Full transcript of “Salah: A Believer's Ascension to the Heavens! by M. Fethullah Gulen”. Click a timestamp to open the video at that moment. Need another video? Use the YouTube transcript generator.
0:00 [Music] Asalam alalaykumah and welcome to our channel. Today we have the pleasure of exploring a truly profound book Salah a believer's ascension to heavens by fatulan to help us unpack the beauty and the depth of this work. Uh I'm honored to be joined by none other than Hakshawa, the editor of this book. Hakawi, thank you very much for being us today. Uh could you tell a little bit about what this book is, what it means? It's my pleasure. Uh the book is of course not about the uh great Mo Salah.
0:45 Uh if you're interested in soccer and follow the Premier League, you better uh look for another book. But I like the uh similarity of the title. Uh but salah that we discuss in this book is the pillar of Islam. It's the worship. Uh every Muslim is supposed to observe daily. Not everyone does it. But um in the words of the prophet Muhammad peace be upon him, it's the pole that holds the u house of the building of Islam uh entirely. So when it misses uh a lot of things is is lost in the life of a Muslim. So what we find here in this book uh is an important um exploration
1:33 and celebration of this great uh worship which I rather call not a certain ritual that belongs to a certain region in the world. It's not something that is unique to a certain nation. Uh what we understand really from this book is salah is a universal experience and at the um core of it we can see many values and even rituals that are observed in different forms and shapes in other faith traditions. So uh you brought up uh our prophet Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wasallam peace be upon him uh and how he his model is a guide to us but
2:19 while we are trying to emulate what he has taught us how can we escape from uh ritualism or just superficial imitation >> well that's actually the core of this book uh for those who are familiar with Mr. of Ethagulan's teachings. Um they know that he has lived what he has taught. Uh there are perhaps millions of people following his ideas. They open schools all over the world trying to uh show um to the world and all the nations that a peaceful coexistence is possible and they're mainly inspired by the core teachings of Islam as preached by Fetula Gulan. So Fetulan is a man of his word.
3:08 Whatever he preached, he lived first in his own life. Um for those of us who had the honor to visit him saw how pious he was. I mean he recently passed away sadly but we saw him um observing his salah very sincerely leading the community uh in that aspect too. what he wrote in this book actually is to overcome that ritualistic aspect of of any religious manifestation uh of worship but to really internalize what you worship and what you're asking for in your communication with the divine. Uh I think the term he uses is becoming one with salah. Uh and it comes
3:56 up over and over again. It's just in like you said internalizing and becoming one with salah. And one of the aspects of how to become one with salah is the concept of tabuddi. Could you open uh could you elaborate on this concept? >> Yeah, it's a very significant uh concept in Islam. Uh it exists in different names and titles in other religious traditions too. What it basically means is that you do worship only for the sake of God and nothing else. This means that um for instance fasting is a very healthy thing. It's pretty popular these days. This intermittent intermittent fasting, right? Um but Muslims don't observe fast for health reasons. We do
4:43 fast because it's a command from God. Charity similarly is a necessary thing to establish justice and fair distribution of wealth in a society. But Muslims don't give in charity because it is good for the society. They do it for the sake of God primarily. Similarly, salah, we don't do it because it's a good physical exercise. We don't do it just as a form of workout every day or uh we don't do it just to attain mindfulness in our daily life and uh have some form of a detox from the weight of the daily lives we're having every day. We do it primarily
5:28 uh because it is a command from God. So the concept of tab buddhi is instilling in us the idea that worship is done for no uh benefits worldly benefits but for the sake of god only. This doesn't mean uh we shouldn't benefit from them. uh God gave such wisdom and benefits as a result of uh our observance and fulfillment of our worship and that's a big plus. Uh and I don't know anybody who has been harmed because they followed uh or observed the Islamic forms of worship. But the real intention uh should be to attain God's good pleasure only. that that's what we call
6:17 >> this intent uh and the spiritual part of salah comes up over and over again. Yes, we have to be careful about how we pray. We need to be able to pray according to the teachings of prophet peace be upon him but the spiritual part comes up over and over again. Could you elaborate a little bit on this on this concept as well? >> Well um the main concern of Mr. Gulan's teachings u throughout his career as a preacher has always been uh the fact that the religious traditions and religious practice have been downgraded to outward form only. Uh people dress up certain clothes and uh I'm a Muslim. That's how they identify themselves.
