Why I Struggle With My Prayers

Photo Credit: Ata Mohammad Adnan/Getty Images

     I remember that in 5th grade in Palestine, my religion teacher would often choose to forego the regular class schedule and instead take us on a class trip to the nearby mosque. This was always welcome news. It meant that instead of sitting in the boring classroom, we would get a chance to go outside and go to Masjid al-Ansar. On our way there, we usually passed by a bakery and for just a half shekel, we could get a freshly backed pita. It was so good that even today it continues to make my mouth water some 20-years later. The all-boy class would enter the empty mosque slowly, usually during a time where there was no daily prayer service happening. The building was quiet, and calm. Sunbeams shone through colored glass highlighting the mild dust in the large carpeted hall. We calmly approached the front of the prayer area, perform the “greetings-to-the-mosque” prayer, and then sit with our legs crossed and whisper among ourselves. The religion teacher, a middle-aged man with a short beard would then sit in front of us and teach us about the practices of prayer: the physical actions, the sayings, the calmness, the stillness and most importantly, the intention and God-consciousness. There were other more technical aspects that were discussed, like the prayer times, the specific forms of bowing and prostrating (touching the forehead to the ground), what to do if you forget one component of the prayer and what supplications to make after the prayer once you’re done. These were great experiences, especially when seen through nostalgic lens.

     For the uninitiated, within the Islamic creed, there is a physical/spiritual act of prayer taught as a “personal obligation." It consists of cyclical units of bowing and prostrating called raqa’as. There are five prayer times during the day and each prayer time has a specific number of raqa’as. For example, the pre-sunrise prayer has two raqa’as, while the evening prayers has four. Growing up, as young as I can remember, I have witnessed people around me praying like this. Some of these prayers were solo prayers, while others were performed in unison in a congregation. It was explained to me early on that Muslims pray because God told us to pray, that good Muslims pray, that prayer was a way to connect to God, that it was important to make sure that I get all my prayers done so that I could get “good deeds,” which were likely to help me achieve the ultimate reward: Jannah (Heaven) in the hereafter. On the other hand, I was also taught that if I chose not to pray, that this was a grave sin, that God would not approve and that I risk punishment in the hereafter.

       I learned about prayer initially from my parents. I saw my mom and my dad regularly pray. Sometimes my dad’s prayer would be out loud; we could hear his booming voice throughout the house reciting Quranic verses. Other times, it was silent and seemed more personal and discrete. My earliest memories consist of me sitting in my dad’s lap after he had completed his prayer, while he silently continued on with his supplications, mumbling and whispering under his breath. Even though I don’t fully remember this, but I’m pretty sure that I was one of those kids that would climb on their dad’s back while he was in prostration. When I was 9 years old, I went back to Palestine for the first time. I had the opportunity to learn more about religion in a structured school curriculum. We learned the ins and outs of prayer and what is “obligatory” and “voluntary” within the prayer. “Well, the fard (obligation) is to do things this way, but if you want to literally follow the way of the Prophet there is always these additional components  that you can do for extra reward.” I observed the actions of my relatives. They would say things like, “Oh, I forgot to pray duhr (the noon prayer).” “I need to pray ‘asr (the afternoon prayer).” “I need to redo wudu (ablutions).” “Did you pray?” "Want to perform a group prayer?" That last question was the most frequently floated.  If there happened to be a group prayer starting up nearby, you were asked to join. If you didn't pray with the group, while not said explicitly, that could reflect negatively on you.

       In fact, if it was known that you didn't pray, in my conservative city in the early 2000s, you would stick out. Prayer was the badge of the “good” Muslim and the “good” citizen. The way I interpreted it, if I didn’t pray, it meant that I was lazy, was rebellious, had a lack of faith and/or something was wrong with me. In fact, people who didn’t pray (or at least didn’t outwardly pray) were looked at as if they are lost. “Make God guide them,” I would hear people say among themselves. There were two camps. The people who prayed and the people who didn’t and it was clear who thought they were the “rightly guided” ones. As a young child, I very much wanted to be a "rightly guided" one. I wanted to do everything right. I wanted to have people and God approve of me. I wanted to have the discipline, principles and actions to be a “true” believer. I paid attention to all the details, the rules and the regulations. I joined my dad for the weekly Jummah (Friday) prayer and I was recognized for it. I was a good Muslim kid.

