THE IMPORTANCE OF PRAYER

The first act that the believer will be accountable for on the Day of Judgement will be PRAYER. If the PRAYER life is good, then the rest of his acts will be good. And if it is deficient, then the rest of his acts will be deficient.

The importance of PRAYER is so great that one is ordered to observe it in all occasions, whether one is healthy or sick, whether one prays standing, sitting or lying down, whether one is traveling or residing and whether one is safe or in fear. PRAYER is our key to success in this world and in the hereafter.

Successful indeed are the believers who are humble in their PRAYERS, and who pay heed to their PRAYERS. These are the heirs who will inherit Paradise.

Furthermore, prayer time should also be a time of remorse and repentance, such that we earnestly ask God for forgiveness for those sins that we committed. In addition, the prayer in itself is a good deed that wipes away some of the evil deeds that we performed.

WHY DO WE PRAY?

Prayer is a commandment of God; God has commanded us to pray to Him, and to Him alone. In times of distress, we must turn to God for help; in times of comfort, we must express our gratitude to God; and when all goes well with us, we must still pray to God daily that He continue to show us His mercy and grant us our daily needs.

In our prayers to God we often address Him as our Merciful Father, or as our Father in Heaven, for God regards us, and we regard ourselves, as His children. The question may be asked, why do we have to pray to our Father in Heaven for our daily needs? Does God not know our needs even better than we our-selves? Is God not by His very nature, good and kind, and always willing to do us good? After all, children do not "pray" to their loving parents to feed them, and clothe them, and protect them; why should we pray to our Heavenly Father for these things?

Different people attempted to provide answer to these questions. But, like all other commandments which God has commanded us to do, not for His sake but for ours, He has commanded us to pray to Him for our sake. God does not need our prayer; He can do without our prayers, but we cannot do without our prayers. It is good for us to acknowledge our dependence on God for our very life, our health, our daily bread, and our general welfare. And we should do so every day, and many times a day. We must often remind ourselves that our life and happiness are a gift from our Merciful Creator.

MEANING OF PRAYER

The Hebrew word Tefilah (תפילה) is generally translated into English as the word "prayer." But this is not an accurate translation, for to pray means to beg, beseech, implore, and the like, for which we have a number of Hebrew words which more accurately convey this meaning. Our daily prayers are not simply requests addressed to God to give us our daily needs and nothing more. Of course, such requests are also included in our prayers, but by and large our prayers are much more than that.

In all the available definitions and meanings of prayer, I take it that PRAYER is a connection between the human and their Creator. This was established from the Arabic word Salah (صَلاة), originating from the word silah which means connection.