At-Tahiyyat - the origin.

What is the dividing line between muslims and non-muslims? Salah. But is that all there is to it? No; it has been said by the Prophet (S.A.W.) that Salah is the Mairaj of a Momin. However, for how many of us is that even true? We pray salah like we breathe; without thinking and without concentration. But WHY is it that we are so heedless with regards to our salah? The answer may vary from person to person but generally it’s either because we lack that level of imaan needed for us to attain khushoo or that we lack the understanding of what salah actually is.

For right now, let’s just focus on the second part that is the understanding of what salah actually is; its importance and uniqueness. We pray salah as an act of obedience to Allah and to remember Him, that is the purpose of salah. But sometimes, to have a deeper understanding of its purpose, we need to have a deeper understanding of its origin; it was “gifted” to the Prophet (S.A.W.) during his mairaj. It is a gift, it is a blessing and not just that but there is a part of salah which is the actual part of the conversation that took place between Allah and the Prophet (S.A.W.).

So what is this special part of the salah which gives a whole new meaning to the statement that “Salah is the Mairaj of a Momin”? It is the at-tahiyyaat that we recite in namaz. During the mairaj, Hazrat Jibrael (A.S) was assisting Prophet (S.A.W.) with his journey but when they reached the seventh sky, Hazrat Jibrael (A.S) refused to accompany him beyond that point as he said that he’ll get burnt if he went any further so then Prophet (S.A.W.) went on his own. And when the Holy Prophet (S.A.W.) reached the place that we don’t know of and met Allah Subhan-o-Ta’ala he sent his greetings upon Allah which forms our first part of the attahiyaat: Attahiyat-tu lilLah, wassalawato, wathtayyabatu which means “Greetings to thee, O Allah, and prayers and all good things.”

Then Allah answered his greetings by saying: Assalam-u Alayka ayyuhan nabiyu wa rahma-tul-lahy wa barakatu-hu which means “Peace be upon you, O Prophet, the mercy and the blessing of God be upon you.” And this forms the second part of our attahiyaat. Here notice that Allah sends peace, mercy and blessings only upon Prophet (S.A.W.) and Prophet (S.A.W.) could have just graciously accepted it but he had so much love for his ummah that he did not want to exclude us from the mercy of Allah so he included: Assalam-u alayna wa ‘ala ‘ibadillah-his swaliheen which means “Peace be upon us, and upon the righteous people of God.” 

And when Hazrat Jibrael heard this conversation between Allah and His messenger from wherever he was, he bore witness to it by saying: Ashhadu Allah ilaha illalLah wa ashhadu- unna Muhammad-an ‘abdu-hu wa rasool-lu hu which means: “We witness that there is no god but Allah, and Muhammad is His slave and His Prophet.”

SubhanAllah! This one small part of the salah captures such an immense incident in itself with all its beauty. So I think if we even started concentrating on just our attahiyaat while praying then In shaa Allah our salah will be a whole lot better. Of course, we should always make an effort to be attentive throughout the salah and this can act as a stepping stone for us in attaining concentration and khushoo in namaz.