Abdul Nasir Jangda – Salah In Focus P2 2
AI: Summary ©
The importance of recovering from difficult situations, rebuilding from them, and learning to pray is crucial to salon success. The importance of transformation and transformation of one's life is crucial, and physical and mental health is key to achieving success. Prayer is a small part of one's life, and spending too much time on it can lead to negative impact on one's health. Investing in one's potential and redoing one's potential can improve one's life, and setting aside time and doing small small things can improve one's quality of prayer. The importance of respect and knowing the depth and beauty of words in prayer is emphasized, and the course on "offering the glory of Islam" is offered to improve one's salon.
AI: Summary ©
Bismillah Alhamdulillah wa salatu salam ala rasulillah. While Allah He was such a big marine. So I'm Ali Khan Rahmatullahi wa barakatuhu. So to welcome everybody who might have come for the Salah for the prayer and is joining us now, we have a little bit of a session before this allow where we started off our topic for tonight, which is salaat infocus. Before we get started, just had a couple of quick announcements I was requested to make, first of all, is that the brother and sisters, both the the teachers and the students that are here from the M cc school, are requested that at 830 in Shaolin they can be at the door, both the teachers and the students, all the kids, all the brothers
and sisters, if they can be at the door, that's inshallah when they'll be heading back. At the same time, of course, I wanted to appreciate the the kindness and the graciousness of our chef, in allowing us to have the program and welcoming, welcoming us, you know, it's always a an opportunity, it's a blessing to meet someone of knowledge, meet two people of knowledge. But over the little bit of experience that I've had something that I've come to realize is true people of knowledge are identified actually by their character and by their flock, because that's a legacy of the messenger salatu salam and of course, Mashallah, the graciousness of our ships, shows that, Mashallah, he is
from the people of knowledge, and I hope, and I pray that the local folks try to make the most and benefit from his presence here inshallah. But, so picking up from our topic where we left off, we were talking about the Messenger of Allah sallallahu Sallam going through one of the most difficult moments in his life, where he suffered the loss of not only his wife, but also the man who raised him, who was basically his family, Bhutanese. And the tragedy, that that was personally from a human perspective, what a tragedy it was for the Prophet salallahu alayhi wasallam.
Now, to move along the topic. Well, the question that we left on, was, how do you recover from that?
How do you recover from that? The brother I told you about who shared with me his personal experience of losing his wife, and he had two small children. And he literally told me that for a few weeks, he didn't even know what to do with himself. He said he didn't leave his room, he locked himself in the dark. He said he didn't even hold his own kids for a couple of weeks in his own hands because he was broken. He didn't know what to do. He didn't know what and nothing made sense to him anymore. How do you recover from a tragedy like that? How do you bounce back from something like that? Especially when you have the weight of the world on your shoulders? I mean, the Messenger of
Allah ceylonese didn't have to go back to to a job.
Not to belittle anyone's work, but he'd have to he didn't have to go back to an office. He didn't have to go back to a store. The Messenger of Allah Salah isn't meant to go back to preaching and teaching all of humanity. How do you recover from something like that personally, losing the two most important people in your life,
the people, the two people in your life that your world revolves around? How do you recover from that?
The Messenger of Allah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam shortly thereafter, was went on the most miraculous journey that any human being has ever taken. It's the journey of an Islamic marriage, the journey by night to Jerusalem and the ascension above the heavens, he undertook this journey, he was taken on this journey by Allah subhanaw taala.
And on this journey, he was given a gift by Allah.
And that gift was
the five daily prayers. That gift was bestowed was given at that time,
as a remedy, as a solution, as the the the outlets to be able to emotionally recover. And when we look throughout the life of the prophets, all of a sudden we see that his way of dealing with anything with everything
was first and foremost a prayer. That's how he would recover. That's how he would bounce back. That's how he would deal with the greatest personal tragedies that he went through the most difficult moments in his life. When his child passed away, his son passed away.
And he was heartbroken as any parent as any father would be. any parent would be at the death of a small child. He was heartbroken and he was being taunted.
And he was being teased
and spoken about negatively by people at that time.
What did Allah subhanaw taala tell him and now I'll tell you not to go
for solid Arabic pray.
Well, Lacan Alamo and naka de casa de Luca be Maya kulu Luna law says we know we understand that your test becomes constricted. You know what that means? chest becoming constricted. It's an expression in Arabic. You don't when you go through so much pain.
When you go through so much pain that you feel like you can't even breathe.
Like you start to feel suffocated, like you can't catch your breath. Last 100 Kelvin so we know that when these people say what they say that that's the effect it has, it's hard to even breathe. It's tough. It's difficult.
But Allah said do what how are you going to deal with this for Serbia we have the Arabic or communist surgery continue to praise your Lord and be from those people who prostrate who put their face on the ground in front of Allah subhanaw taala
pray it makes everything okay. Either has about who I'm on fuzziness, Allah. Whenever any situation came up with the Messenger of Allah sallallahu sallam, he would at once immediately go to the prayer. And he made everything okay.
