Holy is my Lord, the Most High
Hazrat Khalifatul Masih Rabi‘(rh) said,
“What is the difference between ‘Azim and A‘la? ‘Azim (Most Great) encompasses the entire universe, ‘Azim is not distant from you, it is close to you. You have come close to His ‘Azmat (greatness), seen His manifestation, and come in awe of it. However, A‘la (Most High) has such a loftiness that you feel you cannot be on the same level despite coming close to it. He is Most High, and however close you come, your awareness of His loftiness increases.… When you stand at the foot of a skyscraper, then you feel how high it is. However, there are some heights who’s foundation does not start from where you are; they are most high. For example, the loftiness of the sky is beyond your reach.” (Dhauqe ‘Ibadat, pp. 497)
The starting point of the ‘Azmat (greatness) of Allah Almighty begins at our level. It is like a mountain, at the foot of which we can stand. We can move towards His ‘Azmat (greatness) and see it from up close. That is why when we do Ruku‘, we incline towards the ‘Azmat (greatness) of Allah. We make a symbol of moving towards Allah. However, we cannot incline towards “the Most High” because His loftiness does not start at our level. If we wanted to admire a mountain from up close, we would move towards it. But if we want to admire the sky’s loftiness from up close, there is nowhere we can go. The more we try to move towards it, the more distant it feels. With “the Most High,” there is nowhere for us to go to, we are completely helpless. The spontaneous reaction to “the Most Great” is to incline towards it with Ruku‘. The spontaneous reaction to “the Most High” is to fall helplessly into Sajdah.
The Promised Messiah(as) said,
“Holy is my Lord the most High. The word a‘la (the most high) is in the grammatical form that expresses the superlative degree. This naturally calls for prostration. Therefore, along with these words, the image that one shows in practice is that of prostration.” (Malfuzat (English), vol. 2, pp. 148)
“The Most Great” refers to the power of Allah Almighty that exists within the realm of our capacity of comprehension. As far as our eyes can see and as far as our mind can take us, there we will find the awe-inspiring power of “the Most Great.” But “the Most High” refers to the power of Allah that exists beyond the realm of our capacity of comprehension. However far our mind is capable of taking us, just beyond that point is where “the Most High” begins. It takes sight to see “the Most Great,” but it takes insight to see “the Most High.” We recognize “the Most Great” through what we know, but we recognize “the Most High” by realizing how much we don’t know.
It takes a level of knowledge to know that we know nothing, and that is the journey from Ruku‘ to Sajdah. In Ruku‘, we reflect on everything we know about Allah Almighty, and we incline to Him and then express gratitude for having found Him. That knowledge leads us to realize how much we do not know of the reality of Allah Almighty, and it moves us towards Sajdah. For example, you and I may have a vague idea of how vast the universe is, but our comprehension of the unknown is very limited. On the other hand, an astronomer or an astronaut has a much better grasp of how vast the unknown is. Their better understanding of everything we know about the universe is directly proportional to how better their awareness is of how much we do not know about the universe. You and I look up at the sky and an astronomer looks up at the same sky, but they feel a greater awe of how much is unknown. This is because of their greater knowledge of the known. Similarly, the more our knowledge about Allah Almighty is, the greater our realization is of how much is unknown to us. We go into Ruku‘ out of a realization of how close our Lord is to us, and we go into Sajdah out of a realization of how distant our Lord is from us. That feeling of overwhelming distance creates the desire to express our helplessness with prostration. Our heart goes into Sajdah first, and then our body follows. We fall in humility, we feel awe at how beyond us “the Most High” is, and we then helplessly beg our Lord for His nearness.
That moment, when we feel helpless, is the perfect time for prayer. Even without words, that moment of humility in itself is a prayer. That is why we are encouraged to pray in Sajdah.
