(sing.
nafl
), or works of supererogation. In early Islam this term was used in
the general sense of doing ‘good’ in addition to the performance of one’s
obligatory duties and did not refer specifically to prayer. Islamenjoins a certain
amount of minimum obligatory duties to be discharged by the believers and
these are called
faraiz
(sing.
farz
– duty).Anyone who enters the fold of Islam
has to discharge these minimal duties, but if he does more than that then, by
his additional acts, he earns the double favour of God.This is known as
nafl
(extra).The Prophet himself used to perform supererogatory prayers, such
as for example the midnight prayers. But both he and his companions
interpreted
nafl
in a very general sense and understood it to mean
all
good
actions (and not only prayer) performed over and above one’s duties. So did
the early ascetics. The later Sufis restricted the word
nafl
to the narrow
sense of saying prayers over and above the obligatory prayers.
The Sufis did the same with ‘remembrance of God’ by limiting the
meaning of the word
dhikr
to mean only the act of repeating the names of
God and not every act, which, by its righteousness and adherence to God’s
commands, came earlier under the rubric of the remembrance of God.
This change took place imperceptibly and soon these new notions came to
be accepted as the norm by the general public.
Giving undue importance to mere recitation and chanting of the words
of the Qur’an was not in accordance with the spirit of the Qur’an. True
Islamic piety is not and has never been concomitant with the recitation of
the Qur’anic verses in a milieu cut off from everyday activities, but is
synonymous rather with the spirit of devotion and attachment to God while
one is engaged in daily pursuits. If one had to be perpetually confined for
worship in a
hujra
(a small, dark room), how was one to be tested on
whether or not one had surrendered to God’s will in day-to-day life?
