Title:
The Meaning of the Word "Salah"
Question:
What is the English word that we can use for the word "Salah"
? Is it true that the word "Prayer" is not even close to the meaning of the word
"Salah"?
Please explain.....
Regards,
Answer:
Salah (صلاة) literally means one's calling upon one's
God (in a respectful and humble way). It is very much the same as the word Du'a
(دعا).
In the Oxford dictionary we read:
"Prayer: a request for help or expression of thanks
addressed to God or another deity".
I think the above can be seen as a reasonable and literal
translation of the word Salah. One might argue that the content of
Salah is not excluded to requesting for help or expression of thanks and
that other things like uttering God's attributes, glorifying God, etc...can also
be included in the meaning of the word Salah. I am, however, sure that
this is also true in the case of the word "prayer."
The only thing is that in most places in the Qur'an and in
the Hadith literature, the word Salah is used to convey a very
specific (conventional) form of prayer that is the prayer that we Muslims do as
part of the Sunnah of the Prophet that itself was derived from the Sunnah
of Ibrahim. To convey this specific meaning of Salah, some times the
expression "ritual prayer" is used.
As a final note, it is not important what English word has
the closest literal or conventional meaning for an Islamic word. What is
important is that which English word is used by the Muslim community as the
equivalent of an Islamic word. Certainly the word that is used by Muslim
community (even if not literarily accurate) is the best choice for referring to
Islamic words. In this case, the word Prayer seems to be the most appropriate
one.
Please also have a look at:
The Meaning of the Word "Sala'h"
Abdullah Rahim
May 18, 2005