One of the most important pre-requisites for anyone who wishes to succeed in Islam is Tawhid. In short, Tawhid is spiritual worship of God. It’s an essential principle of Islamic law, and one that every Muslim must learn to understand, if they wish to lead their religion to glory. Unfortunately, many Muslims who initially learn about Tawhid, and commit themselves to it, are unable to implement it, either out of fear or out of laziness. As a former student of Tawhid and as a teacher of Muslim personal relations, I want to offer you some advice on how to implement Tawhid in your daily life, whatever your situation.
The basic requirement of Tawhid, as taught by the Qur’an and transmitted down from generation to generation, is that we must say,” Allah is God, and Allah is great.” And that’s the key phrase in all Muslim prayers. In all Islamic prayer sessions, a mujahedeen, or Muslim priest, recites a phrase in Arabic, which is then followed by an acknowledgement of God. In many Muslim societies, tasbih can be repeated three times, with the same prayer being recited 33 times. In America, however, it is not uncommon for someone to say tasbih, three times, with the same prayer being repeated 33 times.
I remember when I was in college, I thought it would be fun to make a class project out of all the different Muslim prayer beads that we had around my campus. I made tasbih bags using the prayer beads that my class members were allowed to bring. Most of them were pretty small; I could hardly wrap them all up in a reasonable amount of time. It ended up taking me a whole afternoon to finish doing all of my beads, but I was able to complete all of them, including the ones that my college classmates decided to bring.
The next time I thought about doing something like that, it was when I needed some fast, cheap materials. This time, I went to the local home and garden store to purchase some misbaha. Misbha means “incomplete” in Arabic, but in America it just means “a variety of things”. These were, however, the exact same prayer beads that I had used to make tasbih bags using. I was a little disappointed that the home and garden store did not have any misbehhi in stock, but I knew that I would find it soon enough. When I went back to the store, I was excited to find a whole cart of misbehhi with each color representing a different prayer.
I was excited because this would be a great way for me to learn more about tasbih as I did not yet understand how the tradition began. What I learned about misbehhi was that it usually involves reciting the names of Allah (pray in Arabic) and having the right posture when doing so. In many traditions, you will do a round of tasbeeh before performing the actual prayer. With the Muhiba Japan style of tasbeeh, you sit with your legs apart and rest your back against the koma, or pillow of love, as the name is pronounced in Japanese. You then raise both hands to make a seal as a sign that you are performing tasbeeh with love in prayer. You then turn your face towards Mecca, which is what you will want to do when you pray in most schools of Islam.
After praying, you then raise both hands again to make a seal and turn your face toward the east. The only difference I could see between the two traditions was that the Islamic tradition calls for you to stand while the Japanese calls for you to sit. This difference did not seem to concern me though as my intention in reciting the name of Allah was to bow my head. In those days though, the only Arabic prayer I could do was stand while reciting the name of Allah.
Once you recited your prayer, you will then look to your left and find two people sitting on both sides of you. One person will be standing there with a piece of paper in his/her hand, which is called a subarea, and the other person will be sitting next to you with his/her hands empty. These two persons are known as the shaft in Arabic. In traditional Muslim traditions, when you perform tasbih, you raise your hands and the two persons facing you then raise their hands as well, but in the misbaah, you bow your head and the two persons to your left do the same.
Then the recitation of Allah’s name is recited and you are expected to place your hands into your lap of your friend/s. It’s important to note here that in traditional Muslim traditions, the two persons facing you raise their hands and the person next to you places his/her hands on either his/her lap or the one next to him/her. So, in traditionalism, when you raise your hands to tasbih, you are actually placing your hands on the person next to you in order to whom you are extending your hands out to, and in traditionalism, you raise your hands to pray for Allah, therefore, in Arabic, you place your hands down on the ground in order to perform the prayer. The meaning of this is that tasbih and misbaha are two very different prayer forms, hence, the difference in how they are performed.
