Ali Ataie – The Five Daily Prayers (Salah) Enlivens the Soul
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AI: Transcript ©
How great is the remembrance of Allah Subhanahu
wa Ta'ala? Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala
says, for instance,
Remember Allah with much remembrance. And in this
verse, we have an imperative verb,
an imperative. It's called Siril Amor.
And then you also have an infinite absolutes
at the end of the verse for another
emphasis. So this is doubly emphasized
that we remember Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
The Sahaba of the Al Anwar Mirjaneen,
their tongues were so moist in the remembrance
of
Allah that when they used to go to
the bathroom,
they had to put, stones underneath their tongues
because they kept saying that, you know, they
kept it was habitual.
It was the bathroom. You can't be thicker
with your tongue. So they have to put
stones under their tongues to remember to forget
Allah This is how indicated they were to
remember
He says the similitude of one who remembers
his lord and the one who does not
is like the difference between the living and
the dead.
Right? So the earth is full of walking
corpses.
Because if you're spiritually dead, you're essentially
dead.
If you're spiritually dead,
you are essentially dead.
You can turn on the TV and see
dead people all the time.
Alright? We all have the 6 times. You
can see the next to dead people.
So
the scholars say that we have to die
before we die. Know if you've heard that
expression before. Die adjusts
to the world or to the dunya,
and will focus you on the laws of
Allah.
And by doing that, you will actually begin
to live. The prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam advised
us to remember death 20 times a day.
He said, remember often
the destroyer
of pleasures, and by that, we meant death.
And it's not so that there's a morbid
fixation on death. Right?
It's so that you may actually start living
and realizing that you're alive.
Right? It adds value to your life. For
example, if you're leaving your house in the
morning,
bring death to the forefront of your mind
and say, I can never see my wife
ever again. Alright? I may never see my
children ever again. How would you say goodbye
to them? This is how we should pray.
We'll talk about it. When you stand for
prayer for prayer,
When you stand for prayer, the prophet sallallahu
alaihi wa sallam gave advice to Abu Ayuk
Al Ansariq.
He said when you stand for prayer, pray
as if you're saying goodbye. You're saying goodbye.
You're looking things up well. This is how
we should live our lives.
By it, we actually become allies.
Right?
Malcolm was asked 1964
when he returned for Hajj and he left
the nation, he was asked by a reporter,
he said, you're a marked man. Are you
afraid?
And Malcolm said, as far as I'm concerned,
I died 20 years ago. I'm not afraid
of anything.
I only fear Allah.
That's the way the samurai.
You know the samurai? Ancient Japanese
warriors? They would convince themselves that they were
only a ked.
So there's nothing to fear in battle.
Right?
So just as there are people who are
physically alive
and spiritually dead, there are also people who
are physically dead,
but spiritually
alive. Like the shulada, this is from the
Quran.
Don't say they're they're dead.
Don't say they're They're alive.
That's a shroom, but you don't perceive
Right?
And they're receiving sustenance
from Allah There's
a famous pericope of Lisa, alaihis salaam, which
is in a Christian source. Luke chapter 15
is called the prodigal son,
where he's reported to have said, the son
of mine was dead and is now alive.
Alright. What does this mean? Who are the
dead ones?
Those in whose hearts
those whose hearts are the void of the
remembrance of
Allah. Allah
says,
He says the evil one has got the
better of them and that he caused them
to lose the remembrance of Allah
They are the fellowship of Satan.
She said,
She said the prophet used to remember Allah
in all of his states.
In all of his states, he remembered Allah
When he left the house, he remembered
Allah When he walked into the house, he
left the masjid, walked into the masjid, went
into the bathroom, walked out of the bathroom,
went, on a journey. When he returned from
a journey, all of his states, he was
remembering Allah.
And Aisha asked him, do you sleep before?
And he said, yeah, Aisha,
He said my eye is asleep, but my
heart is awake.
His heart was in the divine presence, so
the audience of them.
And his heart would affect those who were
in his presence. It was a companion named
Hanzada
who,
changed to Abu Bakr's seat.