7:02 they um attend the mosque which is a good thing and the congregation there which is a great community uh engagement. uh but the real core uh message of of Islamic practice is that personal uh conversation or engagement with the divine that spiritual experience we should be having and the ultimate purpose in a way for that matter is to attain a form of mirage that's uh why the subtitle of the book is a a a believer's heavenly ascension for uh the prophet Phet Muhammad peace be upon him was blessed with this miraculous journey which we call mirage into the heavens
7:48 where he met with the lord but that's something unique to him but as glad tidings he told us that for Muslims if they observe the salah in its fullest terms they can have their own attainment of mirage that heavenly journey in their own way. So the gateway is open for all of us to uh make that journey make that trip to the heavens. So spiritual aspect of salah um is something that we cannot ignore. But likewise we cannot basically undermine the importance of the form too. Um true heavenly journey uh is attained when we can merge
8:34 uh both the outward form and the in internalization of the prayer. Um focusing on the spiritual aspect of the worship does not entitle us to observe the prayer as we like. Uh no there's a specific form which we learned in the example of the prophet and we cannot compromise from those outward forms but the focus should of course u have to be to attain that spiritual um uh journey which we call mirage and this goes to the core of this book and Mr. Fetulakan's teachings as well. Now I want to switch and talk a little bit about the logistics of of how this book came to be. Uh you are the editor of
9:22 this book but you were not alone uh to work on this. This is a translation from the Turkish version. So could you uh explain uh what that process was like? >> Well uh Mr. Gulan um was one of the uh most notable preachers of Turkey especially throughout 70s uh like 50 years ago and in his career um he traveled uh throughout the nation and delivered sermons and uh in many occasions he followed a certain systematic curricula uh curriculum on his own. He it's something that he developed and at um I believe in 1978 uh he uh had a series of lectures and sermons in Ismir
10:09 um which basically established the uh core of this book. But later on um his his pupils his students uh added more material from his later lectures uh and sermons uh which basically uh bring brought about this book. Um so that was a big effort on the Turkish side as well. But the translation is a is a huge issue. Uh we had uh several translators and editors involved in this. uh and I'm thankful uh to all of them uh in helping us out with that for um really conveying the ideas um to a modern world to new generations so that they can grasp the
10:57 core message of the book is a huge task and in when it happens in a different language and Turkish and English are not really compatible languages in many ways uh that's always a big challenge but I I think as it is now it stands as a good uh manuscript to read. >> This was one of the books that uh was requested time and time again over the la last couple years from students and teachers uh that wanted this in English so that they can uh help out their students and themselves as well. And uh for what it u I can personally attest to how good the translation is and how many compliments we have gotten so far. how not just the meaning but also the feeling of the Turkish version has
11:42 translated into the English version. So I thank you for your hard work on this. >> Well, thank you. And uh to close out our video, I wanted to ask you as editor, you work with the manuscript of this book for many many months if not for years. What is one thing that has really touched uh your heart uh while studying this? >> We're living in very difficult times. Let me put it very shortly um in these words for um although technology has uh allowed us to have access to uh information very quickly and very easily that's also a big source of uh distraction. Um and uh when we're distracted, we cannot
12:27 focus. And uh the uh very essential element of any form of worship is to be mindful. When you stand for prayer, you really have to be in the prayer, not trying to fix things uh with your uh computer game or with a certain entertainment uh you're looking forward to watch on a Saturday night. Um you really have to be within the worship. Uh so when compared with the previous decades and uh centuries I think our generation is um probably a big victim of the greatest advancement in technology. So what we see in this book is to um
13:15 reinvigorate the spirit of of prayer and trying to encourage those worshippers to be mindful of what they're doing as they stand, as they bow, as they u prostrate during the salah. Uh but what really touched me uh with regards to this book is the emphasis of the author uh to the example of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam. There are many hadith describing him uh and his prayer and Aisha if I'm not wrong anha said the prophet's uh chest was had the sound of a boiling pot when he when he stood for prayer. So you can see him
14:01 really focusing on on the prayer that he's some somewhat detached from his circumstances from the environment and really be there with the divine at that very specific moment. I think this is something we really need to read over and over again and try to uh take as an example and how how we can transform our lives uh with this specific version. Uh could you also uh tell me why this book uh about Salah is different than other books uh on this topic? >> Well uh it's not it's different not because it's a thick book. >> Yeah. >> Uh only but it's also a book that just does not describe the salah um in its
14:50 formulaic uh information. It does not just give us the details about how we do observe a certain uh type of salah like Juma prayer like the uh uh pedag prayer or the Eid prayer you know um because there are already many manuals that are easily available everywhere uh and even when you Google you'll find many detailed information about how you observe uh a certain form of salah What makes this book really different is it it is trying to uh uh give us this um joy and celebration that I'm not doing this because my
15:36 parents are telling me to do this. I'm doing this because it's a beautiful thing. I'm doing this because it's a command from God. I'm doing this because I feel I'm I'm a part of a larger Muslim um and community. Uh I feel when I pray um as the human beings are the most honorable of all everything, every created being in the universe. I do observe the salah as if I'm leading the entire cosmos, entire creation with me and offering our praises and glorifications to the one who created us. So as you read this book
16:22 uh you can feel u that inner sentiments beautifully described uh by fetulan in this in this book >> and these beautiful descriptions is very important for us to conceptualize uh why salah is important as well and you'll see uh the poetic language of Mr. Fatakulan in many parts of this book as well >> which was very difficult to translate. Yeah, but you did you did a great job with your team. >> Not me but my my my friends, colleagues. Yeah, translators, editors. >> Okay, thank you very much. It was very very uh honoring for me to talk to you about this book. This is a very important book for a lot of people and I thank you and your team for your hard work. Uh and may uh God have blessings
17:07 on Mr. Fetakulan's uh soul as well in >> Thank you. It was my pleasure. Thank you. [Music]