That's the role that prayer played. That's the role that Salah served in the history of our Deen in our religion. It was the emotional outlet of the prophets of Salaam, it was emotional recovery of the Messenger of Allah sallallahu sallam, it was his way of dealing with the most difficult situations that any human being has ever faced.
Salah was that a way to talk to a lion a way to heal the wounds,
a way to shed the negativity
and outlets on how to recover and bounce back.
And the reason why I started off by saying our objective here was today was going to be shifting our perspective about the prayer first and foremost. And then we'll talk about what we do within the prayer. The first and foremost thing was to shift to change our view, our perspective of the prayer is because each and every single one of us in this room, some more than others. But it doesn't change the fact that every human being faces challenges, faces, adversity, faces difficulty. We all have our own personal stories, we all have our own personal tragedies, we're all walking around with our own personal wounds on our hearts.
And we're looking for a way to bounce back, we're looking for a way to recover.
We're looking for a way to deal.
And that's what the prayer is. That's what a lot is, it's a way to deal. It's a way to bounce back. It's a way to recover. It's a way to heal the heart, the soul of a person, by connecting to them
through connecting to Allah to find peace and tranquility and comfort and confidence in life in being who we are being who we need to be.
But this leads to one very obvious question, the same question I posed in the football.
That brother, everything you say sounds great and fantastic.
no disagreement, everybody agrees.
But the problem is that I pray
five times a day, for five years, 10 years, 15 years, 20 years, 30 years, 40 years.
I don't get out of my prayer, what you're talking about,
I pray five times a day. For years now. I still don't get out of my prayer, what you're talking about what's missing. There's one thing that is missing. The key ingredient, the key component, the thing that activates all these blessings and all these benefits of the prayer.
And that is what alignments, messengers allottee some refer to as who sure
we'll talk more about for sure, in the class that we'll have later on the meaning of the word and the root of the word and the definitions of the word. Today to move our discussion along, I'm going to refer to crucial as quality within the prayer. There's many different components will show but the summary summary of the word of the word of crucial as a concept is quality. Our prayer has to have good quality, it's got to be a quality Sala
quality.
And that leads to the million dollar question. So the first thing is that we got to have quality within our prayers, and then our prayers will become effective, then our prayers will become beneficial, then we'll get all the fruits and the benefits of the solar. But that leads to the million dollar question. How do I get cashew in my cellar?
You know, everybody knows the importance of crucial everybody's we've had, you know, we've read books and we've listened to lectures and we've, you know, talked and discussed about the importance and the necessity of crucial. We all know we need it. But the question is, how do we get it?
And of course, again, you know, in the presence of scholars, I'm very humbly I'm just going to put forth just a couple of thoughts on this idea.
on how to develop crucial. There's literally dozens of different recommendations of scholars. There's whole books that have been written, where scholars make dozens of different different
recommendations, different little things that we can implement. And altogether they can help us achieve more for sure. But to summarize our conversation or discussion here, the way I'll explain it is three areas of improvement.
We need three areas of improvement,
to develop quality within our prayers, to change our lives, to change our perspectives, to change the experience of the salon.
The first area of improvement is what I like to call a change of lifestyle.
A change of lifestyle. look very honestly,
if I come here to pray, I come here for this allow or I stand up to pray I say Allahu Akbar.
But when I'm not praying in my daily normal life,
when I'm with my family, when I'm socializing, when I'm with my friends, when I'm at work, when I'm at school, when I'm at my job, in my everyday normal life, if I'm lying and cheating, and swearing and cursing, and just just, you know, just I'm being a really, really terrible person.
I'm being a really, really just terrible human being.
And then all of a sudden, when I stand up for the Salah, and let's say Allahu Akbar, I expect to magically just transform into having superduper quality within my Salah. It doesn't work like that.
The way I act, the way I conduct myself the way I walked away, I talk the way I live my life, the choices I make, in my day to day everyday life will have an impact on the quality of my prayer without a doubt.
We can't separate the two there is no separating of the two. You know, in a authentic nation, the prophet of Allah salatu salam tells us a Salatu noon. Prayer is a new it's an illuminating force. It's a light it's a gift from Allah.
Amanda Schaeffer, Abraham, Allah taught us a very valuable lesson about this mood and this gift from Allah.
When he talks about you know, retaining knowledge and memorizing and remembering what he learned from his teacher, you know, he says it in couplets. Shaco, to eat our Kia into a heavily photoshopped and he be talking mousy rapala la Manu mini la que a little lucky Lego Talia. Awesome. He says that I complained to my teacher will hear, I can't remember what I learned. I can't retain what I learned. So he told me to stop committing sins, because he said knowledge is a new word. It's a gift from Allah. And Allah does not grant his new knowledge does not give this gift to somebody who is sinful.