Hanzalat
sallam, I'm filled with this intense spirituality.
But when I leave his presence, it begins
to wane,
and then it leaves me.
Especially.
I've become a.
And then said
in that case,
Right? So they both went to the province
of the
and they said, have we become become?
And the prophet said, no.
You have not. If you were to remain
in that state
as you are in my presence,
you would be shaking hands with angels in
the street.
His heart was in the divine presence. His
heart was annihilated
in Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
And we should know that a heart annihilated,
and the remembrance of Allah produces an inspired
tongue. And a tongue inspired to speak by
Allah will affect the world. It will, it
must
positively affect change.
Many will say, you know, I made Dawah
and nothing happens.
I made dawah,
I go and I preach and I do
this tonight. No one's converting. I think I'm
wasting my time. We we have to look
earnestly inside of our hearts. What's in our
hearts? You have to be very honest with
yourself. Look inside of our hearts. You find
lust.
You find Ben Franklin.
It's all about the green.
Harry Potter,
Frodo Baggins,
the Oakland Raiders.
These are idols.
These are Asnam. What is in your heart?
The tongue is the revelator of the heart.
That's the function of the tongue is to
reveal what is in the heart. If you
wanna know what is the lever to you,
what are you talking about? That's how you
can tell. What are you always talking about?
Whatever you're always talking about is what you
are are in love with. That's your that's
your habib.
The prophet
was inundated with remembrance of Allah
because he was in love with Allah
And this is why
the is so dangerous, the true hypocrite,
because he says with his tongue,
that which is not in his heart. See,
for who he modeled, they have a disease
in their hearts.
Right? So we need to enliven
our hearts.
Now in ancient Israel,
the the high priest of the temple of
Solomon,
once a year, on 10th day of 1st
month of the Hebrew calendar,
would go into the temple,
of Solomon, into the innermost sanctuary of the
temple. And by the way, the 10th the
10th day of the 1st month of the
lunar calendar as well.
It's Yoni Asura. This is a moharam.
This is called Yom Kippur in Hebrew. This
is the holiest day,
in all of Judaism.
They fast the entire day.
Right? They used to fall exactly in line
with the tent of
at the time of the office of.
This was, this was happening. And then they
started to use a major power rebuff
and extra, like, a lead month every 3
or 4 years so that the Hebrew calendar
will chive with the Gregorian calendar or the
Christian calendar. Right? That's why Hanukkah is always
in December.
You notice that? It always moves around December.
Because of its lunar calendar, it should move
back 11 days every year, just like all
of them does. Just like 8 does, but
it doesn't. Anyway,
he would go into the innermost sanctuary of
the temple, and the word temple in Hebrew
is hecal.
You ever heard the expression your body is
a temple?
Because is actually a Canaanite word, which means
body.
The innermost temple was called the the
holy of holies.
Right? And this is a this is a
an analogy for the human heart.
The priest would go into the innermost sanctuary
of the body,
and he would pronounce the ineffable name of
God. God is a name that only the
high priest knew. It's called Hashem in Hebrew,
the name. Al Isil Al Aqam,
the great name.
He would pronounce this name, and he would
supplicate,
for the believing humanity
by pronouncing the name of god in the
heart of the temple.
In other words, your heart should be
reserved
only
for the holy name of Allah Remove
all of these idols out of your heart.
Remove them all out. Remove the dunya
The love of the world,
right, is the head of every sin, this
hadith.
This doesn't mean that we have to reject
the dunya.
That's not our tradition.
This kind of monasticism.
Right? Allah
says in Quran that this is not even
in the original teachings of Isa
because the Christian monks, they practice this,
type of lifestyle, monasticism.
Athanasius of Alexandria, he wrote the first biography,
the first Christian monk ever. Christian monk's name
was Anthony from Egypt. It's called the life
of Anthony, 4th century. And he praises Anthony.
He says after he was baptized, he never
ever touched water ever again in his life.
