Expiation

from flickr

1045. Abu Hurayra reported that the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said, "The five prayers, and Jumu'a to Jumu'a is expiation for what is between them as long as a man has committed no major sins." [Muslim]

Tahiyatul Masjid

On the authority of Abu Qatada (ra) he said, "The Messenger of Allah (saws) said: 'If any of you enters the Mosque, let him not sit until he prays two rakats.'" [Bukhari & Muslim]

Ah Salah

Abu Bakr bin Abdullah al Muzani said: "Who is like you, O son of Adam? Whenever you wish, you use water to make Ablution, go to the place for worship and thus enter the presence of your Lord (i.e. start praying) without a translator/barrier or a barrier between you and Him!" [Al Bidayah wa an Nihayah 9/256]



Mu`adh bin Jabal advised his son, "My son! Pray the prayer of he who is just about to leave and imagine that you might not be able to pray ever again. Know that the believer dies between two good deeds, one that he performed and one that he intended to perform later on."[Sifat as Safwah 1/496]

Bakr al Muzani said, "If you want your prayer to be of benefit to you, say to yourself, 'I might not have a chance to perform another prayer.'[Jami` al `Ulum wal Hikam, p 466.]

My very own quran for taraweeh

Alhamdulilah, the long copy and paste nightmare is over! Courtesy of transliteration.org, I now have a word document that consists just of the Qur'an as translated by Yusuf Ali and a transliteration of the arabic into roman letters.

A common site at taraweeh prayers (at least at the masjids I go to) is for the congregants to hold little booklets containing one juz (1/30th) of the Qur'an, so that they may follow along with the imam during the prayer. Unfortunately, all the ones I've come across are simply in arabic, and since my arabic reading and comprehension skills are sorely lacking (one day inshaAllah!), I decided to make my own quran for taraweeh this year.

I copied and pasted the transliteration and translation from the website listed above into a word document. I plan to print it out, 3 hole punch and put it all in a large binder. Then, each night during Ramadan, I can take out one juz, stick it in a smaller binder and read from that during taraweeh. I think if I stick my backpack in front of me, during sujood I can stick the book on it so that the quran is not on the floor.

If anyone would like a copy, please leave me your email address, and I'll email you a copy inshaAllah. It's kind of long at 600+ pages, and not very pretty format wise, but it's functional.

Alhamdulilah, only a month until Ramadan!


ps - It's valid to read from a quran in the shafi'i school, so long as you don't fidget with it too much I believe. inshaAllah will look in my fiqh books when i get home to post the specifics

Your salat on the Day of Judgment

Riyad as-Salihin (The Meadows of the Righteous) - 193. Chapter: On the command to persevere in the prescribed prayers and the strongest prohibition against abandoning them

1081. Abu Hurayra reported that the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said, "The first action which the slave will be called to account for on the Day of Rising is his prayer. If it is in order, he will have success and win through. If it is not in order, he will be disappointed and lose out. If any of his obligatory prayers are lacking, the Lord, the Mighty and Exalted, will say, 'See if My slave has any supererogatory actions and use them to complete his obligatory prayer.' Then the rest of his actions will be assessed in the same way." [at-Tirmidhi]

Washed away

Abu Hurairahu (ra) reported: I heard the Messenger of Allah (saws) saying, "Say, if there were a river at the door of one of you in which he takes a bath five times a day, would any soiling remain on him?'' They replied, "No soiling would left on him.'' He (saws) said, '' That is the five Salat. Allah obliterates all sins as a result of performing them.''

[Al-Bukhari and Muslim].

Shafi'i salat video

To watch for later. Work is cracking down on watching videos.

Ow!

A word of advice:

Never make up a dozen prayers in a row and then go out for a run. My thighs still hurt 2 days later.

Missed Salat

Making up missed prayers according to the Shafi'i madhab

Calculating how many missed prayers I have to make up

How to Offer Makeup Prayers

One can offer make-up prayers at any time, even at times when prayers are normally forbidden.