The way we live our lives, the way I walk and talk, the way I conduct myself will have an impact on the quality of my prayer. I can go from being the biggest liar and the biggest cheater and the most terrible human being alive to when I stand up for a salad and magically instant crucial. doesn't work like that. You know, when the mom comes for the prayer, and turns on the microphone,
then says brother in the back, could you please turn on the horseshoe generator? No, no, that's the fan the button next to it. Right? And flip on the switch that goes
on. A lot of our club doesn't work like that.
doesn't work like that. It's you. It's who you are. It's how you conduct yourself how you live your life, that's going to have an impact. So that's the first thing. We just got to start making better choices. And that will drastically improve the quality of our prayer. Because we're just better people. When we approach the prayer. We're already too in tune, we're already connected to a law. Because I think of a law and every waking moment of my life. When I'm about to say something to someone, I think ah
Is this something Allah subhanaw taala will be pleased with me for speaking to my brother like this. And I catch myself I thought of a lot when I think about snatching something as a couple of bucks laying around on the table, just kind of walked by fivefinger discount, right?
So I think about a law
is that something a lot would be pleased with?
Will this please might Rob or will this please my Lord.
I'm connected to a law. Then when I approach to prayer, I'm already connected to a life's not a drastic change of scenery.
So that's very logical. That's the first general area of improvement, a change of lifestyle.
The second area of improving the quality of our prayer significantly, is what I like to call making Salah an important part of our day. Make salon event makes ally an important part of your day.
Unfortunately, the situation right now
is that salon is not a very important part of our day. Let me give you an example. Let me draw an example from our daily lives. Let's say that you have to be at work.
You have to be at work and there's a lot of young folks here a lot of younger people. So let's say you have to be at work or be at school.
At ADM.
That's when your day starts. That's when your job starts. That's when class starts at 10. And you live 10 minutes away from work slash school. You're live 10 minutes away from your work from your job or from your school. 10 minutes away, and it starts at eight. So you try to leave your house by 7:45am. So you can get there, five minutes spare park your car walking gets eat at 759 ready to roll. All right. So 745 you have to leave your house. If you have to leave your house at 745.
How much time before that? Do you start preparing and getting ready for work or for school?
Go ahead. Anybody, everybody. Just
how much time do you need to get ready?
45 minutes. Anybody else? 30 minutes.
All right. One time I asked this question and a sister said two hours I said me ALLAH forgive you. All right. stuffer luck.
I'd hate to have to wait in line for the bathroom behind you. All right. I feel sorry for your brothers. All right, so But okay, so typically sisters usually say an hour brothers usually say 30 minutes, the average is somewhere around like 45 minutes 30 to 45 minutes. That's how much time you need scoot in just a little bit. inshallah fill in any of the gaps. You can make more room and child there's some brothers standing out there. more space we can make for everybody, the better it is inshallah accommodate people.
So the average is about 30 to 45 minutes you spend getting ready. Now if I asked you, I said, Brother, why do you do that?
Why not just roll out of bed at 740 and just pretty much get up and walk through the door, you know? Right? And just walk through the door at 740. Why? Why don't you do that?
Why not?
Because it's my
it's my job. It's important. I gotta wake up. I gotta wash I gotta brush, I gotta comb. I get a shower. I gotta iron. I gotta dress, I gotta pack my stuff. I gotta eat something, drink something. It's my job. It's my work. I got to prepare. That makes sure that when I get to work, I'm ready to work. can't mess around, can play around with my work. So you take it seriously, right? Your work is very important to you. You take it seriously. And so therefore what do you do for it? You prepare? You prepare. That's just a part of life.
Right? When you take something seriously, you prepare for it. Right? Anybody here go to a wedding and just pretty much just get up and just walk out the door. Go to a wedding in your PJs. Anybody did that?
Huh? I don't think so. All right.
That's when even brothers spent two hours getting ready. All right. Okay, I won't tell anybody. All right. But will you prepare when you think something is important, you treat it as important and it is important in your life. Now let's compare that to how we pray. And I'm going to use the most drastic example possible because it helps serve my point, my purpose, it helps make my point. Let's talk about so lots of fun.
How do we place a lot of budget?
Alright, so let me explain this scenario to you.
So first, a lot of fudger you have the route from your bed, to your sink, completely mapped out and laid out so that you can walk it in the dark.
You know why? You know why? Nobody admits this. It's okay. all I'll say it. I'll admit it. But you all know it's true. But nobody admits this. Because you when you wake up first fill out the budget in the morning. You don't like to turn all the lights on because it takes the sleepiness away. Right? Because you got to crash again, right? Everybody knows it's okay. I won't tell anybody. All right. So then you have that route map mapped out and planned out to the point where you can walk in with your eyes closed and in the dark. All right. So you wake up, you then proceed to make a 15 second, we'll do
it in the most unbelievable do of all time. All right. It's it's at the point where it's not even a will do it's almost like a magic trick at this point. It's like Tara Dunn will do right. It's the most minimal will do in the world. All right, because you're so green. Mashallah, right. So then you do this instant, we'll do like that.
