“God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can and wisdom to know the difference.” As a young child I would see this prayer hanging in my grandma’s beach house in Rowad and marvel at the depth it conjured. I didn’t understand what serenity meant, but I remember feeling very “serene” reading it. I quickly memorized it and found myself reverting back to it whenever things got confusing. I remember thinking how far off I was from “wisdom” but reveling in its power nevertheless. This was long before I learned of its connection to AA and other 12-step programmes. At the time, I had no idea it was a famous prayer that other people around the world knew, I just thought it was something my grandma had found on her travels and taken a fancy to. It helped me that the prayer was in English. Up until that point the only experiences I had had with prayer was the salah we were taught at school. For the first time in my life prayer felt like something intimate between me and God. Prayer was simplified, not full of confusing and scary Hocharabisch terms like هذه جهنم التي كنتم توعدون . I remember writing the prayer down in my notebook and looking at it whenever I felt like I had questions. It was a saviour.

Years later, I would revert back to this prayer in a time of great need. At the very beginning of my sickness, when my physical and emotional symptoms were so completely screwed up I couldn’t figure out where one started and the other ended, I suddenly recalled this prayer I had encountered in my youth and took to reciting it. Often, things felt clearer afterwards, like they had been put into perspective. At the very least it gave me something to hold on to, some semblance of “wisdom” (likely linked to instinct). The prayer stripped away some of the fear I felt and delivered my anxiety up to a greater force. I know it sounds ridiculous to say that just one short sentence could do that, but it did. At least, as a momentary solution.

In my self-improvement days I used to listen to a lot of Oprah. I came across her Supersoul Sunday podcast and would put it on every time I was in the car (which if you live in Egypt is a lot, believe me). There’s a story she tells in one of her interviews about her obsession with the book The Colour Purple and the power of prayer. The story goes that she auditioned for a role in the movie version of The Colour Purple, wanting very badly to act in this film. The audition was apparently under wraps because they used a fake name for the movie title, but she recognized the story anyways because she had read the book and fallen in love with it. She mentions finding a character named Harpo in the script and feeling like it was a sign from Jesus that she was meant to get this role— Harpo being Oprah spelled backwards. Time passes and she doesn’t hear from the casting directors, so she calls them, and they tell her there are “real” actresses auditioning for this part. So – thinking she will never get the part—she gives up and blames the whole thing on her being too fat. She goes to a fat farm to lose weight and prays to God to help her let go of this role. She can’t imagine why she wouldn’t get it if she was guided to it, but she wants to be able to thank God for the opportunity and so she prays for surrender. She finds herself singing “I surrender all, all to thee my blessed saviour, I surrender all” until she feels she has let it go. Not only let it go, but also able to be happy for whoever got it. And just as she’s praying and surrendering, she gets a call from Steven Spielberg telling her “if you lose a pound you could lose this part”. She got the part.

This is one small example of the power of prayer and it is the story that made me believe that prayer could have an actual physical tangible effect on our lives. But what is prayer? In the Muslim world, prayer is that act that you perform five times a day, whereby you recite verses from the Qur’an as you terka3i wa tasjudi, or –as my UCSB suitemate called it— “go up and down”. Prayer is one of the five commandments of Islam, the only one performed on a daily basis. In the energetic world, prayer— as we have come to understand it following sunnet al Rasul— is a grounding act. One that doesn’t just connect you to your maker, but actually physically grounds you.  

My grandma once told me the story of a Christian German who converted to Islam because of the act of sujud. She had always felt in her spiritual journey that she was missing something and apparently found it when she saw a Muslim praying and touching his head to the floor. Imitating him, she found that this position— more so than the kneeling on your knees in her own faith— signified the complete surrender that she wanted to feel when she was praying to God. It brought her back to Him.

In this vein, a friend of mine, who is a strong believer, had always grown up with doubts about salah. She never connected to it. She did it anyways, because she felt it was better to be safe than to be sorry, but deep down she was always unconvinced. That is until she did her yoga teacher training in India and realized that— give or take a few movements— sun salutation ( the cornerstone of yoga) was awfully close to salah. Implementing what she had learned of attention and breathing techniques into her prayer practice, she was finally able to connect and to feel that “thing” you’re supposed to feel when you pray.