The Holy Prophet(sa) said,
“Glorify your Lord in Ruku‘ and exert yourself in supplication in Sajdah. Thus your supplications are liable to be accepted.” (Sahih Muslim, Book 4, Chapter )
The Holy Prophet(sa) said,
“Make frequent prostrations before Allah, for every prostration that you perform before Allah will raise you one degree and will remit one of your sins.” (Sahih Muslim, Book 4, Chapter )
The concept of being raised is connected directly with lowering ourselves in prostration. This is why the prayer of “raise me up” comes right before we go into our second prostration. When we say “raise me up,” we beg Allah Almighty to exalt us in acceptance of our having lowered ourselves before Him.
We experience one aspect of gaining heights by lowering ourselves in the secular world. For example, when a person thinks that he knows everything, then he feels less of a need to learn. His arrogance becomes an obstacle in his ability to reach the heights of learning. But when a person is aware of how much he does not know, he feels more of a need to learn. His humility opens his mind and enables him to reach the heights of learning. That is why Socrates said that he was wiser because he knew that he knew nothing. The higher we think our ego can take us, the lower we end. The lower we take ourselves in humility, the greater the heights we achieve in wisdom.
Hazrat Khalifatul Masih Rabi‘(rh) said,
“An ignorant and unintelligent person thinks that loftiness and vastness can be gained by raising his head. However, a person who is familiar with and has learned the secrets of human nature from the Holy Quran is well aware that loftiness is in humility and vastness is in humility. These two subjects are told to us by every Rak‘at of the five daily prayers. … We have bowed down towards loftiness because we have bowed towards the Most Lofty Lord.” (Khuṭbate Ṭahir, vol. 4, pp. 755, 6 Sept 1985)
The principle of exaltation through humility is very limited in its secular application. It is nothing more than a mental exercise entirely within ourselves. In spirituality, it takes on the form of a living relationship between our Creator and us; it is an interaction. We don’t just acknowledge our insignificance to ourselves, that is easy, and that is a mental exercise. Rather, we acknowledge our insignificance to our Lord. That acknowledgment is an interaction with Allah Almighty.
Narrating his first experience of this, Malcolm X said,
“Picking a lock to rob someone’s house was the only way my knees had ever been bent before. I had to force myself to bend my knees. And waves of shame and embarrassment would force me back up. For evil to bend its knees, admitting its guilt, to implore the forgiveness of God, is the hardest thing in the world. It’s easy for me to see and to say that now. But then, when I was the personification of evil, I was going through it. Again, again, I would force myself back down into the praying-to-Allah posture. When finally I was able to make myself stay down -- I didn’t know what to say to Allah.” (Autobiography of Malcolm X, Chapter 11)
Just lowering ourselves gives us an ability to rise that we did not have before. Our ego always refuses to prostrate. We may do Sajdah every day out of habit, but our ego will not let us think about what we are doing because of its embarrassment in that posture. When we truly prostrate before Allah, it is only after having overcome our ego. That prostration in itself is a glorification of Allah. The act of acknowledging our insignificance to our Lord in itself raises us. We acknowledge how low we are in front of the One who is the Most High.
When we reflect on the loftiness of Allah Almighty as only a concept, it can be a passive and detached glorification. But when we reflect on that loftiness while lowering ourselves to our most humble state, that has to become an active glorification of Allah.
Hazrat Khalifatul Masih Rabi‘(rh) said,
“There is no contradiction between humility and exaltation; rather, they depend on one another. That is why prostration is connected with exaltation. … The exaltation that is bestowed to man is deeply connected with humility. In prostration, we are taught the prayer of “my Lord is the Most High.” This means that when you have bowed your head before Him as far down as you can, now remember the Most Lofty Lord. Then you will receive His favor. A person who receives exaltation continues to bow down further accordingly. These two subjects are inseparable.” (Khuṭbate Ṭahir, vol. 15, pp. 904, 22 Nov 1996)
The more we seek exaltation from Allah, the more we prostrate to Him. As a result, we are raised. However, when we seek exaltation from the world, in reality, we prostrate to the world. It is most disgraceful for a believer to do Sajdah to anyone other than Allah Almighty. Prostration does not have value if we prostrate to the world and to Allah, it has value when we prostrate to Allah alone. When we fall before Allah Almighty and say that our Lord is the Most High, it means that we do not prostrate to anyone else, and we do not seek exaltation from anyone else.