And then you proceed to come back to your bed and you pray right next to your bed. And you engage in a procedure. I like to call Stop, drop and rollover.
Right, salam, salam, you would pray on your bed if it was possible.
Right. So that's how we pray. That's how we pray.
Right? This is, you know that that's how we pray Salah. Unfortunately, I know we're laughing we're joking because we want to keep the light mood kind of light and we want to enjoy the evening. But to tone it back down to dial it back down for a second.
How sad is it that that's the state and the condition of our
Prayer. How sad is that?
My job my work 45 minutes.
Get ready, prim and proper and nice and focused in in the zone.
I mean we warm up before we play sports.
We'll spend 15 minutes warming up before we play sports stretching out. We're about to play a game.
Bull put 1520 minutes of time 30 minutes of time getting ready to play a game.
A salado just like that.
It impacts the quality of our prayer when we approach someone like that.
So what can we do to improve the quality of the Salah in terms of preparation making it important? One personal recommendation and of course again, you're in the presence of the shank but one small recommendation humble recommendation.
The Prophet of Allah salami someone who was asked by as a hobby about one of the most virtuous of deeds he says salado Bhakti her prayer at its very first initial time as soon as the time for the prayer comes in. If somebody can't manage that, you know because it fluctuates, right it's a couple of minutes different every single day. If you can't manage that for whatever reason, one recommendation you don't if all my time in the machine What time is it karma for Southern Asia?
Here in the machine
915
Sultan Asia
nine o'clock, so let's just say salata, Asia, nine o'clock here in the machine, it karma time is fixed nine o'clock, typically in masajid. Typically in massagin. If nine o'clock is selected Russia, what if the Imam is not even there by nine o'clock? What time do we still pray?
Nine o'clock. Tough luck, buddy. Right? Typically in massage, they have this type of attitude. If your karma is nine, if karma is nine, no matter what happens if karma is nine,
I don't care what happened if karma is nine.
Right? Typically massage that's the attitude.
in your personal life, having a karma time for prayer for yourself.
130 is when you pray every day.
130 is when you pray though.
You step aside from whatever you're doing. At 125 you go and you make will do when you stand up and you pray some of the thought I went through you fix the time of prayer upon yourself, discipline yourself, just like you got to be at work at eight o'clock 130 I got to pre load I don't care what's going on. I gotta pray.
So trying to hold as much as possible. There are always exceptions. Somebody's job maybe doesn't allow them or, like I actually have a student who is training is a medical residency training to be a surgeon. So he says sometimes you have to scrub into surgery. And there's a man lying on the table with his chest open and they're working on his heart. And he said it's like a six hour procedure. There's exceptions to the rule. All right, that's different. Generally speaking, though, take time out.
And when it's time for Salah, fix the time of prayer upon yourself and learn to pray on a fixed time, it will teach you discipline, it will make this a lot important just like your work is important. Making will do for the Salah properly, will do is an act of very bad that it's an act of worship, Your sins are being shed as you make will do.
So making will do properly.
And then one recommendation even cathedra mo Allah says Allah who assure you of Solomon farakka called Bakula Salah, who sure will be achieved by the person who opens who frees who empties his heart for the prayer. He puts everything else aside and just frees himself up just to pray, especially his heart and his mind.
That's it.
And so one thing also a recommendation that scholars make is that when it's time to pray, power down, especially today for us. We live in the age of the distraction, everything buzzes and everything beeps and everything's got a light.
Right? The phone, it doesn't just have phone calls, but it's got messages and emails and Facebook updates and Twitter alerts, notifications.
Everything is going on here all the time, non stop all at once.
And so kind of turn it off, face down. And the scholars say take 60 seconds.
Shut the laptop screen, turn off the TV shut everything down. 60 seconds to sit down quietly and just sit.
Quiet.
You see how awkward it is for us. 20 seconds of silence. How awkward is like oh my god, what's he doing? Somebody just updated their Facebook status. It got really awkward in here right now.
They make a little sideways face. Right?
That's That's how bad it is for us today.
60 seconds of just quiet.
And literally everything powers down. Everything gets quiet.
And when it gets quiet for 60 seconds, then think about something, you can actually think clearly. You can actually focus.
You can breathe again.
And just free yourself up, empty information dump.
Let it all go.
So sit down for a minute or two and just power down.
And then stand up for the prayer. Because otherwise what happens? You text somebody Where do you want to go eat dinner after the lecture send
a lot more club.
Now what happens at about 30 seconds, you're in the middle of certain fatty honey goes.
They try to figure out what do they want to go eat?
I don't want to go there. Again. We went there last night.
I feel like some Somali food.
Sorry, I'm pandering to the audience. All right. So but that's, that's, that's the reality. That's what happens at that point in time.
So we got to just kind of power it down.
Just kind of let it all kind of
and then stand up for this.