Nawawi on making up missed prayers: scholarly consensus

Make up prayers of a new convert

Burn baby burn

My mind works in weird ways.

I wish I had read this piece from Umm Zaid that has the most important piece of advice a convert can ever get. Astaghfirullah, being regular with salat is not something that has come easily to me. But, alhamdulilah, I finally buckled down last night and calculated all the prayers I need to make up. If you're not regular about prayers, sit down and figure out how many you missed. You'll probably be shocked at how quickly they add up.

So, after maghrib, I made intentions to make up one missed maghrib prayer. After that one, I was starting to get in a groove. So I did another...and another...and another...

And this is where my mind starts working in weird ways. After quite a few rakat, I was starting to feel a burn in my legs. After the prayer, I headed off to the Y to run for awhile. While I was chugging along, I thought "I wonder what kind of exercise benefits we have in salat? It's a little bit of strength training and stretching, with all the prostrating. I wonder how many calories one burns?"

I tend to obsess about things. My current obsession is fitness for the love of fitness. So naturally, I'm now obsessing over how many calories one burns while making salat, lol.

My legs are really tender today. I know it's not just from running, since it hasn't hurt like this since waaaay back when I first started running in 05. The combination of salat and running was an excellent workout. What a wonderful extra benefit we get from worshiping our Lord!

Think Deeply... Where Are You?

Nermin Abd El-Moniem at IslamToday

Prayer is the second pillar of Islam. The Arabic word for prayer (salâh) derives from the word (silah) which means "a connection". Prayer is the best way that we can make contact with our Creator and seek His guidance and support. Essentially, prayer is our main route to attaining Allah's pleasure, and it is the first thing we will be asked about after death.

Since Islam is the religion of all humanity, it encourages us to be successful and ambitious and to work hard in order to achieve the best for ourselves, our communities, and for humanity as a whole. Also, Islam urges us to better ourselves in the various aspects of our daily lives, including our worship of Allah. On the Day of Judgment, Allah will ask us about our deeds, and we will be punished or rewarded according to the quality of those deeds.

Allah says: "To any of you that chooses to press forward, or to follow behind – Every soul will be (held) in pledge for its deeds." [Sûrah al-Muddaththir (74): 37-38]

In light of this, all Muslims are obligated to try to be proficient and successful in their various walks of life – as students, workers, doctors, craftsmen…etc. Moreover, we should remember that we do not seek success for our worldly lives only, but also for our lives in the Hereafter. Likewise, we have to try hard to attain higher degrees of excellence in our worship.

Accordingly, the five daily prayers are not just a duty or a habit for Muslims, but they are a daily and direct connection between us and Allah. In other words, they are our helpline that we use five times a day to give our hearts and souls the guidance that they need.

It is not easy for me, or for any of us as Muslims, to train ourselves to wake up daily before dawn in order to pray the Fajr prayer. It is also not easy to drag ourselves away from life's hectic schedule so we can always pray the rest of the five prayers on time. Yet, do we ever ask ourselves if Allah has accepted our prayers or not? Do we ever ask ourselves how we might improve the performance of our prayers?

In fact, I had never asked myself any of these questions until after reading the following words of Imam Ibn al-Qayyim (rahimahullâh). He writes:

Mankind, with regard to the performance of their prayers, are on five levels:

- The First: This is the level of one who is negligent and wrongs his soul. He is the one who falls short in performing wudû' properly, performing the prayer on time and within its specified limits, and in fulfilling its essential pillars.

- The Second: This is the level of one who guards his habit of offering his prayers on time and within their specified limits, who fulfils their essential pillars and performs his wudû' with care. However, his striving (in achieving the above) is wasted due to disturbances in his thoughts during prayer that distract him and turn his attention to other preoccupations and concerns.

