Heart beat escalating, forehead breaking into a cold sweat, lungs gasping for breath, tossing and turning in bed you wonder why peace evades you and why you just can't sleep.
Sitting on your desk, feeling like a cloud of mourning has serenaded you. You feel depressed for no reason. Your mind is muddled, you feel a headache coming. The air around you just keeps getting more and more suffocated.
You didn't pray, you didn't fulfill your obligation to God, then how on Earth will you feel at ease? Islam is based upon five pillars. And prayer is one of the pillars. God is all merciful but one thing He won't forgive is the missing of prayer!
Muslims are to pray five times a day, everyday. A human is judged by two of his relationships. One with His Lord and the other, with himself. If the very essence of the two relationships is not quite right then we can pretty much work out the rest of the personality.
The Holy Prophet (P.B.U.H) and his companions would pray even if a war was going on! One of Holy Prophet's (S.A.W) companion would start shivering upon just hearing the call to prayer. And when people inquired why he was shivering he answered it was because he was scared whether he'd be able to fulfill God's Command properly or not.
Offering prayer 5 times apart from being an obligation has a lot of benefits too! It promotes cleanliness as Muslims are to clean themselves thoroughly before it by doing ablution. It reminds us the crux of our existence as we recite the verses from Holy Quran. Afterall ablution helps us clean our bodies, Prayer helps us clean our souls. Gives us a chance to repent for our sins. To thank Lord. It promotes unity and equality amongst Muslims. As everyone stands and bows together no one is inferior or superior, rich or poor, everyone is equal in front of Allah. After all the riches of this world will remain here and only the deeds will accompany us in hereafter.
Praying 5 times helps us mould our lives into routine. Fajr(the morning prayer) helps us wake up in the morning. The rest also help in creating an excellent schedule. Prayers are to be offered at various times of day as it helps us remember God better. Fajr helps us wakeup remembering Allah. We say the rest of our prayers throughout the day fighting our busy schedule. Isha(the night prayer) helps us remember Allah as we are going to bed.
The various postures adopted in the prayer are useful exercises. Prayer helps achieve peace. As we bow down and rest our foreheads on the ground, our body literally follows in the Physics phenomenon of earthing. No wonder we feel at peace when prostrating!
Life is described as a metaphor that the duration of our life is as much as the duration between Call to Prayer and the time when Muslims gather in the Mosque. So we should pray before we're prayed upon.
