Question 34: What is the meaning of Takbeerat [1] Al-Ihram during the prayer, and what is the significance of the Takbeerat of Ali bin Abi Talib?
Answer: The Takbeerat* for ihram in prayer are actually seven and not one, although ihram with one is permissible, if what is intended by that is the seven Takbeerat which are referring to the seven skies.
And each Takbeera is attached to a sky, so saying the first “Allahu Akbar” means that Allah is greater than the worldly and first sky including all that is within it from good, evil and details, regardless of their magnitude.
So if you knew that the earth in all its capacity is as a grain of sand in a desert compared to the galaxy, and the galaxy is as a grain of sand compared to the physical universe, and the worldly sky is as a grain of sand in a desert compared to the second sky and so on until everything becomes small in your eyes except Allah, and Allah swt becomes greater in your soul, so you know that He is indescribable.
And the Takbeera of Ali is in accordance with his knowledge of Allah swt, and he is the greatest of Allah’s creation in knowing Allah after Mohammed. And the more the knowledge in Allah increases, the more the importance of the remembrance of Allah increases. So Ali knows who he is glorifying, and if the creation were to carry that which he knows, they would have not bore it.
And he said in the meaning of “I have knowledge within me which if I told you of, you would have oscillated just like the oscillation of ropes in the distant wells” [Explination of Nahj Al-Balaga for Ibn Hadeed: Part1, Page 213.]
And oscillation means the vibratory movement, and the rope is the rope by which the bucket which brings out the water is hanged, and the distant wells means the deep wells. So if the bucket was to be thrown in the deep well, the attached rope would have oscillated like a moving snake.
Ahmed Alhasan
The Allegories – volume 2
[1] Takbeerat Al-Ihram: Saying ‘Allahu Akbar’ at the beginning of prayer – Trans.
First Mahdi : Yamani : Ahmed Alhasan 