What are you saying?
I have been giving a lot of thought recently to my practise of Islam. I have absolute faith in the religion and its teachings, it is the way we practise it in Malaysia that has bothered me of late.
The problem lies in almost all elements of our practise of the rituals of Islam - Prayer, doa, reading of the Quran, etc. One example: The thing has has been bothering me is that we are tought the entire 'text' of prayer, in this I mean what we read like the Iftitah, Al-Fatihah and other bacaan during sujud, rukuk, tahyat, etc. How many of us actually understand the full text of what we are saying, reading, uttering? Another example: We are tought to memorise many surah's and read them during prayer and other times of need, but do we actually understand what we are sayin?
My frustration actually lies with myself. If I am an isolated case, then I pray to god that I can correct my waeknesses. I sometimes find myself being annoyed at myself at saying 'amin' during recitals of doa when I don't know what it is I am saying 'amin' to..
I believe there is a misinterpretation in this: We were told that we should try to read the Holy Quran, we should try to understand it, even if we don't understand it, and if we can't do this, we should just listen to readings of the Quran.
My feel is that 'even if we don't understand it' means that even if we cannot understand the moral, the hidden meanings or even the statement that is being made - not that we can't even differentiate one word from the other, let alone their meanings.
To describe: In English, Synergetic alliances prolong executional excellence as a sentence may not make much sense if I don't know the context of it being said. At least I know there are 5 words and can understand what each word means, thus having a certain degree of assuomtion to what this means.
Now if I wrote in the Japanese Katakana characters: シナジェチクアラヤンサスプロロンッグエクセキュショナルエキセレンス。For those that can read it, can u make sense of it. For those who say pick up Katakana, do you think it'll make a difference?
Even listening, I don't the teachings meant to listen and not understand would mean to listen and not understand a single word!
Forgive me and educate me if I am wrong, but how many people actually read and listen to the readings of the Quran and understand (at least in my description of the word) what is said? I sadly feel like it is no more than appreciating the harmonious melody of the readings. Is that not the same as listening to a nice Japanese song that we can't make out the words but like the song anyway? Again, forgive my comparison.
I have taken onto myself that this is not the way I want to practise the rituals of Islam. Slowly, I am trying to find out what is it I say when I pray, when I read the doa's, etc. As an immediate measure I am taking these steps, I have changed by reading of the Yaasin to reading the 'Tafsir' or translation, when I read the doa after prayers, I read it in Malay or English.
I hope to one day master Arabic to get to perform these rituals and understand the teachings of Islam in a whole different light. For now, I just want to know what is it that I am saying, do you know what you are saying?
The problem lies in almost all elements of our practise of the rituals of Islam - Prayer, doa, reading of the Quran, etc. One example: The thing has has been bothering me is that we are tought the entire 'text' of prayer, in this I mean what we read like the Iftitah, Al-Fatihah and other bacaan during sujud, rukuk, tahyat, etc. How many of us actually understand the full text of what we are saying, reading, uttering? Another example: We are tought to memorise many surah's and read them during prayer and other times of need, but do we actually understand what we are sayin?
My frustration actually lies with myself. If I am an isolated case, then I pray to god that I can correct my waeknesses. I sometimes find myself being annoyed at myself at saying 'amin' during recitals of doa when I don't know what it is I am saying 'amin' to..
I believe there is a misinterpretation in this: We were told that we should try to read the Holy Quran, we should try to understand it, even if we don't understand it, and if we can't do this, we should just listen to readings of the Quran.
My feel is that 'even if we don't understand it' means that even if we cannot understand the moral, the hidden meanings or even the statement that is being made - not that we can't even differentiate one word from the other, let alone their meanings.
To describe: In English, Synergetic alliances prolong executional excellence as a sentence may not make much sense if I don't know the context of it being said. At least I know there are 5 words and can understand what each word means, thus having a certain degree of assuomtion to what this means.
Now if I wrote in the Japanese Katakana characters: シナジェチクアラヤンサスプロロンッグエクセキュショナルエキセレンス。For those that can read it, can u make sense of it. For those who say pick up Katakana, do you think it'll make a difference?
Even listening, I don't the teachings meant to listen and not understand would mean to listen and not understand a single word!
Forgive me and educate me if I am wrong, but how many people actually read and listen to the readings of the Quran and understand (at least in my description of the word) what is said? I sadly feel like it is no more than appreciating the harmonious melody of the readings. Is that not the same as listening to a nice Japanese song that we can't make out the words but like the song anyway? Again, forgive my comparison.
I have taken onto myself that this is not the way I want to practise the rituals of Islam. Slowly, I am trying to find out what is it I say when I pray, when I read the doa's, etc. As an immediate measure I am taking these steps, I have changed by reading of the Yaasin to reading the 'Tafsir' or translation, when I read the doa after prayers, I read it in Malay or English.
I hope to one day master Arabic to get to perform these rituals and understand the teachings of Islam in a whole different light. For now, I just want to know what is it that I am saying, do you know what you are saying?
posted by syachou at 11:56 PM
5 Comments:
I have almost the same predicament as you, Fiqar... understanding what I read and recite in Arabic.
As such, I've also resorted to doa in Bahasa Melayu, and it seems the 'amiin' from the makmum was a little bit louder - maybe signalling comprehension.
There are 2 ways to do this - like u said, learn arabic or get the translation. I would go for learning Arabic. Wanna try at UIA campus?
Itulah, katanya kat sini nak start Arabic classes, so waiting for that, if that doesn't happen, then can take up your offer to go see UIA..
I think the campus in Sect 17 is offering night classes. Let's check.
Assalamualaikum. I think not knowing Arabic is not an excuse for being doubtful of what you read. There are translation of the Holy Qur'an available in the bookstores, and most Arabic prayers uttered after prayers are in standard formats, and in fact some of those are per Quranic verses as recommended by the Holy Prophet (pbuh) and the Companions. If we can spend time to learn English which is neither our native tongue, we should be able at least to browse pages of the Tafsir or books of general du'as to search for the meanings. I believe nowadays even fundamental simple sholat books contain meanings and translations of the verses uttered during fardh prayers. Just my 2 cents' worth.
As far as prayers go, any language is fine :)
Hi statikmajik, thank u for your comments, my blog has shifted to syachou2.blogspot.com
somehow not able to access this blog
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