So prepare properly, even the dress. You know, even how we present ourselves in prayer affects the quality of the prayer. If you walk out in your sweats, you feel like blah. But if you actually take a shower, you actually wash up and you comb and then you put on the nice shirt and some nice pants like some nice clothes. You feel like a million bucks, you feel good. You stand a little bit taller when you talk to somebody because you look good. It's just you it's basic human psychology. There's a chapter in the son of a Buddha who there's a chapter about Babel at Mammon the visa lottery. sambad Salah, the chapter about the Prophet says sometimes, like care and consideration of the
prayer, how he would approach the prayer. It talks about how the Messenger of Allah loves him, you know, we have worked close. We have worked close we put them on before we get to work and what do you do first thing when you get back from work.
You go and you put them off, take them off. When I got back to the hotel after salted Juma, first thing I did was take off the vest and hang it. I don't want to mess up this vest.
Look baller say Mashallah, everybody.
All right. So, you take care of your clothes, working clothes, outside clothes, professional clothes, the Messenger of Allah ceylonese him when he would come home, he would actually remove his clothes, and he would dress more casually in the home, and he had clothes for the masjid. He had clothes for prayer.
And he would approach it accordingly. When the time for Salah would come, the family of Islam says it's like he would become a stranger to all of us.
He was very loving, very casual, you'd mix it up at home, he laughed, and he joke and he, you know, play with the children and he'd help out at home and he do work and eat, talk and chitchat and check on everybody. very involved. But one time for him. It's like he became a stranger. You don't first time I heard this narration I was a young kid. For some our generation. It got kind of caught me off guard. sound a little weird to me. Because again, when you don't understand something, you don't understand something. I was kind of like, What do you mean, his family became strangers to him? Like I didn't understand like found it almost kind of offensive? Like what do you mean, your family
becomes a stranger to you? Like I didn't grasp it. Until you actually are responsible for something and then you understand what that means? Anybody here who's who's a parent, especially the dads?
Right? Who go for work. And you got little kids at home? You know exactly what that's about. When it's time to go to work. When your kids start to get older. They're about two years old. Sometimes not even that old. Right? Like my kids. You know, they didn't they didn't throw, throw too much of a foster a fit. My niece does it really, really bad. Right? She's only a year old. And already she's throwing her fits, right? So what typically happens when they start to realize that you're leaving for work? What do they do when it's time for you to they see you pick up the keys or they see you pick up the briefcase immediately they know so what happens? They make a dash for the door and they
cut you off at the door. They're already waiting there when you get to the front door and where are they doing?
Oh my god screaming and crying like this the greatest tragedy that's ever fought befall in mankind.
Big crime this grin Dong goo Please don't go. Right. What do you do at that time? Do you say okay, that's fine. I guess I won't go to work today. Is that what you say?
No, you pick them up. You move on to where you tell your wife come and get in and you go out the door.
You don't you don't you don't not go to work. When you show up to work. 45 minutes late and your boss says Where were you? And he said oh my kid he was crying. He said
cued here, let me show you a picture of him. Does he want to see that? Oh, you don't care.
I don't care about your kid up here at eight o'clock, I pay you to be here at eight o'clock.
Otherwise spend the day with your kid all day at home. Right? You're responsible for something. Does that mean when a parent when the father's tool goes out the door even though the kid is crying, does that mean he doesn't love his child?
If somebody said, Oh, you don't love your child, you let him cry, even though you were leaving for work, you'd be offended. So what are you talking about brother, I don't love my child, I do this because I love my child. I do this to take care of my child, I do this to support my family.
And that's exactly the Messenger of Allah. So a lot of time when the time for prayer would come, that we had family time, he's become like a stranger, he would go and he would prepare, he would change his clothes, and he would go for this prayer to the machine. So the second area of improving the experience of this whole law is to make supply an important part of your day, prepare for it, set time aside for it, and get ready for the prayer like it is something important in your life. Like it is an important part of your day.
The third area of improving the experience of the Salah is within the prayer itself. And there are two basic things about that. Number one is knowing how to pray, which we call the fifth of Salah, knowing how to pray the basic requirements of the prayer, the structure of the prayer.
But that'll give you the skeleton. But what puts the soul inside of that?
What is the spirit of the prayer? Where is the prayer going to come to life from a very basic place, very, extremely basic place.
When we understand what we read and what we say within our salon.
It's reflection.
It's crucial to think to ponder to reflect on what we say. I'll give you a very basic example. Really, really basic example. I've been speaking for about 30 minutes now. After the prayer,
everybody's listening, or hopefully everybody's listening. All right. I've been speaking for about 30 minutes, and most people are paying attention. Why are they paying attention? Why are they listening to what I'm saying? There's a very basic reason. Because you understand what I'm saying?
The words that I'm speaking, they make sense to you.
So you're able to listen, you're able to grasp you're able to take and you're able to process what I'm saying. And that allows you to stay connected and continue to pay attention. simple logic. If I've been speaking for the last 30 minutes on the language, nobody here speaks.
If I've been speaking in Chinese for the last 30 minutes,
how long before you would start paying attention?
Be honest.