He's praising him for that. He says he
never bothered to clean fill from his body
ever again in his life.
He's praising him for this. Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala says in the Quran, and this is
supposed to be pious behavior. He says, we
did not prescribe this type of thing for
the followers of the peace of mind.
So but the prophet
told us he warned us, you know, let
the dunya take over.
You can partake of the dunya, the prophet
partook of the dunya,
but do not let the dunya, the khubudunya,
the love of the world. Dunya means lower
world with the earth, earth that we're living.
Don't let it into your heart.
It was a group of 3 Sahaba
who came to the and said,
we want to divorce our wives and go
out and live in the wilderness and fast
every day.
And he said, are you better than I
am? And he said,
no.
No?
And he said, I don't do that.
I
said that this is the context of this
hadith. Whoever turns away from my sunnah is
not from me.
Right? So we don't have this extreme type
of,
monkish,
lifestyle. Don't let the dunya into your heart.
So,
now a very common polemic against our, theology
is that the God of Islam,
you probably heard of Islam, is is
is impersonal. He's not approachable. You can't have
a personal relationship.
Alright? With with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. It's
unreachable. Now we reject this idea. It's a
neo platonic idea. It's also a deist idea
that Allah
somewhere in the heavens is all for a
lot of anthropomorphic.
He's enamored by his own reflection. He's just
looking and enviroment himself,
indifferent to his creation. We reject this type
of idea. Right? This is a deist idea,
but many of the founders of this country
were free masonic deists. That was their theology.
Right? Like, George Washington certainly wasn't a Christian.
He he rejected communion with a 30, 30
degree freemason.
Thomas Jefferson had a bible where he crossed
off all of the so called
references to the divinity of Jesus. He crossed
them all out to not believe this.
Benjamin Franklin was really interesting.
Benjamin Franklin was a many people say he
was an atheist.
Even in England for 16 years, he was
part of a group called the Hellfire Club.
The Hellfire Club.
It's one of these secret societies that'd be
underground in caves and do these
kind of thing. You know what I mean?
I can't go into it.
But he has a house on Craver Street
in London even though it's 16 years. In
1993,
there was a custodian that was sweeping his
basement who settled upon human remains
in the basement of Benjamin Franklin. Do you
guys know about this? It's on thousands of
human bones. Thousands of men, women, and children
in the basement of Benjamin Franklin on his
house on 16 Craver Avenue in England.
Yeah. I've got WikiLeaks.
The the prophets of the body said he
lived a transparent life.
The intimate details of his life are known.
Right? This is he has full disclosure, transparency,
doing things behind the shadows,
and it comes out later. That's why, you
know, there's these people write these books, the
truth about having that. Right? So so profligate
wrote this book called The Truth, like, as
if it's some expose that no Muslim has
ever heard of. All of this stuff is
well known to Muslims, and Muslims have dealt
with it. Part of the problem is that
they don't understand the nature of Seerah literature.
Seerah literature is not one of our sources.
Seerah literature has no weight in sharia, in
creed, and not and nothing.
Right? It was the intention of the early
historians to collect as much information about the
prophet as possible
because they were being objective. They were being
transparent.
Right? So what they do is they look
at the prophet
through the lens of their own diseases,
and that's what a monastic does. That's exactly
what a hypocrite does. A hypocrite sees someone
doing a good deed and asks himself, why
would I do that?
To show off. That's what he's doing.
Right?
So
this is we reject this idea that god
is
far removed from his creation. We also reject
what we consider to be the other extreme,
which is the Christian idea
that God comes into the temporal world. He
comes into his creation,
thus making an idol out of himself.
Right?
And dwells in flesh and blood and so
on and so forth as a divine incarnation,
a divine avatar.
They can use the word
avatar.
A few days ago, I was watching the
I was flipping the channels. My daughter was
doing her everyday homework. She's 8 years old,
next to the table, and I know I
should be watching TV while my daughter's doing
her Arabic homework. I've already heard the last
year from the boss. Anyway,
we don't do that.
