Sujood: The Virtues of Prostration and Its Duas

Every day, in every unit of prayer, a Muslim lowers his forehead to the ground. Outwardly, sujood — prostration — is the lowest posture a human body can take: face down, humbled, pressed to the earth. Yet the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ taught that this lowest moment is, spiritually, the very highest. In prostration the servant is nearer to Allah than at any other time, and no prostration is ever wasted: each one raises the worshipper a degree and wipes away a sin.

This is not poetry or exaggeration. It is the plain teaching of two authentic narrations in Sahih Muslim, and together they transform how a believer sees the prostrations he performs dozens of times a day. One narration tells us where we are when we prostrate — nearest to our Lord — and what we should therefore do there: make supplication. The other tells us what every single prostration earns, in the words the Prophet ﷺ spoke to a Companion who asked him for a deed that would take him to Paradise. If you have ever rushed through your sujood as a mere movement between two sittings, these two hadiths will slow you down — in the best possible way.

1. A Posture You Perform Every Single Day

Prostration is not an occasional act of devotion reserved for special nights. It is built into the very structure of the prayer itself: in every rak’ah, the worshipper bows, rises, and then prostrates twice before sitting or standing again. Anyone who wants to review the movements of the prayer step by step can follow our step-by-step guide on how to pray Salah, which traces each posture to its evidence.

Because sujood comes so often — prayer after prayer, day after day, year after year — it is easy for it to become automatic, a motion the body performs while the mind wanders elsewhere. The two narrations in this article are the cure for that heedlessness. The first gives sujood its true rank in the sight of Allah; the second gives it its true value in the scale of deeds. Read them slowly, and your next prostration will not feel like the last one did.

2. The Nearest a Servant Comes to His Lord

Abu Huraira reported that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said:

“The nearest a servant comes to his Lord is when he is prostrating himself, so make supplication (in this state).” (Sahih Muslim 482 — Sahih)

Consider what this short sentence claims. Of all the states a person can be in — standing in prayer, bowing, sitting, fasting, giving charity, reading the Quran — the moment of greatest nearness to Allah is the moment of prostration. The body could not be lower; the heart could not be closer. This is the beautiful paradox of sujood: the descent of the forehead to the dust is an ascent of the servant to his Lord.

This nearness is not tied to a special place, a special night, or a special level of scholarship. It belongs to every prostration, performed by every worshipper, in every prayer. The grandfather in his slow, careful prayer and the young person prostrating on a prayer mat at work both enter the same state the Prophet ﷺ described. That is why cultivating humility and presence in this posture matters so much, and why the themes explored in our guide to khushu in Salah — focus, humility, and a heart that is actually present — find their sharpest application right here, with the forehead on the ground.

There is also something worth noticing about the wording: “the nearest a servant comes to his Lord.” Nearness to Allah is measured here by posture and humility, not by status, wealth, or strength. The proud cannot approach Him in their pride; the one who puts his face in the dust, in willing submission, is the one who draws near.

3. The Command Within the Narration: Make Supplication

The hadith does not stop at describing nearness. It continues with an instruction:

“so make supplication (in this state)” (Sahih Muslim 482 — Sahih)

The command comes immediately after the statement of nearness, and that order is the lesson. Nearness is the opportunity; supplication is the response it calls for. When you are closest to Allah, ask Him. The Prophet ﷺ did not merely inform us of our position in sujood — he directed us to use it.

This changes the character of prostration entirely. Sujood is no longer only a physical pillar of the prayer; it is the prayer’s built-in audience with Allah, repeated in every rak’ah. A worshipper who knows he is nearest to his Lord at that moment will not waste the moment in silence or distraction. He will pour out his needs there — while his forehead is on the ground and his heart is at its closest.

It is worth pausing on the simplicity of the instruction. The Prophet ﷺ did not reserve dua in sujood for long lists of memorised phrases. He simply said: make supplication. The door is open to every believer’s own whispered requests, spoken from the heart, in the state of nearness he has just described.