Within seconds, that's an honest man. Within seconds, right? You'd update your Facebook status. I think he's trying to kill us, right? Trying to bore us to death, right?
So there's a very simple reason. Now this is the part where it just stings just a little and I apologize if this bothers or offend someone.
But the point of these sessions is to be honest with ourselves before anybody else.
As silly as it is of an example for me to be standing here in front of you talking in a language nobody understands for 30 minutes and expect you to pay attention.
How different is our Salah from that example?
Because you see we stand up in our prayer day after day so laughter salah
and we read
Subhana Allah hum ob hum Dakota Baraka smoke Al hamdu, lillahi Rabbil, aalameen, Subhan, Allah, Allah, Allah, Allah,
Allah He was, we read all of this, that we read in our prayers, everything that we read in our prayers, so behind
all of the things that we say within our prayers.
But do we understand what we're saying?
Do we understand the meaning of what we're saying? Do we have the ability to reflect
on what we're saying?
If the answer is no,
then we have the cause of our problem. We know exactly what's wrong. We know where our issue is.
And so one of the main steps that we need to take to improve the quality of our prayer is to develop an understanding and appreciation for the depth, the beauty, the meaning of what we read, and what we say within our prayers and then reflect on that meaning.
And I'd like to close here by sharing a couple of examples with you.
Sharing a couple of quick examples with you on how knowing what you're saying and having the ability to reflect on what you're saying. It drastically improves and changes the experience of the prayer of the salon.
Number one,
the most basic, rudimentary part of the prayer, the most oft repeated practice
Within the prayer is
Allahu Akbar.
We start the prayer go into the core, Allahu Akbar, we go into our St. Jude Allahu Akbar, we get it from the sun Allahu Akbar, we go back into us as long as we get back from this as Allah, Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar, we see so many times within one prayer, one Salah.
within two hours, we say it's so many times.
The question is, what does Allahu Akbar mean? So typically, the translation that we've heard of a lot of work, but is Allah is
the Greatest. That's what you typically see.
Now, if we analyze the words, just a little bit deeper, at a grammatical level, we realize something.
See, the word echo Arabic is a language of patterns. There are patterns for everything.
acapella is a pattern is lovely. It's a pattern, which is for the comparative, not the superlative. For the superlative, you got to add something to it. But at the bottom in and of itself, is the pattern for comparative not the superlative. Now even that is technical terminology. Let me explain through an example.
zayde is faster than Khalid Zaid is faster than Khalid that's the comparative, but ashmit is the fastest
method is the fastest. That's the superlative. So October is the comparative not the superlative. Everybody got it. really basic.
Meaning if we go back and we read translate, Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar, retranslate to Allah is greater.
But if I was to say xav is faster, then
exactly, everybody's waiting for me to finish the sentence finished the thought, I left a blank at the end, I said zayde is faster than blank, I left it open ended I left the blank at the end. When we say Allahu Akbar, there is a blank at the end, a lot is greater than blank.
And the thing is that when you have a statement that demands an object, and that object is not provided, there's a blank at the end. This is done intentionally in classical Arabic. This is a rhetorical function. This is from the Bulava of classical Arabic is very commonly found in the Quran.
That when a statement or a verb demands an object, and that object is not provided, there's a blank there instead. Yes, it includes anything and everything. But the reflection
is that you're supposed to customize the message for yourself.
Allahu Akbar, Allah is greater than blank, you know what goes in that blank, whatever is distracting you from your salon at this very moment.
So when my phone rings, I'm starting to pray and I say Allahu Akbar, and my phone is ringing. Allahu Akbar, to me right now means Allah is greater than this phone call.
When my friend is waiting outside in the car, Allahu Akbar, Allah is greater than my friend. When the restaurant is going to close in 20 minutes.
Allahu Akbar, Allah is greater than and more important to me, then the restaurant, when a game is on television.
Allahu Akbar Allah is more important than this game.
That's the reflection. That's the thought process. That's the who Sure. Somebody would have asked you, what's the reflection? What's the horseshoe and even saying Allahu Akbar, you'd be like, What are you talking about? A lot of work. But if
you just say a lower Brother, what do you mean the log what he's about to think about when you say alone? No, there's even a reflection built into Allahu Akbar. So the next time you pray when you stand up, and you praise him after a shine, you say luck. But we'll go through the reflective process and see how long it takes you to say Allahu Akbar.
Quality. That's where it comes from. It's very simple. It's a simple formula.
I'll share one more example with you.
Because I loved Minnesota and so much. All right, I don't know if that's a word. All right. So I'll share one more example.
When we go into sujood sat down,
which literally means to put your face on the ground,
to put your face on the ground.
What do we say we say Subhana. Allah bl
Allah, Allah Allah. This is a superlative. When you add lamb with olive today's most of Leela makes it superlative.
All right, this means the highest, the most exalted, the highest. So we're saying how absolutely perfect is my Lord. My mastermind, rob a lot
Who is the highest? How absolutely perfect is my rock my Lord? Who is the highest? Allah is the highest?
