Is prayer not that which unites different faith traditions and stretches across the vast expanse of history?
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Making sense of it is a column about spirituality and how it can be used to navigate everyday life
On my birthday last year, I found myself in Westminster Abbey. I had missed the time slot for tourist visits and could only enter for the Evensong program. Being a practising Muslim, I was not familiar with Anglican liturgical rites, but curiosity prevailed and so I entered.
As I walked in, my gaze was seized by the sacred art, the high vaulted ceilings, the looming majesty of a place that, over the past nine centuries, has witnessed the coronation of every English king.
“Don’t bother about the idea that God ‘has known for millions of years exactly what you are about to pray’. That isn’t what it’s like. God is hearing you now, just as simply as a mother hears a child. The difference His timelessness makes is that this now (which slips away from you even as you say the word now) is for Him infinite. If you must think of His timelessness at all, don’t think of Him having looked forward to this moment for millions of years: think that to Him you are always praying this prayer.”
Ali Hammoud is a PhD candidate at Western Sydney University. He is broadly interested in Shia Islam and Islamicate intellectual history. More of his writings can be found on his Substack page