Allah Almighty says,
“This is the Home of the Hereafter! We give it to those who desire not self-exaltation in the earth” (28:84).
When we place our face on the ground in prostration before Allah, to understand its gravity, we must remember how unparalleled this expression is. Our face has such dignity in Islam that it is described as being like an image of God in creation. Even in a fight, we are taught to respect the face of our opponent.
The Holy Prophet(sa) said,
“When any one of you fights with his brother, he should avoid his face for Allah created Adam in His own image.” (Sahih Muslim, Book 45, Chapter )
A Muslim carries himself with great dignity. The dignity with which he carries himself is what adds gravity to his act of humbling himself before Allah Almighty. The significance in the act of placing our face on the ground is immense. This is the highest expression of humility, and it is the only way we can express what our reality is before Allah Almighty.
Hazrat Khalifatul Masih Rabi‘(rh) said,
“Every Sajdah in our Salat is a reminder. When we are in a state that our head is on the ground and cannot go any lower, we are commanded to say, “Holy is my Lord the Most High.” We are rubbing our forehead on the ground, and we have made ourselves most dishonored and insignificant. However, our Lord is free of all imperfections and is Most High, and we can become lofty only by our connection with Him, not without Him. However much a person humbly bows down before God through remembrance of Allah, that is how much exaltation is bestowed on him by Allah Almighty. This exaltation is the grace of God. Otherwise, the true station of man is in his state of prostration, in his being nothing more than dirt in front of God. Outside of this, man has no station or rank. Whatever exaltation he receives is by the grace of God.” (Khuṭbate Ṭahir, vol. 13, pp. 63, 28 Jan 1994)
The purpose of Sajdah is to come to terms with our reality. As long as we think we are strong, we are not living in reality because we think we are god; we won’t feel any need to seek strength from God. We cannot pray to God if we have no need for God. We’ll comfortably make plans for the day without realizing that many of the people who died this morning had every hour of today planned out. Before we can start to pray, we have to accept the reality that we have no power and Allah Almighty is All-Powerful. Then we realize how fragile we are. Then we come to terms with how brutal reality is. We now have a need for prayer, and now we have no choice but to fall before Allah Almighty and beg for His help. Sajdah is simply coming to terms with reality; its beauty is in its simplicity.
The Holy Prophet(sa) said,
“The nearest a servant comes to his Lord is when he is prostrating himself, so increase supplications while prostrating.” (Sahih Muslim, Book 4, Chapter)
Prostration and prayer are inseparably linked to each other because humility is a necessary prerequisite for any prayer. Without it, there is no prayer. Any prayer offered without humility is just a formality because it is not born of necessity.
With each progressive stage of understanding our fragility, we take a step down and come closer to our reality. With each progressive stage of understanding Allah Almighty, we take a step up and come closer to His reality. When we are in the posture of our greatest lowliness, we are also at our closest to the loftiness of Allah. On the surface, it seems like a contradiction to pray “raise me up” right before we go down into our second Sajdah. However, the lower we go in humility, the nearer we come to the loftiness of Allah Almighty. We bow towards loftiness because we have bowed to the one who is the Most High.
One difficulty many of us face is finding pleasure in Salat. The mistake we make is that we directly look for pleasure in prayer. If we think about every time we have found pleasure in prayer, it was a result of pain. For example, we faced a crisis where we thought we might lose a loved one. It was that anxiety that made us turn to Allah Almighty so completely. We prayed to Allah in desperation. We were not looking for pleasure in prayer; pleasure was the last thing on our mind. It would be a disrespect to our love for a loved one if they were in a crisis and we were concerned with whether we were finding pleasure in praying for them or not. At that time of crisis, we were absorbed in the pain with which we were begging for the mercy of Allah Almighty. When we found the mercy of our Lord, then we automatically experienced pleasure. The mistake we make is how we try to recapture that feeling of pleasure afterward. When we come back to Salat looking for pleasure, it is long after that pain has left us. We come to Salat and remember that pleasure we felt when we prayed to Allah Almighty, but we have forgotten the pain we went through to get there. We keep trying to find pleasure in prayer directly without going down the necessary path of pain. As a result, our search for pleasure will only end in frustration because pleasure in prayer can only come from pain.