       But something was off. Prayer, as it was taught to me, seemed like a race against the clock to collect “reward.” It was crucial to pray each prayer at the allotted times, and if you forget, sleep through it or miss it because you were distracted, you needed to make it up. Missing prayer had such shame attached to it. “Time's up for that prayer,” I would hear. It sounded so tragic, that it was gone and it would never be back. There was nothing to do about it. I couldn’t save it. I could make it up, but it wouldn't be the same. It could never be the same. I should have done better. I should have remembered. I must not be doing it right. I must not be a good one. Of course, I understand today that things are not so black and white like that, but I was young and young people have that kind of binary thinking. The make-up prayer was supposed to relieve you of that burden. God is All-Forgiving, we were taught, and if we made it up, then it was okay and we can move on. But the pressure was always there. My perfectionist senses were always constantly tingling and I was determined to get it right.

       The interesting part about all this that when it came down to it, prayer was meant and taught to be a very private thing. A personal connection between one and the divine. It was true that prayers were encouraged to be done in a congregation, but ultimately, nobody knew what you were muttering underneath, what your true intentions were. Nonetheless, no matter how it is practiced, it still a noticeably outward expression of prayer, and in my community, there was this constant perceived pressure to show people that you prayed, that you were part of the group, that you were part of the “rightly-guided” people who showed up  and got it done. If you were a believer, it's best that you proved that you were part of the in crowd. This notion never was explicit but that did not matter. It had a real psychological hold on me and with it, the beginnings of dreaded feelings of shame.

       “What are you doing?” a large swarthy bearded man asked me once. I was about 14 and performing my ablutions before prayer at my mosque in the US. “I’m wiping my socks.” I responded. I was taught that if you had performed your ablutions and had worn socks and then wanted to renew your ablutions all you had to do was wipe on top of the socks, instead of washing your feet. “You can’t do that. Those socks are too porous, they are not water-proof. The Sunnah (Prophetic saying and actions) says that it needs to be water-impermeable.” He said. I had heard this many times, but I also heard that some scholars were okay with regular socks. “Don’t worry about it. I was taught that this is okay,” I said to man. “According to who?” he challenged me. “I don’t know, that’s just what I’ve been taught in Palestine.” I responded. He just shock his head and left. After washing up, I stepped into the prayer hall where a congregational prayer was forming. As I've done many times, I stepped forward in front of the congregation and volunteered to lead the prayer.  “Did you perform your ablutions properly?” a familiar voice boomed from the congregation. I looked back and saw the large bearded man. “Yes.” I said meekly. The large bearded man beamed at me but let it go. I led the prayer, but needless to say, that particular prayer wasn’t the most meditative experience.

       “Your prayer was too fast.” “Your prayer was too slow.” “Your prayer is too late.” “There is no voluntary prayer directly before or after ‘asr.” “You’re facing the wrong way.” “You form is not correct.” “It’s best to pray in the front line of the mosque.” “Did you pray Sunnah?” “You want to pray together?” “We’re about to pray, do you want to pray with us?” “Why are you about to pray alone when there is a group prayer starting over there?” “Group prayers have more reward.” "Did you pray?" "Do you want to pray?" "I can't do it then, it close to prayer time." "Before we start the event, if you want to pray, there is room in the hall" "We are going to pray at the mosque and we'll be right back. Do you want to come with us?" "Did you pray?" "Do you want to pray with us?" "Oh, we just missed on the prayer, damn the devil" " Do you pray?" "How is your prayer?" "Prayer is the most important thing in the life of a Muslim" "If you don't pray, what makes you different than a non-believer?" "How can you be a Muslim if you don't pray?" "Did you pray?" "Did you pray?" "Did you pray?"

       No wonder that as I started college, prayer was surrounded in a cloud of shame, perfectionism, harshness and overall negativity. As I struggled through my first few years of college, I was expecting that prayer would make things better. It didn’t. It made things worse. I wasn’t able to keep my prayer through my anxiety/depression, my stress, my harmful behavioral cycles/addictions, my demanding schedule, my increasingly troublesome public and private relationships, my newly budding social life, and my growing distance from the Muslim community. This was a time where prayer should have actually helped, but it wasn't helping. I tried really hard to get it right but the more and more I missed prayers, the more I saw myself as falling out of favor with God, away from the “rightly-guided good boy” Muslim image that I grew up. I couldn’t get it perfectly. What was wrong with me? Why couldn’t I just do it? I must just not believe enough. I must just be a lazy incompetent fake Muslim. I can't get it right. I can't get this right.

