I had my sehri, offered my Fajr namaz, as well as twenty additional minutes of Nafl namaz. I wondered if I should do more. My thoughts turned to my neglected house. It was five in the morning. I decided to start with the bathroom first. Mixing a bucket of hot water with some gentle cleanser and juice from a fat, flaming yellow lemon, the smell uplifted me. Subhan Allah.
I decided to do House Namaz. What I mean is that all aspects of life is Namaz when you bring your mind (concentration), body (presence), and soul (breath) in total awareness of Allah (the divine) to any task.
As I was cleaning the bathroom floor, I found a hard to reach place beneath the sink. I wondered if I should leave it for another day. House Namaz. I brought the three aspects of myself together with complete faith in Allah (Oneness, Tawheed) and went for that spot. Nasty, dusty, dark but I reached it. It started to shine. Bright and clean. I exhaled. I felt less separated from my environment. Which led me to start thinking more about Tawheed. Much of our discourse on Islam is limited to the mental plane, leading us to further live a life of duality -- of ideal versus real. Any surprise that some of the most corrupt countries in the world have a majority Muslim population? We leave our dark and dusty places for another day, for someone else or separate ourselves from it and pretend it is not a part of very personal sphere.
How do we bring about the union of the ideal, the real: mind, body, soul? How do we bring oneness to our daily lives? See Allah in every thing, in every action and not just have a textbook discussion of Oneness (Tawheed), which then leads to childish games of accusing this one or that one of shirk (separation)? What is shirk? Is it shirk when someone is inspired by Allah with his or her own experience and differs from this or that sect or is it shirk when you step out of your personal palace and see hungry children, dirty gutters, environmental decay and no will to do anything about it?
Islam is progressive, pragmatic - it was never meant to live in text book discussions but in daily life. When you care for you child - it is Namaz. When you work to earn a living - it is Namaz. When you clean your house with your own hands and dare to go for the nasty spots - it is Namaz. All life is Namaz if you make it so.
