more we become distant from our ecology and environment, the more we depend on printed paper schedules.
I went hiking with my dad on Bald Mountain in the Siskiyous as a teenager and participated in a dawn ceremony on top of that mountain and remember thinking how seldom you go out and experience the dawn when living in a city. Whereas on a mountaintop it’s just a lot easier.
Now I live in an apartment in a city - and depend on printed prayer schedules - particularly in the short winter days I get so distracted I miss prayer times. Maybe our lives are just too full of extraneous stuff in general.