        At some point, I saw clearly that prayer became a big cause of my shame, depression and hopelessness. I knew I need to reassess things. It was also at this time that I started seeking counseling for personal reasons. I began to look back at the negative associations with prayer, the mosque and the congregation. The role that perfectionism has played in my life. The role that shame had played in my life. Many questions came up as I began to renegotiate my faith with God. Is God working with me or against me? A question emerged: Why do I pray?

       As long as I can remember, prayer was taught to me as an obligation. You did it because you were obligated to do so. The Quran is filled with verses that look kindly on people who keep their prayers. Muslims interpret these verses to refer to the very specific way that was taught to us by the Prophet. I was taught that prayer was a means to continuously connect with God, to stay connected to the One in control, for the sake of comfort, for the sake of praise, for the sake of gratefulness. But it was also a declarative action. Prayer is done in congregations in line format in unison. It is a very powerful display of one people praying to one God. In Palestine, prayer was often political, used as protest or as non-violent resistance. For example, even till today, protesters regularly pray in the Abrahamic mosque in Hebron or in Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem as a means of cementing their connection with the holy sites and the land. The practice has many dimensions to it. But the question was, why did I pray? When it came down to it, to be really honest with myself, I prayed because I was taught to pray, and I was taught to pray for the sake of conforming to the group, to be considered one of the “good” ones, to be “rightly-guided,” in a never ending race to get to heaven.

       But these reason weren't good enough for me anymore. Under this logic, unless prayer was in my life, I had no inherent self-worth, no redemption no matter how much I tried. It is in the act of conformity to the orthodoxy of witnessed prayer that allowed me to be "worthy," and since I was having a really hard time keeping up with it, it only made sense that I was also having a hard time keeping my self-worth intact. It became a forward feedback control loop.

       “The only thing that separates Muslims from non-Muslims is the establishment of the prayer.” I heard this saying many times in my life. It was usually said in the context of trying to describe the importance of prayer. While you could use this positively, in my state of mind, the only thing I took away from this saying is that unless I can keep up, unless I can calm my mind, unless I can get it together, I would fail at being a "Muslim." The concept of prayer, and/or lack thereof, started to burden my mind, my heart and my soul.

       I remember the first time I heard about prayer as a practice. I had a white convert friend in my early college years who referred to prayer as the "practice of prayer." I was relieved by this phrase. As if it was something to work on, to improve, without the assumption that you would get it right every time, without the perfectionist aspect. But this flexibility was nowhere to be found within the community or within my own conditioned mind. I had been brought up to look at prayer within a very limited definition and that made things difficult for me to see it as a practice. If fact, it was getting to a point where the negatives were overpowering the positives. I didn't know what to do. How to improve or whether not I wanted to improve...so I made decision. I intentionally and actively suspended praying indefinitely.

       Now, I know that I’ve always had many options in regards to prayer. I had the option to throw the baby out with the bath water and just stop practicing Islam altogether. I didn’t want to do that. Even with all the communal and scholarship issues, I still valued the Islamic tradition. I didn’t want to stop praying, nor did I want to stop believing. It meant way too much to me. But I couldn’t continue the way I was doing it.

       I continued suspending my prayer for a while, trying really hard to be okay with that. When people would get up to pray, I stay seated or went into another room till they were done. I dealt with the (projected) looks of disappointment and judgement. I had to defend myself to my mom who just couldn't understand how her "learned" son didn't pray. She argued, she pleaded, she sobbed but to no avail. I just wasn't ready to tackle this issue. I slowly started to escape from the constant toxic state of shame that I've existed in for the longest time. I missed it occasionally. I did feel like I was missing out on something good. But I didn't know a good way to reintroduce myself to this practice without launching right back into my issues of shame and dismay. My personality, life style, social life and habits started to change significantly and I was learned to be okay with that. I slowly become the "outsider" to the community: the same group of people that I had often looked down upon when I was part of the in-crowd. This was a perspective that was very informative and valuable.