And this audience is not a rare appointment. Because prostration is repeated in every rak’ah of every prayer, the invitation is renewed again and again throughout the day — at Fajr, at Dhuhr, in the afternoon, after sunset, and at night. A believer is never far from his next moment of nearness. However heavy the day has been, however distracted the earlier parts of the prayer were, the sujood is still coming: a fresh chance, a few breaths away, to be at your closest to Allah and to ask Him. Few teachings are more comforting than this — the door to the nearest state is built into the prayer you are already praying, and it opens every single time you go down into prostration.

4. What Should You Ask Allah in Sujood?

Since the hadith invites your own personal supplication, the content of that supplication is the content of your own life and your own needs. Ask, first, for your relationship with Allah: His forgiveness for the sins you know and the ones you have forgotten, firmness of faith, a heart that stays humble before Him, and acceptance of the very prayer you are performing. Our companion guide to the dua for forgiveness gathers the authentic supplications for seeking Allah’s pardon, and the sujood is a natural home for that seeking.

Then ask for your needs: guidance in a decision you are facing, ease in a hardship, provision, health, protection for your family, and success in what lies ahead — and do not forget the hereafter: ask for Paradise and for refuge from the Fire, for a good ending, and for Allah’s pleasure, which is greater than everything else. Nothing in the narration limits the request to one category of need; the instruction is simply to make supplication in that state.

One practical note keeps this within its proper place: the prescribed recitations of the obligatory prayer are in Arabic, while your own heartfelt requests in your own language have their place in your voluntary prayers and in prostrations outside those set recitations. Whichever prayer you are in, the principle from the hadith stands — when you reach the sujood, remember where you are, and ask.

5. Thawban’s Question: A Deed That Admits to Paradise

The second narration arrives as a conversation, and its setting gives the teaching its weight. Ma’dan b. Talha reported that he met Thawban, the freed slave of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, and put to him the biggest question a person can ask:

“tell me about an act for which, if I do it, Allah will admit me to Paradise, or I asked about the act which was loved most by Allah” (Sahih Muslim 488 — Sahih)

Thawban did not answer at once:

“He gave no reply. I again asked and he gave no reply. I asked him for the third time, and he said: I asked Allah’s Messenger (ﷺ) about that” (Sahih Muslim 488 — Sahih)

Only on the third asking did Thawban reveal why he had paused: he had once asked the Prophet ﷺ this very same question himself. The answer he was about to give was therefore not his own opinion or reasoning. It was the Prophet’s ﷺ own reply to the question, “Which act will admit me to Paradise — which act is most loved by Allah?” Few questions in a person’s life carry more importance than this one, and the man asking it in this narration had the answer directly from the Messenger of Allah ﷺ.

6. The Answer: Frequent Prostrations

And the answer Thawban received was not a rare pilgrimage, a fortune given away, or a feat beyond ordinary reach. It was something woven into the daily prayers of every Muslim:

“Make frequent prostrations before Allah, for you will not make one prostration without raising you a degree because of it, and removing a sin from you, because of it.” (Sahih Muslim 488 — Sahih)

“Make frequent prostrations.” The road Thawban was shown toward Paradise runs through the prostrations of the daily prayers, multiplied — the voluntary prayers prayed regularly, the sujood performed with care rather than haste. This is the same spirit that runs through all the virtues of Salah: the prayer is not a duty to be discharged but a treasure to be increased, and its prostrations are among its most precious parts.

Notice the precision of the promise. It is counted prostration by prostration: “you will not make one prostration without…” Not one is overlooked, not one is too small to register. Every time your forehead touches the ground for Allah, two things happen in the unseen: you are raised a degree, and a sin is taken off you. Prostration is simultaneously a ladder upward and a cleansing — elevation and erasure, in a single movement, every single time.

7. Two Effects in Every Single Prostration

Dwell on those two effects for a moment, because together they describe the whole journey of a believer.

The first effect is positive: a degree raised. Degrees with Allah are the ranks of honour in the hereafter, and here a degree is earned not by a once-in-a-lifetime act but by a prostration that takes seconds. The second effect is a removal: a sin taken away. Every worshipper carries a record he wishes were lighter; sujood lightens it, one prostration at a time.

