Ismaili Du‘a: Secrets of Sujud (Prostration)
An intellectual quest to understand spiritual prostration in Ismaili practice
By performing or participating in the Holy Du‘a given to us by our 49th Imam, Nur Mawlana Shah Karim al-Husayni (salawatu’llahi ‘alayhi) each and every Shi‘i Ismaili murid (follower) of Imam-i Zaman (the Imam of the Time), has the opportunity to express his or her humility, devotion and total submission to God through the act of prostration (sujud or sajdah) numerous times throughout the day. Specifically, we are taught to go into a full sujud (ideally) with our foreheads touching the floor when, at the end of each of the 6 parts of the Ismaili Du‘a, we affirm:
Allahumma laka sujudi wa-ta‘ati
(O Allah, my prostration and obedience is for You).
Of course, as observant and devoted Ismaili Muslims, we also bow and prostrate our heads to the ground at other times while engaged in various forms of Ismaili Tariqah practices. However, as some spiritual seekers (salikin) have observed, there is something curious about how sajdah is mentioned in the first part of our Holy Du‘a. Immediately after the recitation of Surat al-Fatiha from the Holy Qur’an, we recite the following words with which we, individually, proclaim our prostration before God:
sajada wajhi ilayka
(I prostrate my face to You)
Although we say we prostrate, we do not, at that particular moment of our prayer, bow down to perform sajdah…or so it may seem. Actually, as this article will illustrate, even though it appears as though no one is prostrating themselves while reciting or observing those words, in reality (that is to say, at the level of Haqiqah or Ultimate Truth), every ‘God-conscious’ or spiritually and intellectually aware Ismaili is, in fact, prostrating to his or her Lord, albeit spiritually.
To begin our intellectual quest to understand how and why this is true, namely, how an Ismaili with taqwa (awareness of Allah) is able to be in a state of sujud spiritually, if not physically, and to deepen our perception of the esoteric meaning and wisdom of those particular words about the sajdah of one’s wajh (face) which we recite multiple times a day, we may recall or familiarize ourselves with 4:125 of the Holy Qur’an, a part of which rhetorically inquires, “who can be better in religion (din) than one who submits (aslama) his face (wajh) to Allah?”