Salaam Minara Family,

“Wait… what if I get to choose what salah is to me?”

Minara’s founder shared this reflection recently and YES WE WERE INSPIRED!

It sounds almost rebellious, right? Like: ‘How dare I customise salah?!’ But we’re not talking about changing the actions or the rules.

We’re talking about choosing the lens.

In a Hadith Qudsi, Allah tells us:

“I am as My servant thinks of Me.” [Bukhari]

We know this to be true without a shadow of doubt. But then isn’t it also true that the way we think of prayer will shape the way we experience it?

Perhaps we’ve been carrying around a definition of salah that isn’t really ours. For many of us, our relationship with salah was inherited - shaped by family or culture. Something heavy and obligatory, with just enough guilt sprinkled on top to make us flinch at the thought of missing it.

But prayer is supposed to be a gift, right? A lifeline. A source of grounding. And here’s the part we think many of us miss:

you’re allowed to choose how you see it.

Let us show you what we mean.

We’ve all heard this one. And there’s no denying that salah is a command and a non-negotiable. But when fear is your only motivator, prayer becomes this dark, looming obligation. It’s like a daily tax you pay to not get punished. You drag your feet into it. You rush through it. You avoid thinking too hard about it. And worst of all, you miss out on what it’s actually for.

It’s like meal-prepping a salad and then ordering a stuffed crust on the way home from the gym. [Not the worst idea actually!]

This lens might keep us praying but it rarely helps us grow through prayer.

This is where things soften. Suddenly, salah becomes less about avoiding punishment and more about reaching for mercy.

Think: connection

Goodbye: compliance.

When your perspective is rooted in love, the prayer mat becomes a meeting place. A standing date with Allah, five times a day.

And this frame is deeply Qur'anic too because Allah calls us to prayer, He doesn’t just command it. He asks us to "establish" prayer which feels more like building something rather than just checking a box.

You’re not just performing an act; you’re maintaining a relationship.

This is the lens of worshipping Allah as though we see Him, or at least knowing that He sees us. It nurtures warmth, sincerity, and presence.

This is the angle that feels most poignant.

When we’ve had a long day of overstimulation, noise, deadlines, scrolling, people’s energy, prayer becomes the one place we don’t have to perform. We don’t have to post it. Hey, we don’t even have to explain it.

We just stand, bow, prostrate, breathe, whisper.
We offload.
We recalibrate.
We come back to who we are, and Whose we are.

It’s like a reset button built into the architecture of our day. Think of it as the Muslim equivalent of closing all your Chrome tabs, restarting your laptop, and sipping coffee while the fan finally quiets down.

[Sorry, we couldn’t resist!]

So if prayer has felt hard for you, know this:

You get to choose.

Not whether or not you pray [that one’s non-negotiable of course], but how you see prayer. How you approach it. What you want it to mean to you.

📍See it as a chore, and it will feel like one.

📍See it as an appointment with Allah, and it’ll start feeling sacred.

📍See it as a return to yourself [the one Allah intended for you] and it will truly become a gift.

Hypothetical situation because who doesn’t love a good old example!

Something’s happened that’s made you feel so so angry. Your teeth are clenched, fists are balled. You just want to rage and scream and shout.

And then it’s Maghreb time.

Old frame:

Reframe:

So instead of avoiding salah or treating it like another task to push through, it becomes a place to offload: safely, privately, and spiritually.

That Maghreb prayer? It becomes exactly what you need it to be.

Emotional surrender.

Task for y’all!

Before your next prayer, ask yourself:

And then, set a tiny intention. Just one sentence.

No pressure. No spiritual gymnastics. Just intention.

Yes, we don’t always get to control how we feel in prayer. But we do get to choose the lens we bring to it.

It’ll make a difference insha’ Allah. We promise.

💛

Love and du’as,

The Minara Team