Now think of the arithmetic of an ordinary day. The five daily prayers contain prostration after prostration, and whoever adds the voluntary and night prayers adds still more. A believer who prays for decades performs prostrations beyond counting — and according to this narration, each one of them individually raised him and cleansed him. A deed this small, repeated this often, with a reward this precisely promised, deserves to be performed slowly, deliberately, and with the heart awake.

After Ma’dan heard this from Thawban, he later met Abu al-Darda’ and asked him the same question — and received a reply similar to the one Thawban had given. Two Companions, taught by the same Prophet ﷺ, carried the same message: frequent prostration is a deed of Paradise.

8. Making Frequent Prostrations Your Habit

How does a person act on “make frequent prostrations” in real life? The first step is simply not to rush the prostrations you already perform. The sujood of the five daily prayers are fixed in number, but their quality is yours to give: settle into the posture, let the limbs rest, and use the moment for the supplication the first hadith commands. A prostration made in full awareness is worth more to the heart than a dozen performed as a formality.

The second step is to increase the number of prostrations themselves, and that happens through the voluntary prayers. The night prayer is the most beloved home of long, unhurried prostration: in the quiet of the night, a worshipper can remain in sujood, asking Allah at length, exactly as these narrations encourage. Our guide to the Tahajjud prayer explains how to build that habit gradually and sustainably.

The third step is constancy. The promise in the narration attaches to frequency — prostrations made again and again, day after day. Do not wait for a special occasion to multiply your sujood. The ordinary prayer in front of you, prayed today with presence and supplication, is precisely the deed Thawban was told about.

9. The Lowest Posture, the Highest Station

Hold the two narrations together and a complete picture of sujood emerges. The first hadith tells you where you are: “The nearest a servant comes to his Lord is when he is prostrating himself” (Sahih Muslim 482 — Sahih). The second tells you what is happening while you are there: a degree is being raised for you and a sin is being removed from you, prostration by prostration, without exception. Nearness, answered opportunity for supplication, elevation, and cleansing — all of it gathered into a posture that takes only moments and returns in every unit of prayer.

So the next time you go down into sujood, go down knowing. Know that you are entering the state in which you are closest to Allah. Ask Him there, as you were commanded. And rise from the ground knowing that the prostration was not a pause in your prayer but one of its most rewarding moments — a degree higher than when you went down, and a sin lighter. This is the sujood the Prophet ﷺ described to Thawban as a deed of Paradise, and it is waiting for you in the very next prayer you pray.

Frequently Asked Questions

1. When is a servant nearest to Allah? When he is prostrating. Abu Huraira reported that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said: “The nearest a servant comes to his Lord is when he is prostrating himself, so make supplication (in this state).” (Sahih Muslim 482 — Sahih)

2. Why should I make dua in sujood? Because the Prophet ﷺ directly instructed it in that state: after stating that the prostrating servant is nearest to his Lord, he commanded, “so make supplication (in this state)” (Sahih Muslim 482 — Sahih). The moment of greatest nearness is the moment appointed for asking.

3. What does a single prostration earn? Two things at once: a degree raised and a sin removed. The Prophet ﷺ said: “you will not make one prostration without raising you a degree because of it, and removing a sin from you, because of it.” (Sahih Muslim 488 — Sahih)

4. Who asked about the deed that admits a person to Paradise, and what was the answer? Ma’dan b. Talha asked Thawban, the freed slave of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, about “an act for which, if I do it, Allah will admit me to Paradise” (Sahih Muslim 488 — Sahih). Thawban replied with what he had himself heard when he asked the Prophet ﷺ the same question: “Make frequent prostrations before Allah” (Sahih Muslim 488 — Sahih)

5. How can I increase my prostrations each day? Follow the command in the narration itself — “Make frequent prostrations before Allah” (Sahih Muslim 488 — Sahih) — by performing the prostrations of your daily prayers with presence and supplication instead of haste, and by adding voluntary prayers, especially the night prayer, where prostration can be lengthened with personal dua.