A similar principle applies to looking for pleasure in the remembrance of Allah. When we reflect on the attributes of Allah Almighty, we only think of the beauty of our Lord and completely forget ourselves. When we find Him and see Him, then our heart is filled with love and awe. At that moment, thinking about finding pleasure is the last thing on our mind. For example, when a mother gives birth and sees her child and hears it cry, she doesn’t wonder whether she is feeling pleasure yet or not, the way we sometimes wonder in Salat whether we are feeling pleasure yet or not. She is overwhelmed by love from seeing her child for the first time. The question of pleasure is the last thing on her mind; in fact, she even forgets the pain she is in. It is an insult to the beauty of motherhood to imagine that she would think in this way. Similarly, to observe the beauty of Allah Almighty is an experience in and of itself. The pleasure that results from that experience is completely secondary.
Pleasure in Salat can be experienced in two ways; the first is the remembrance of Allah, and the second is prayer. In both cases, the path to pleasure is through hardship.
As for pleasure in the remembrance of Allah, we can only experience the pleasure of seeing Allah Almighty after making ourselves blind to the world. We have to bear the hardship of striving against our lower self to the point where we cease to exist, and the only being left is Allah Almighty. When we lose our selves, then we find our Allah.
As for pleasure in prayer, we can only experience pleasure after facing our helplessness and embracing that pain. This pain causes us to melt before our Creator, which automatically brings a feeling of euphoria. Pleasure in prayer comes only after we let go of any control we think we have in prayer. There is no direct path to pleasure.
Our purpose in Salat is not to find pleasure. That would reduce Salat to a spiritual pastime and amusement. The purpose of Salat is to find Allah Almighty, and the moment we find Him, the question of pleasure disappears from our mind. If we look directly for pleasure in Salat, then we will only find pain, but if we face our pain in Salat, then pleasure will inevitably find us.
The Promised Messiah(as) said,
“It must also be remembered that this pleasure cannot be likened to the pleasure that an impulsive evil-doer feels in fornication, or to the enjoyment that an admirer of good voices experiences on hearing a melodious person sing —not in the least; one must not be deceived. The soul experiences pleasure when a human being melts and begins to flow towards God in the likeness of water, due to fear and awe of Him.” (Malfuzat (English), vol. 2, pp. 121)
The posture of Sajdah expresses the sentiment needed to correct our mistake of looking directly for pleasure. Sometimes, Allah Almighty tires us out in our pursuit of pleasure in Salat until we finally break. Our frustration pushes us to the point where we give up on doing things our way. Then we fall before Allah Almighty and admit that we are lost and have no idea how to observe Salat. That moment of helplessness is the first time we let go of pursuing pleasure, and we finally embrace our pain. That is the first time that pleasure finds us in Salat. Ironically, our pursuit of pleasure ends up causing us the pain needed to reach that point of pleasure we were looking for. Whenever we find ourselves making the mistake of looking directly for pleasure in Salat, the posture of Sajdah should remind us that success is only in letting go of what we want and then submitting to Allah Almighty in helplessness. Then, what we wanted will find its way back to us in a better way.
The Promised Messiah(as) said,
“Be not content with thinking that you pray every day and that the whole of Salat is prayer, for the prayer which issues after understanding and through grace is of a different type altogether. It is something that destroys; it is a fire that melts; it is a magnetic power that draws mercy and it is a death which in the end revives. It is a raging flood which finally becomes an ark. Every frustration is remedied by it and every poison becomes an antidote through it.” (Ruhani Khazain, vol. 20, pp. 222, Lecture Sialkot, pp. 31)