-The Third: This is the level of one who guards his prayers within the specified limits, fulfils their essential pillars and strives within himself to repel the disturbances in his thoughts and extraneous concerns. He is busy struggling against his enemy (Satan) so that Satan does not steal from the prayer. Because of this, he is engaged in (both) prayer and struggle (jihad).

- The Fourth: This is the level of one who carries out the prayer, completing and perfecting its due rights and essential pillars, who performs it within its specified limits and with his heart fully engrossed in safeguarding its rights and specified limits, so that nothing of his prayer is wasted. His whole concern is directed towards its performance, its completion and its perfection – as it should be. His heart is immersed in the prayer and in servitude to his Lord, the Exalted.

- The Fifth: This is the level of one who carries out the prayer like the one mentioned above. However, on top of this, he has taken and placed his heart in front of his Lord, looking towards Him with his heart in anticipation, filled with His love and His might, as if he sees and witnesses Allah. The misgivings, thoughts and preoccupations have vanished and the veil between him and his Lord is lifted. The difference between this person and others with respect to the prayer is greater than the distance between the heavens and the Earth. This person is busy with his Lord, delighted with Him.

The people whose performance of prayer is at the first level will be punished, those at the second will be held to account, those at the third will have their sins and shortcomings expiated, those at the forth fourth will be rewarded, and those at the fifth will be close to their Lord, because they will receive the portion of the one who makes his prayer the delight and pleasure of his eye. Whoever makes his prayer the delight and pleasure of his eye will have the nearness of his Lord made the delight and pleasure of his eye in the Hereafter. He will also be made a pleasure to the eye in this world, since whoever makes Allah the pleasure of his eye in this world, every other eye will become delighted and pleased with him.

From that time on, I started to ask myself: Where am I? Will I be punished or rewarded? How can I reach the 5th level?

Wiping the slate clean? Getting back to praying regularly

I'm not too hot at praying my salat. I definately need this reminder.

From Sunnipath

Q. If someone I know used to pray regularly 5-times a day, but then over a period of time, started to get less and less motivated about salat to the point where they seldom pray, what practical advice could I give them that would help them pray regularly again? They get discouraged when they actually sit down and write down which salats they have to make up because the list gets so long. So what practical steps could this person take to start praying regularly again?

A. Bismillah al-Rahman al-Rahim:
It is good to "count one's blessings" when one feels discouraged. Oftentimes the discouragement is not warranted and is lifted through certain mental habits that shoulder spiritual effects by permission of Allah.

Among these habits is to give thanks to Allah for creating us; to give thanks for creating us as a human being of sound mind and body; to give thanks for creating us as part of the last and best Umma; to give thanks to Him for cherishing and sustaining us at all times, even - or especially - in the depth of distress from which we call to Him.

Then to remember that this Religion is ease and good tidings. In difficulty, make istighfar and in ease give thanks. In other words, remember Allah at all times. The Qur'an calls the Torah and the sun a Diya', while it calls the Qur'an and the moon a Nur. The Ulema said, this is because the Diya' is a light that burns while the Nur is a gentle light. The Torah had harsh rulings while those of Islam are gentle and easy.

Another habit is to remember that a time may come when one's salat and fast will become physically difficult or impossible, through sickness or old age or "man-made" preventions; and that one's salat might be the last one, followed by death. What is the excuse for someone able, young, and strong who is offered millions of opportunities for success and happiness but insists on missing them all? We should strive not to be remiss then remiss then remiss before we face the grave. If we saw someone dear in such a situation we would shake them up by the boot-straps.

It is advisable to make istighfar so as to clear one's mind of worldly ties. 100x Astaghfirullah daily. Give sadaqa to the intention of lifting difficulties. Invoke blessings on the Prophet. These devotions will facilitate the above mental dispositions insha Allah.

We should also examine our daily routines for acts or habits that are unadvisable to someone who is trying to change. We should put those away and try and stay away from the people, places, and/or times associated with them, for example: smoking; staying up late at night; spending hours on the phone chatting; working endless hours; anything vacuous done to mindless excess.