Personally, I’ve had a rocky journey with prayer. I have mostly always done it— at least subh and ‘isha— but I’ve definitely gone through some ups and downs in terms of consistency and timeliness. But even though I do it, I can’t tell you why I do. What I can tell you, is that I, too, was converted. When I did my year abroad in Santa Barbara, I found myself more and more curious about my faith. Ensconced in a melting pot of belief and non-belief systems, I started asking a lot more questions about why we do what we do. Why do we pray? Why do we fast? Why are we “supposed” to pray five times a day in a particular manner? Why can’t we just talk to God like we talk to a friend? Or take five moments of silence each day and sit in meditation? I attended a Catholic mass with a friend of mine there and discovered that prayer can look so many different ways. Who’s to say we got it right? And so, I experimented. I prayed this way and that. I meditated. I recited some things and listened to recordings of dhikr and Qur’an. But still, when it came down to it, I always came back to what I knew. Whenever I felt lonely or homesick or scared, I found myself reaching back to my upbringing and the way of praying I had been taught as a child. Prayer was a lifeline for me. Prayer grounded me and made me feel like there was a structure to my day. Prayer got me out of my mind and in a space of surrendering to something bigger, maybe even more so because I didn’t really get it. Something about the routine of prayer felt “right”.

In another anecdote, I have a friend who lives in a country where outward displays of religiosity are frowned upon. She struggled for a long time with the idea of praying in public and felt like she would be doing her religion a disservice to display it so blatantly where it wouldn’t be understood. Where she would probably be deemed as an extremist. So, she amended her prayer practice. Believing that prayer was about the “sela” and not necessarily the actions, and that it should be performed regardless of the conditions (she didn’t believe that going home and praying everything qada was the solution) she prayed “fel serr”, adapting her prayer into a kind of mental meditation.

I have often questioned where the line is between prayer and meditation. I have met a lot of people that find it impossible to meditate and so consider prayer their daily dose of meditation. I have also met a number of people that don’t pray at all, that don’t necessarily follow any religion, but meditate religiously. From an Islamic point of view, and potentially from that of many other religions that value the power of prayer, the difference would be in the “having to”. Prayer is dictated, and so, like it or not you must perform it. Whereas meditation would be a practice you seek out to augment your spirituality. I have avidly practiced both and can tell you that they are pretty similar, but I would say varied in one particular aspect. When you are meditating you focus on the listening aspect and learn to still your entire self for a message to come through. When you are praying, on the other hand, you are more “talking to” God. You are making demands or reciting verse or performing actions. They are similar, in that they both should bring peace of mind, but the way through is different. Ideally though, if you are doing both correctly, they should both get at that heart space. They should move you beyond your understanding of yourself and connect you to something greater.

My mom believes that the heart is what it’s all about when it comes to prayer. That prayer is the gateway to enlightenment. According to her, sufi texts talk about “ensherah al sadr” (the breaking of the heart) a moment when— after you have prayed and dedicated yourself to God— the veil sort of lifts and you are able to feel the energy flow. Thus, when we pray, we should be focusing on the heart as our centre. I have often heard of people that feel a kind of serenity wash over them when they pray, or an electric tingling in their hands. Personally, I haven’t felt shit, although I have managed to “connect” while deep in meditation. This was around the time that I began to pray more and pay attention (at UCSB), so maybe one leads to the other.

Prayer is a mystery to us and the more I do it the more questions come up regarding prayer. My dad swears that praying in Jerusalem was a life-altering experience for him, which just got me wondering why it would make a difference? Why do certain times or places or sayings carry with them an energy that is “special”? Why would God respond to one prayer but not another? Why can I recite a verse a hundred times and then on the hundred and first feel a warmth or an understanding that I didn’t feel before? I don’t know if I will ever figure out these things, or if they will forever remain a mystery, but I’d like to say that the key to finding out— to enlightenment— is consistency. Do it long enough and honestly enough and maybe you will learn something.

Quizzingly yours,

Girl With One Earring

Photo Credit: Akram Reda @akramareda