partytilfajr:

I have studied various religions, and what has always struck me, is when people pray, they look up or out. Churches are grand, bringing your attention up high, or various Temples, constantly supposedly reflect God through their grandeur, and God is always up, away from us.

Yet, in Islam, when we pray, we look down. Not upon others, or each other, but to focus ourselves upon this earth. Think about sujud, prostrating during prayer, you’re bowing down in humility to God. What’s the direction we pray? Not “towards” God, but to the Kaaba, to unite our hearts and to remind us of our unity.

What’s the difference, then, between Muslim conceptions of prayers and others? Our concerns, our prayers, should be directed towards the confines of this earth, this universe, that we may find God. Everything else is our imagination, and hopelessly inaccurate. We pray for help here so that we may get there, because while I may not know where I go after this, I just know that wherever that place is, it’s not up or down, out or in, but simply because of Him.