An exploration of mindfulness during the Islamic prayer in British and Pakistani Muslims

Abstract

The present study employed a mixed-method approach to explore Muslims’ experiences of the role of attention and mindfulness during the Islamic prayer (i.e. salah). A total of 78 Muslim participants took part in the online study, of which 38 were UK-based and 40 were based in Pakistan. Four themes were generated from the qualitative results: (1) Salah is used to build and nurture a relationship with Allah; (2) Salah as a reminder of the big picture; (3) Salah helps lighten the burdens of everyday life; (4) Paying attention enhances the experience of salah. The quantitative results showed that prayer frequency, importance of paying undivided attention to prayer, and the religious orientation of quest scores positively predicted 36% (adjusted R2) of the variance in mindfulness during worship scores, F (3, 76) = 14.94, p < .001. The study has identified a number of psychological functions of the salah. The implications of these findings for research and theory within the field of the psychology of prayer are discussed.