In fact, one should seek excellent spiritual company at all times but at least once every week or month, to remember Allah together with others whom one meets for no other purpose. Such gatherings are an essential part of recharging one's spiritual batteries. The loner is an easy prey but the wolf keeps away from the group.

It is advisable to remember also that one is never the only person thus apparently afflicted. Tedium is a common and perhaps universal and necessary test. The Sufis use the terms "straitening and expansion" (al-qabd wal-bast) to refer to different states in one's spiritual wayfaring to the Lord of all lords. Highs and lows are part of life for everyone so keep travelling. The Prophet would say, upon him peace: "O Allah, I seek refuge in you from helplessness and laziness." "Whoever dies on the way is written among those who have arrived," said Shaykh Muhyi al-Din Ibn `Arabi. The important thing is to keep moving, not to give up.

We should think also of the wisdom of difficulty and distress. They bring us nearer to our Lord by reminding us of our weakness. This is the illustration of the saying that "whoever knows himself" to be truly weak "knows his Lord" to be truly exalted and all-giving. Such are good times to turn to him and repent, even if this reaches seventy times a day. "Allah does not grow bored of giving, rather you grow bored of asking."

It is advisable to not approach the Salat as a burden but as a new chance for gain, improvement, victory over the mediocre alternatives of the self - depression, distraction, despair. It is a connection to the everlasting world, the communication with the Creator, companionship with the angels and the best of human beings such as Prophets. This is true of Qada' (makeup prayers) also, as every prayer is a fresh start. A contrite heart in Qada' may be better than a proud heart in Ada'.

The Salat is not a chore but the soul's nourishment and the weapon of the spirit. Do not deprive your heart and soul of its daily lights. Conversely, do not allow the enemies to roam at leisure by letting rust the practices that keep their harm in check. Imam al-Ghazzali said:
"The forms of the Salat which entail one bowing, two prostrations, specific numbers [of supplications], and specific Qur'anic utterances that are recited, at various lengths and times upon sunrise, noon, and sunset, have a specific effect in stilling the dragon (al-tinnin) that nestles in the human breast and breeds many-headed snakes [like a hydra] - equal to the number of one's [bad] traits - biting and snapping at him in the grave. … Its harm extends to the soul, as indicated by the Prophet's saying - upon him blessings and peace: 'A dragon with ninety-nine heads is empowered over the disbeliever in the latter's grave, doing such and-such etc.' There are many such dragons in the human make-up, and nothing subdues them except Divinely-prescribed obligations."

It is advisable to make the Salat brief so as to concentrate better and not think of anything else. A sahih narration from `Ammar ibn Yasir and Abu al-Yasar Ka`b ibn `Amr by Abu Dawud, Imam Ahmad, al-Nasa'i in al- Sunan al-Kubra, and others, states that `Ammar ibn Yasir prayed two rak`as and made them brief [deliberately]. `Abd al-Rahman ibn al-Harith said to him: "Abu al-Yaqzan, I see that you made them brief?" He replied: "I overtook Satan's whispering with these two rak`as. Verily, I heard the Messenger of Allah say - upon him peace: 'Verily, a man prays and it may be that nothing of his salat is recorded to his credit except one tenth, or one-ninth, or one-eighth, or one-seventh,' and so forth until he reached the last figure." No wonder many of the pious make their Salat - as imams and otherwise - brief.

It is advisable to pray at the very beginning of the time so that the rest of the time be blessed with the baraka of having discharged one's duty. Being in the clear as much as one can is part of gaining strength in the Divine good pleasure and a way to feel the blessing of time since time becomes a friend rather than a judge. It defuses the burden of guilt that becomes unbearable under a heavy debt and which it is not the Divine design for us to suffer.

This is some advice that comes to mind from your sinful brother.

Was-SalamHajj Gibril--GF Haddad