Salawat

The salawat is the invocation of God's blessings upon the Prophet Muhammad, and it is among the most frequently repeated devotional formulas in Islam. Its warrant is a verse of the Quran declaring that God and his angels bless the Prophet and calling on the believers to invoke blessings and peace upon him, and the invocation is accordingly woven through Muslim worship: it is said within the ritual prayer, whenever the Prophet's name is mentioned, and as an act of devotion in its own right, counted in great numbers and recited collectively, especially in Sufi gatherings and on the celebration of the Prophet's birthday (Mawlid). Elaborate poetic forms of blessing upon the Prophet have grown into a rich devotional literature. To send salawat is understood as an expression of love and reverence for the Prophet and as bringing blessing upon the one who recites it, and its constant repetition keeps his memory and honour continually present in the devotional life of Muslims.

Collections devoted entirely to salawat formulas, most famously the Dalail al-Khayrat compiled by the fifteenth-century Moroccan Sufi Muhammad al-Jazuli, became standard devotional manuals across much of the Muslim world, organized so that reciters could complete the whole collection across a week or a month of regular practice. Public group recitation of salawat, sometimes accompanied by drumming or in the call and response style associated with Sufi gatherings, remains a visible feature of Mawlid celebrations and other communal devotions, distinguishing it from prayers recited silently or individually.

Quran 33:56 states that God and the angels send blessings on the Prophet and instructs believers to do likewise, a formulation classical exegetes found genuinely puzzling in one specific respect: ordinary human blessing implies asking for something on behalf of a recipient who lacks it, but God is not usually described in Islamic theology as lacking anything to bestow, so commentators have offered differing explanations of what divine salah upon the Prophet actually consists of, some reading it as God's mercy and praise made manifest, others as God elevating the Prophet's rank and reputation among creation, rather than a literal petition of the kind human blessing normally implies.

Beyond the basic Quranic instruction, an entire genre of extended salawat texts developed over the centuries, most famously the Dala'il al Khayrat, a substantial fifteenth century collection compiled by the North African Sufi Muhammad al Jazuli, organizing an elaborate set of invocations of blessing on the Prophet for daily recitation across the week, which became and remains one of the most widely copied and recited devotional books in the Islamic world independent of the single Quranic verse that originally commands the practice. A specific, shorter formula called the Salat al Ibrahimiyya, invoking blessing on Muhammad in comparison with Abraham, is also recited within the fixed sitting portion, the tashahhud, of the obligatory ritual prayer itself, making some form of salawat a mandatory element of the five daily prayers rather than only an optional devotional extra.