That's what it means. But what position do we say it and we stayed in solitude and are such that when we were prostrating, when we put our face on the ground,
reflect on that for a minute, what is the lowest physical position possible for a human being?
Put your face on the ground, there's nothing lower than that.
The face is the respect and the dignity.
The respect and the dignity of the human body is the
face, it's who you are, it's your identity.
Right? What's on your driver's license, a picture of
your face. Nobody goes here, go and take a picture of that everybody knows who that is. Right?
Don't do that. It's your face. This is who you are. This is your respect and your dignity.
We take our respect and our dignity and we put it where
on the floor on the ground, where a minute ago, somebody had their feet.
Somebody had their feet there, and you put your face on the same spot, you put yourself in the lowest position possible. you humiliate yourself, you humble yourself.
And when you put yourself in the lowest position possible by putting your face on the ground, where people step with their feet. In that position, you say Allah is the the highest.
You see the beauty, you see the reflection, you see the thought process? Think about that. When you do you're such a next time.
And I guarantee you won't be saying so our last one or the last one or this one, I was one of them.
That doesn't mean anything. I think when I just said that right now, it probably hurt the chef's feelings, right? That's terrible when we say it like that. And the reason why that happens, because we're not even thinking and reflect on what was happening. Next time you see Subhana Allah, then think about it.
And let the lowest position possible and full of thoughts. I'm so messed up. I have all these limitations, all the shortcomings, all these, you know, deficiencies. But Allah, he's perfect. He's the highest, he's the most exalted, he's the most dignified, he's the most honorable.
He's the highest, and I'm the lowest. Think about that. When you say Subhana Allah, and it changes the whole experience of the whole procedure of the prayer. That's where quality comes from.
And so in sha Allah, to be able to, like we took a look at Kabbalah and we took it apart and we tried to understand what we're reading and what we're saying within our prayer. We did this here with the suggestion, it'll be Ilana.
In sha Allah, we have a program that is arranged, where we will be able to go through this entire procedure, this entire process, from beginning to end the entire salon,
where we will go through every single component of the prayer word for word, analyze it, understand it and learn to reflect on it.
And we will do that from the beginning of the prayer tech beat Allahu Akbar, opening supplications are the beloved Bismillah Surah Fatiha, another pseudocode on what we say in record what we say in sujood. What do we say when we get up from the record? What do we say when we sit between the sujood what do we say in the final sitting portion of prayer. And we'll even learn some extra things like this application of galoot. Like the supplication with secara, we'll go through everything word for word, reflect on it and learn what it means. And hopefully learn from it, the baby steps the initial process of developing quality and crucial within our soul within our prayers. And that's a course in
a program called meaningful prayer.
And so in sha Allah, you've probably seen these flyers. If not, then you have now I'll be coming back in sha Allah in two weeks, April the 13th through the 15th. I'll be back here in Minnesota at the university in sha Allah, to teach this course in this seminar to go through the study of the prayer.
And I've taught this course about
I lose count now, but I've taught it over 50 times different different spots throughout the country, and a handler every single time it's been a great experience for myself and for others as well. bead anila and we come together to try to improve the quality of our prayers. So inshallah that course will be conducted. What I'd like for everybody to do a couple of Practical Action Items, number one month to date on your own calendar, April the 13th, which is a Friday 7pm that's all I want you to remember. I don't want you to worry about the weekend. I don't want you to worry about all the other details. Just come Friday evening. Friday evening is open to everybody. Everyone is invited everyone
is welcome. or excuse me at 6pm not 7pm 6pm and what we will do that Friday evening is we will learn the in depth meaning of Sultan Fatiha and what it means
When we read in our prayer, and we'll talk about the conversation that happens between us and Allah, when you read selected Fatiha within our prayers. So that'll be Friday evening 6pm. So Mark that date on your calendar, action item number two, plan to invite another couple of people.
invite somebody else, bring a friend, bring a family member, bring a co worker, bring somebody. All right, share the head with somebody else. If you think you'll benefit from this, well, then also think of someone else and bring them with you. action item number three.
The point of this topic in this lecture is not to attend this course. Nobody cares about this course. Who cares? This is just an opportunity for us to be able to come together and learn. But it's not the objective. The course is not the objective. It never is. The objective is to improve the quality of our salon. So don't if you're sincere about improving the quality of your salon. You won't wait till April 13.
You will wait till April 13. You won't say all right, that's it. I'm going to sit for two weeks. I'm going to wait for April 13. And then I'm going to improve the quality of my prayer. No, no, no, be sincere.
The course is great. It's fantastic. It facilitates we all come together, we learn something together.
