Orthopaedics improves the quality of life by reducing pain and increasing ambulatory functions.

Salat is good for musculoskeletal health and flexibility. Flexible joints are more resilient and less likely to get injured. Ligaments help stability. Tendons help mobility.

It is a spiritual and physical act, with various standing, bending, and prostrating postures symbolizing devotion to God.

“Come to prayer,”

and

“Come to success.”

So, no matter what you’re doing in your life, it’s always,

‘God is greater than that’

– whether it’s sleep, whether it’s work, whatever it is, God is the greatest. God is the Truth God is goodness. It keeps you from straying. God in His wisdom has decided that five times is the best way.

As you age the ligaments that maintain the stability of the joints lose their elasticity. Salat helps to keep these ligaments limber and stretched out. Especially in knees and ankles and feet.

Squat at least 32 times and multiple of times you sit with feet in proper position. The Promised Messiah^(as) said that if you do not teach your children to properly position their feet by the age of 9 years it becomes difficult for them to achieve that flexibility.

Salat helps the knee joints in particular. It keeps them in good motion and the ligaments stretched out. It also helps strengthen the quadriceps muscle which is the biggest muscle that keeps your knee straight and stable.

The knees do get some wear and tear and arthritis that is consistent with age. However an un-injured knee remains pretty flexible. Usually sports injuries to the knees or knee that have had surgery end up having more arthritis and stiffness.

Weight bearing exercises are not good for knees. Biking and swimming are better. Straight leg raising exercises are better. Going up and down stairs or treadmill walking is not good for the knees.

Women are more prone to get arthritis in knees than men. This is related to carrying increased load during pregnancies. In the walking each leg and knee carries 2 ½ times the body weight in the stance phase.

Men who are overweight tend to get more arthritis in the knees. Arthritis is function related. Use causes wear and tear and thus arthritis. The knees get it more because of weight issues. The first joint to get arthritis is the basal joint of thumb. Women get more because of kitchen work and house work etc.

In our village culture and Japanese culture because they sit on the floor with their knees flexed and they still tend to use the old squatting down toilets the knees are more flexible.

Salat is time-limited online communion with God. Nuafil and prayers are unlimited offline communion with God. You have a better chance of having your prayers heard if you package it with Durood and good deeds.

Salat puts the “practice” into being a practicing Muslim. With it, we unite our physical bodies with our minds and souls. We stand in front of Allah and declare that our worship is for His sake alone. We reach the prayer’s apex through the physically lowest station of the prayer – in the sujud.

“The first sujud means that I was mud clay in the beginning, and as I raise my head from sujud, it means that I came to the world from the soil. The second sujud means that I will again return to the soil, and as I raise my head from sujud, it means that on the Day of Resurrection I will rise up from the grave and be summoned.”

God’s words and blessings are always mentioned as coming from above and descending from above as in Wa Anzalna Maahomul Kitaba (57:26) and sent down with them the Book …. Wa Anzalnal Hadida (57:26) and We sent down iron …

In contrast, man’s entreaties and words emanate from earth to go up.

Although the earth has subsoil water yet if there is no rain for long there is draught. The rain livens the dead earth. Similarly when spirituality declines and all the scholars and divines and the books are not enough for spiritual revival God sends down His revelation and guidance to a man He appoints for the purpose.

If we are struggling with praying 5 times a day, let’s remember this one short act of worship is the greatest act to draw closer to Allah and salvation. Let’s remember that in sujud, the moment we are lowest, when our eyes are shut to the world around us, and we whisper to Allah with no barrier, is the moment of our greatest humility and simultaneously, greatest worship. It is perhaps for this reason it is said,

“If the worshipper knew to what extent His (Allah’s) Mercy surrounded him during Prayer, he would never raise his head from the state of prostration.”