70_ THE PROSTRATION UPON THE EARTH
WE BELIEVE that in our prayer the act of prostration should be reclining with face on the earth in humble adoration, or on things that grow out of the earth such as wood or leaf of trees, or stones. We don't adimit of prostrations upon a carpet or such. The soil is prefered for that purpose, and therefore to make that easy, we take some clean soil, form it in a small circle mould, and keep it with us for our prostration, and this is only because it is pure clean soil of the earth and nothing else.
Our reason for that is the prophet's word who said," The earth has been turned to a clean MASJID for
me."(1)
We take MASJID here to mean prostration point, or place. One may say the Arabic word `MASJID' also means a temple wherein Muslim worship. True; but the adjctive "clean," helps to take the second meaning of the word, i.e. Besides that; many other traditions we have received from our Imams, by which we understand that, here, the soil is meant and not the house of public religious worship.