But don't wait for the course start tonight. Start today,
as the chef, as somebody who has more knowledge and you open up a book, look up the translation of what you read in the prayer. Maybe there's many of the others, the supplications, the of God of that the speed of the prayer that you haven't even memorized and learned yet, memorize it, learn it, try to learn the meaning of it, start making an improvement from today that shows sincerity and our intention when we start improving from today. So that's my final and humble request. Now in sha Allah,
that kind of wraps up this topic that I was here to talk to you about Salah infocus, and to talk about quality within our prayers, as I mentioned in the hood earlier today, but I understand many of the brothers and sisters maybe weren't here in the hood, but they've come specially for the program. I wanted to again reiterate what I said here earlier today,
I was given a tour of the facility and Marshall, I was really, really impressed. And I'd be lying if I didn't say that I was just a little tiny bit envious until I caught myself and reminded myself all right.
This is a real gift. It's a real blessing from Allah to have such a multifunctional multifaceted facility. It's a real opportunity on your hands here. All right, and then along with the presence of the sheriff, of course it makes it a real opportunity to learn and to grow inshallah positively.
But at the end of day, a machine is only as functional. And a center is only as beneficial as the people that are involved. Otherwise, it's what we call the museum. I have seen massages, you know, sometimes we talk about Spain and this and died about massages, turned out became museums when people abandoned them. No, no, we'd have to talk about Spain. I've been to massages here in the US. You know May Allah forgive me it's a mustard is still the house of a lion. I give it the respect that it deserves. For me, I try my best, but its role in the community. The practical functionality of the machine, you might as well just call it a museum.
You might as well just call it a museum, because that's what it becomes. Fancy big, beautiful facilities that will blow your mind. I went to a machine that is that will cost $12 million.
It will blow your mind is beautiful.
It's beautiful. Sisters, you want to get married in that machine. All right. That's how beautiful it is. All right. It's amazing. It's amazing.
I'll just leave it at that. That's about all I have to say about it. Nothing goes on nothing happens. Nobody is learning nobody's benefiting nobody's nobody's getting anything out of the facility. Other than fact, it makes for a great photo.
That's all that's happening there is people go there to pose and take a picture.
We got to get involved. This is our This is our gift. This is a gift to us from Allah,
any mustard every machine, but particularly here, because this is your mission.
We got to get involved. We got to get active. Everyone you know the profit of us a lot of them said that people are like gold and silver mines. People have so much potential but you gotta mind your potential. You got to refine your potential you got to invest your potential. You have so much to offer. And Islam welcomes and utilizes, as soon as the prophet SAW seven was to not change people like in the sense of if you're good at something he didn't say no, that's it. You can never do this ever again. But you got to learn how to do something completely different. He didn't do that. The Prophet of Allah loves him would take the qualities that people had what they were good at, and he
would use them for the benefit of the dean
on there was a harsh guy
was rough around the edges to profit and somebody said didn't say that. That's it.
You can never be like that.
This ever again. No put the professor molded and used his harshness, his roughness for the benefit of the dean.
Who was like a community leader.
Like he was everybody's uncle. Yeah, that guy who knows everybody. Hey, you you're your son. How's it going? As your dad say Salaam to your uncle for me. Right? You know that guy.
That was you know, everybody facism didn't say that's it, no more socializing for you
know, he said, Let's use this for Islam.
Hollywood in Hollywood, it alone. Juana was a warrior used to using us. He was a military guy, that's who he was. He was a soldier. That's what he did.
He was hardwired. He was programmed that way. He didn't say that's it. Never again, grab a book, a pen and a paper and sit down your student from today.
Of course, he learned but he allowed him to use his talents and his abilities to benefit the Dean
was the student
I've done my best was a student, not the loved one whom Allah be pleased with them.
He didn't say that's it.
You can't do this anymore. No, they learn they benefit. They brought that to the team. Whatever talent whatever ability you have, bring it here to the house of a law and make the most of it, utilize it for good. Use your powers for good.
Use your talents and your abilities for good. That's what we have to learn to do. And the blessing of Allah subhanaw taala is, is that opportunity is being provided to you,
that opportunity being provided to you. So as the announcement was made earlier, the machine requested me to once again remind everybody that they're in the process of forming different committees, you know, our committee, social services, religious activities, social activities, technology administrative, so get involved with your machine shop. All right, and try to take part try to join up with some of the committees and some of the activities and become a part of the good in the head that inshallah takes place from here. So inshallah again, while you're leaving, you can stop by the table, you can sign up and you can inshallah sign up to take part and not tomorrow, but
the next Saturday, which is April the seventh, I believe, April, the seventh on Saturday, at 4:30pm. They're going to have a meeting here at the masjid 4pm at 4pm. April, the seventh, which is a Saturday at 4pm. They're going to have a meeting here. It's going to be like the orientation meeting, where everybody inshallah will meet and greet with each other, the other people they'll be working with and go get started on the project. So please try to sign up. Try to come on that day, and take apart in your Masjid, and again, inshallah I'll be back on April the 13th. And I look forward to seeing everyone there. Does that come along later on. I really appreciate everyone's time
and everyone's patience and putting up with my lame jokes. I really appreciate it and inshallah I look forward to seeing everybody in a couple of weeks inshallah does akmola