So so I'm flipping the channel. I got
a little volume, and I come to this
this Christian preacher.
And I I love listening to a preaching.
Right?
Kind of a weird guy. So he's he's
saying, he said, God came to Earth.
He came to Earth since then. And my
daughter was just kind of doing her homework,
and she goes,
not Earth negative.
You know it's mentioned in 3 gospels. Mark
1018. This is for the note takers.
Mark 10 18, Luke 18 18, Matthew 1917.
A Jew comes to Christ and says he
says it's in it's in Greek. The original
gospels aren't Greek. He
says, good master.
What must I do to gain eternal lives?
Jesus responds and says
unto him, He puts the object before the
verb. Why me
are you calling good? He stressed it, like,
how dare you call me good? This is
the effect of the Greek.
There's no one good but one, and that
is God.
This is this is multiply attested
in Mark 10 18, Luke 18 18, Matthew
1917.
The old testament says in Hebrew,
very clear. It's rhetorically perfect.
God is not a man.
Very, very clear.
So Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is transcendent.
He's outside
of time, space, and direction,
but he's also close to us. When my
servants ask you to show it, and he
say, I
am close to them. The word, the cognate
of Hebrew, is tev, which means it which
which means an internal organ.
The word tev, which is oriented toward meaning
close,
means an internal organ in its etymology.
Right? This is
We are closer to him, meaning mad at
the generic sense. Right? Man and woman to
human being. That is that is jugular vein.
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is that close to
us. If we were truly cognizant of Allah's
nearness to us, we would cease to function.
It's actually the mercy that we're somewhat,
detached
from Allah's presence. We would do it. We
would cease to function if we were suddenly
aware
that Allah is truly, essentially closer to us
than our regular beings.
He has our sinful actions that turn us
away from him, and this is a mercy.
This is why Allah gave us tawba, because
we need tawba.
We need it.
Right?
Actually says
He says that there's actually a see that.
There's a difference of opinion as to which
man or woman is better. The one who
sinned and made Tawba or the one who
never sinned at all.
There's actually a difference of opinion as to
which one is better.
Right? Ultimately, he's
the one who never sinned is better because
he's closer to the prophets who are maximum.
They're they're free of negation. But it's just
interesting that you have this,
you have this difference of opinion regarding this
issue.
Even when I talk about this as one
of his aphorisms,
He says, an act of sin that leads
to shame and impoverishment
and brokenness before Allah is better than a
good action
that leads to arrogance.
There's a beautiful story I wrote for you
of the Iqya.
It's called by
Abu Hamid al Hazari.
And he, you know, opened fasted.
He used to spend his days in the
in the
tavern in the bar, drinking,
and he died.
And the people of the town refused to
wash his body. They're not gonna wash his
body faster. Right? You can't bury him on
our cemetery either.
So his poor wife had to wash his
body, and then she made some sled
and took them all the way out into
the desert with the intention of burying her
husband and praying over his body. While this
was happening,
she's digging this dish,
a gnostic, an
a gnostic walks by. He sees the scene
and he rushes down,
and he says, I want to help you
bury your husband.
And she says, fine. So he buries the
body and he prays little prick. And then
she says, why did you want to help
me? Do you know who my husband is?
He said, yes. I know very well your
husband
and I wanted to
help you. And she says, what do you
mean? And he says, last night I had
a dream and I heard a voice that
said,
tomorrow you'll be traveling in the desert. You'll
see a woman trying to bury her husband.
Help her because her husband was a man
of genuine.
He's a he's a man of paradise.
Right?
So,
he prays over the body and then he
leaves. Now, the townspeople come out and they
see what had happened. So they approach his
wife,
and they say, why did he do that?
And she says, I don't know. And they
said, do you think it would be some
why he's on that agenda? And And she
said, there's only three reasons I can think
of. He was never the boy of 1
or 2 orphans that he would love and
care for more than his own children. And
every morning when he would wake up from
his wine, he would change his clothes,
make take a shower, make
and go and pray
masjid. He would pray in congregation in the
mosque the morning prayer. And when he would
come home from his wine, he would go
to a secluded corner of the room, He'd
fall down to his knees. He'd raise his
hands to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and say,
oh, Allah, which corner of * are you
going to fill with this precious man? Referring
to himself. And to be in that state
of sub supplication and repentance until he fell
asleep.
