Misbaha: Difference between revisions

‘’Misbaha’’ (Arabic: مسبحة), or ‘’subha’’ (Arabic: سبحة), or prayer beads is a string of beads made of materials such as wood and stone. Prayer beads was being used as a tool for counting numbers, recites, etc. Over time and by development of societies, usage of prayer beads as a tool became less and it gained a more religious characteristics. In many of religions a form of prayer beads is used for counting recites.

 

‘’Misbaha’’ is made in many forms and is one of souvenirs of [[holy places]].

Some believe that ‘’misbaha’’ (prayer beads) entered [[Islam]] from Indian Buddhists. Some other, believe that misbaha came to Islam from Christians.

There’s various narrations about using ‘’misbaha’’ among [[Sunni]]s: some [[Sunni]] [[hadith]] books recommend carrying of a misbaha to Muslims and also mentions that [[the Prophet (s)]] was using misbaha. There’s also other narrations from the Prophet (s) which blames usage of ‘’misbaha’’.

[[Shi'a]] believes that [[Lady Fatima (a)]] was one of the first to use ‘’misbaha’’ and was using a string with 34 knots on it for saying [[tasbih]] after prayers ([[tasbih of Lady Fatima (a)]]). Later, she made a clay ‘’misbaha’’ from soil of grave of uncle of the Prophet (s), [[Hamza (a)]]. Following Lady ‘’Fatima’’ (a), Shi'as make ‘’misbaha’’ from [[turba of imam Husayn (a)]], for blessing, known as “turba misbaha”.

The most important application of ‘’misbaha’’ is saying ‘’dhikr’’ and Muslims put ‘’misbaha’’ in their [[prayer mat]] so they can say [[dhikr]] after or between prayer; so usually pilgrims of [[holy places]] bring [[tablet]] and ‘’misbaha’’ blessed by the shrines as souvenirs.

‘’Misbaha’’, is also used for [[istikhara]].

[[Isma’ilia Khuja]]s in [[India]] use ‘’misbaha’’ in some of their religious activities and rituals, including ‘’dhikr’’ for [[Shah Gharib Mirza]] and supplication for [[Aqa Khan]].

‘’Misbaha’’ usually have 101 beads, in three parts of 33 beads, with two beads dividing the three parts, in accordance with [[tasbih of Lady Fatima (a)]]. There’s also ‘’misbahas’’ with 25, 33, 34 beads.

Some [[sufi]]s use ‘’misbaha’’ with 1000 beads which is used in burials; they turn it 3 times and each time say [[la ilah illa Allah]] 1000 times.

‘’Misbaha’’ consists 3 parts:

*Tassel: tassel is made of many short strings, knotted to main string of ‘’misbaha’’.

*‘’Dasta’’: a bead, larger than other beads, with conical or cylindrical shape, between the tassel and other beads of ‘’misbaha’’. It’s also called ‘’yad’’, ‘’mihrab’’.

*‘’'Adasak’’: two beads with a shape of lentil which are smaller than other beads, and sometimes made from a material other than other beads. The two ‘’'adasaks’’ divide ‘’misbaha’’ into three parts.

‘’Misbaha’’ is made of different materials:

* Ornamental stones like agate, Jasper, ruby, etc. One of ornamental stones which is used very much in making ‘’misbaha’’ is ‘’shah maqsud’’ (tourmaline) extracted from mines in [[Afghanistan]]; Yemeni agate could also be mentioned.