       I did pray every now and then, when I felt like it, when I wanted to. But even then, I was still practicing on autopilot, the recitations, the moves, all passed without thinking about them once, without meditating on the feeling, the whole thing was still so empty. I didn't identify with those who told me that it brought them relief. I actually didn't believe them! I was just so skeptical that this practice could be integrated into my life without turning me into a disingenuous robot practitioner. Nonetheless, there were still days where I prayed and I felt good about it. But this was the rare instance and not the norm.

       In 2016, I moved to Pittsburgh to follow my professor and continue to my doctoral student work. It was a very big change for me. I tried my best but certain events during this time and the overall loneliness of the city pushed me into a very deep and dark depression. It was in this mentality that I thought, "What do I have to lose? I'm already at the lowest I can be. I might as well give prayer a chance." I agreed that I would give it a try but I established some important conditions so that I wouldn't re-trigger my old issues of shame. First, no prayers in congregations (except for Friday prayers) and if I missed a prayer, that I would not make it up. These two conditions had the potential to keep away from me many of the negative associations that had accumulated over the years. With these conditions being applied, I subtly tasted the sweetness of prayer again. I felt better. My depression lifted just ever so slightly just enough for me to see a light at the end of the tunnel to my circumstances. I started seeking company within the Muslim community as a form of re-connecting and reacquainting myself with my former myself. To reestablish my identity, I made an agreement with myself that I would not hide who I am, what I've done and that I would not be disingenuous. I would call out issues that I had been silent about in the past and overall, I would attempt to practice self-forgiveness, self-acceptance and self-compassion.

       This continued on for a while and I became pretty grounded and okay with the general idea of my prayer practice. But it was around the beginning of 2018 when I started experiencing a dissociative brain fog that would distance me from my surroundings. This took a significant toll on my prayer. My connection with the prayer that I had developed during the last 6 months had vanished. Instead, I was dissociated and confused. The years of stress, anxiety and depression had caught up to me and I didn't know what to do any more. My mental health was about to take a nose dive and I just mentally could not continue with my prayers.

       We don't often hear about mental health issues in my community, especially as it pertains to prayer. There is an idea that one hears floating around that  people who can't stand up during prayer should sit down. Those who can't sit down should lay down. No matter what, no matter your condition, you must pray. But we never hear about those with mental issues like depression, anxiety, dissociation, depersonalization derealization, OCD, ADHD and other syndromes that have a big toll on people's willingness and/or ability to perform their prayers. My condition was very difficult to explain to people around me, making it (again) difficult to "justify" not praying when I brought it up in public.

       Today, I continue with my mental health issues regarding dissociation, brain fog and other issues that have come up since I've finished with my graduate studies. I took a break to relax and do nothing. I have the privilege of being able to stay with family during this time. While things got a tiny bit better, and I could focus just a little more, my prayers were never fully restored. There was a Ramadan (the fasting month) where I managed to keep it going for a whole month, privately. But even when I decided that I'm present enough to pray, I'm still haunted by the old stuff, the old associations, the old unresolved issues. I just haven't had the willingness and availability to look into this, to try to resolve issues of old. I know that prayer doesn't have to be that, that prayer takes on different forms and different methods. There is merit to following the Prophetic methods and I plan to continue in that tradition, but I do think there is much to learn from other traditions when it comes to connection, meditation and spirituality: three of the things that I wish was infused into the lessons about prayers growing up.

       All that being said, I still miss prayer. I miss it dearly. I miss the connection to prayer. I miss the positive associations: the community and the family events. Most especially, I miss the calm quiet state of serenity that I experience walking into empty mosques with light beams shining through the windows. Whether it be alone or with good companions, I want to be able to perform prayers of connection that I can walk away from afterwards feeling...okay. I want to feel okay. I want to feel better. I want to feel connected to God, to come back to a community and head space where I feel received, loved and accepted. In the meantime, there's not much more to say about this other than: "May God guide us, may God forgives us and may God bless us." and as Muslims say after praying together in congregation, "May God accept your prayer and mine." Ameen. 


The Token Arab is a personal blog run by a Palestinian American het cis man from Arizona

Photo by Ata Mohammad Adnan/Getty Images originally posted on the NPR article below:

https://www.npr.org/2017/01/18/510346895/after-trumps-election-a-non-practicing-muslim-returns-to-prayer