This Ramadan, 2025, we will be trying something new here on The Dua Journal blog. Back when I was a new convert, I kept a pretty regular blog and one Ramadan, in 2018, I decided to do a Ramadan series called "Inner Dimensions" where I explored the spiritual side to our Ramadan worship and rituals.
This Ramadan, I really want to go back to basics and look at our worship not as an end in and of itself, but the means to the end of bringing ourselves closer to Allah, and so I am bringing back that Inner Dimensions series with some slight updates.
Today we will start with one of the five pillars, and the foundation of our faith: the salah, or five times daily prayer.
The more sisters I talk to, the more I find that we tend to really struggle with our salah. We struggle to pray on time, to concentrate during our prayer, and even to feel anything when we pray. From my experience, much of the time salah issues come from a misunderstanding of the purpose of salah.
So often, we think of our salah as merely an obligation. It is a fard, an item that we must check off of our to-do lists five times every day, a ritual to be performed.
But the point of salah is not just to be performed; it is to be experienced.
In the time of the Prophet (saws), they saw prayer as their ultimate source of comfort, a meeting and a conversation with Allah, an opportunity to detach from the world and recite the book of Allah, the Quran.
I want to started with prayer for this series because I want to start Ramadan with strengthening the foundation.
As we reflect on what prayer means for us in our daily lives, and especially in this Holy Month, I want to share with you a couple of tips to help you tap back into the inner dimension of your salah.
Detach from Dunya
Ramadan is the ideal time to practice detaching from the dunya, the mundane world around us, as we are already fasting from many things that are normally permissible.
Notice when you are praying salah, what thoughts keep coming up for you. For many of us it is our to-do lists, or something that we are feeling stress over. Take some time after your salah to reflect on the thoughts that you noticed.
There are many ways to work on our detachment from the dunya; fasting is certainly one of them.
Another tool that is useful in helping us to detach from the dunya both within salah and in the larger context of our lives is to practice mindfulness and quiet reflection.
So often we spend all day going and doing, producing and consuming, that we very rarely take time to just be. Try taking a couple of moments each day to sit quietly.
You can practice observing your breath, you can practice noticing and letting go of thoughts, or you can simply reflect on the nature of this life, and what is truly important to you.
Finally, one practice that I find helps me specifically within salah is to write before each prayer time, in order to get whatever is in my head out, so that I can better concentrate while I pray. This can be in the form of writing out my to-do list, writing down any ideas that I am having, or even just writing in a stream-of-consciousness style to empty my thoughts.
Slow Down
Slowing down our salah is another great way to increase our concentration and tap into a deeper understanding while we pray.
Slow down your recitation; choose surahs that resonate with you and that you have more understanding of, and make an effort to briefly pause in between each verse to really reflect on what you just recited. Let the meanings move through your mind and into your heart.
Slow down your movements. Use the positions of salah to get yourself out of your mind and into how your body feels. Take your time moving into each position, and stay in each position until you feel comfortable there.
The Prophet (saws) said: “Bow and prostrate properly when you bow and prostrate.'” (Narrated in Sunan an-Nasa’i)
Create a Routine
Just like many of us have a morning routine to help us get into the right mindset for the day or a bedtime routine to help us wind down for the night, implementing a salah routine is a great way to practice detaching from the dunya and tapping into our spiritual connection with Allah swt.
The first thing that it should include is a focused, intentional wudu. Take the time to make your intention before starting, and reflect on what you are doing as you wash each limb. With time, you can also add in memorization of sunnah du’as to say during wudu.
The rest of your salah routine is up to you, and you can experiment with what works to help you get out of the dunya and into your spiritual connection.
Some things that may work could be journaling before salah, lighting a relaxing candle or incense, making yourself a dedicated salah space that you only use for prayer and dhikr, or wearing special, clean, beautiful clothes for each salah.
I hope this short article was of some benefit to you, and I wish you all the best in this ten days of Ramadan. Please do keep us at The Dua Journal in your duas during this beautiful month, as we keep our beautiful community in ours!