They did them and I did, too. Because if you’re going to ask them to, it can’t be bad to join in, right? For three minutes, we did calf raises. That doesn’t sound hard at first, but after a minute, and it can get pretty painful. Especially for ten- and eleven-year-old boys used to roughhousing, wrestling, and frequently if unnecessarily screaming, but maybe not so much isolating random muscles to failure.
What on earth does this have to do with a halaqa?
After a short break, we did three minutes of an exercise I learned in judo--yeah, something the parents enrolled me in—way back in the 19th century, as the kids (read: our kids) like to point out. It’s just clapping with one hand, and it looks silly, even facile, but after a minute, you really feel your inadequacy and soon your mortality. The point is to build grip strength, to be able to grab and throw more effectively.
The above is not, and has never been, and will never be, the author.
He does not recommend he do this at home or elsewhere.
What on earth does this have to do with a halaqa?
After they were exhausted and sore, I explained why this was happening. Following several months focusing on the joy of saying salam, of greeting each other with peace, we are starting to talk about talking to God. There’s a lot there, but this lesson was a simple one. We can put ourselves, our minds and our energy, into all kinds of things. The more effort we put into it, the more we should see a transformation.
Praying is no different.
During prayer, God asks us to calm our hearts and our minds, to center ourselves on Him, which we can’t do if we don’t also center our bodies—because we aren’t just souls, and aren’t just bodies, but both and always together. In practically every Muslim act of worship, we bring our entire selves into alignment with the Divine, or at least we try. It can be hard. Especially at that age.
Center the body, which fidgety boys find difficult. Of course, they can also do calf raises for three minutes, so maybe it’s not as hard to focus as they think. A silly exercise perhaps, but also kind of fun, and unexpected, and in light of the deep quiet that abruptly but definitely settled on the room when I made the connection, I’d like to think it worked. For at least a few minutes.
On the other side of commitment comes incredible intimacy, deep satisfaction, profound joy. I wish I’d learned this for myself earlier, though I’m glad and grateful I’ve come to it at all. One day we must find ourselves looking forward to being in God’s presence, to putting away all the mental and external distractions, and just sitting silently with God. There’s nothing like it in the world.
The discipline of our daily prayers is part of the adab, the etiquette and dignity, of talking to our Creator, but these are the foundation, not the conclusion, and the more attention we give worship, the more we will come to where the blessed Prophet was. He once described prayer as “the coolness of his eyes.” Muslims used to rush to pray, not out of some formulaic obeisance, but out of passionate enthusiasm.
We didn’t wait until the last minute—because it was the thing we most wanted to do. And if we find ourselves dragging our feet, maybe ask why.
I told the boys to note how during special times of year (like Ramadan), many of their elders will sit for a long time in Allah’s presence, because it’s real, and really meaningful, and He is always there when we need Him, and the connection we can have with Him is unmatched by any other experience in our lives. They don’t have to be there just yet, but hopefully they’ll aim for it.
But here’s where I want to pause, and turn to the parents, too.
A lot of mainstream experts have questioned the apparently devastating impact tech like phones have on our brains, from distractedness to, allegedly, declining test scores, impaired memory, and deep dissatisfaction, including (potentially) frightening mental health outcomes. I’m not qualified to weigh in here, though I’m concerned all the same. God created us to worship Him, but we rush through worship to other things.
These other things include our devices, which rarely remind us of who we are, what we are, and why we are, consuming our minds, and especially young minds, flooding them with—at best—irrelevant distractions. There’s a time and place for everything. How have these captured every time and every space? I go to Friday prayers, and see adults, during a sermon that counts as a prayer, consumed by their phones.
Not (just) kids, but adults. That’s the model. Maybe we don’t know. Maybe, worse yet, we know and we can’t help ourselves.
There’s a need for Muslims to weigh in on issues from Muslim perspectives in addition to the concerns we share with people more broadly. Something we should be specifically concerned about when it comes to technology? Does the possibility of endless distraction destroy our ability to pay attention? And if we can’t sit in silence, if we can’t sit with God, then what happens to us?
Some people say we turn to devices because we can’t stand being alone, or bored, or devoid of entertainment. But we are never alone, and we can’t really understand this if we never give ourselves the time, the space, and the commitment to. We’re not eyeballs designed to look at screens, not organs developed for shallow dopamine hits, but servants of God uplifted through patient faith and the deep virtues it esteems.
It’s good for us to find time in the day to worship God. It’s also good for us to make clear that we need that time, free of distractions, and as dull as it might be, as hard as it is to create those pauses, one day I am sure they will be esteemed, not resented. How I do that with the boys, and how we talk about worship, and worship together—I want them to see the value in that, even if it’s three minutes.
I’ll share more on that soon inshallah. But let me close with a personal request.
Today was my late mother’s birthday, may God admit her into His garden. So much of what I learned and love about our faith, I gained through her. Many times I didn’t realize the value of what she was teaching till much later, but that’s on me. May God bless all those who care for us, teach us, and build us. And may He give us the strength, the ability, and above all else the desire to build, too.