This is why we need to be in
a state of to the
word
means
to turn.
Right?
To turn. Literally,
turn to
a
law.
Oh, the most forgiving, turn towards us.
It's the same in Hebrew. The word is
the verb is.
Ezekiel says in the old testament, Ezekiel is
probably
but he says, if the wicked would repent
from his sins,
the Hebrew
says literally turn from his sins. What is
the result?
You shall live. You shall not die. This
is repentance according to the bible.
This is how to reconcile yourself with Allah
is through Tawba, not the curious atonement. No
one has to do any bloodletting of any
of any type.
You do it through Tawba. This is biblical
teaching.
So the divine care of also
for his creation is demonstrated
in this in this sublime
prophetic parable.
The prophet
said, he found this hadith in ten of
his books of hadith.
He said, imagine a man walking through the
desert,
or traveling through the desert upon his conveyance.
He he discounts for a moment only to
notice that his conveyance has left him
and all of his supplies and food has
left as well.
And just as the harsh reality
of his death begins to occur to him,
he spots his conveyance.
Right? He runs up. He practices reins.
He falls to his knees,
and he and he raises up his voice
to the heavens, and he says,
Allah.
He says, oh, Allah,
you,
are my servant,
and I am your lord. He got it
backwards.
He was so delirious.
He was so he was so overjoyed that
he lost control of his speech. This is
a hadith of the prophet salam alayhi wasalam.
The prophet concluded and said that Allah is
more overjoyed than that person is at that
moment
when a sinner turns from his life for
sin
and makes repentance to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
Allah is more overjoyed than that. You can
think about it. Have you ever been that
happy?
The people of Jannah are entered into paradise.
They're so happy that they they can only
say, salaam, salaam, salaam. That's all they can
say. They're so happy. They just they're
they're out of it. Right? They're shocked by
it.
So Allah
is not indifferent.
Before we can worship Allah
and live on our hearts, we we have
to have.
We have to have noses of who
Allah is. He's not an indifferent lord. He's.
He's.
A, in a tradition that's attributed to Isa
al Islam.
He says, isn't it amazing how willingly
a shepherd will leave 99 of his flock?
99 flock. He'll leave very willingly
to find the one sheep that went astray
and how happy is he when he finds
it? The one that went astray.
Right?
Do you know why the Sahaba never engaged
in speculative theological discourse?
Is because it never occurred to them.
Right?
Because they experienced their faith. We have to
experience our faith. It can't just be mechanics.
The
Sahaba noticed the prophet
raised his blessed hands,
in supplication for rain, And they noticed that
before he dropped his hands, his beard was
soaking wet with rainwater.
How does one after this how do you
how do you witness that And then ask
yourself 2 weeks later, is it really god?
Right? Like we do.
Often, it's not experiencing our faith.
Right?
So I see Muslim people all the time
that come to me and say, you know,
I'm having a faith crisis.
So what happened, brother? He and he says,
I took a
I took a semester of biology at a
university.
My faith is shattered. 1 semester? You're just
an undergrad.
But we should know that intellect is limited.
Intellect is very important, but it is ultimately
limited.
Right? This is not an intellectually religious religion.
As Stephen Hawking says, I'm looking for the
God equation.
I wanna prove God through an equation.
There is no such equation Because that would
mean that God
has favorites.
That the smarter you are, right, the more
knowledge you can have of the divine. It
doesn't work like that.
Right? Or he says, you know,
have it all figured out.
It's there's always been matter. It's just the
changing form. But there's always bad matter.
We you know, these these atheists,
we define them sometimes as they don't believe
in a god. No. Everyone believes in a
god. Atheists are actually
They're idolaters. They associate with god. Because to
say that matter has always been here is
to impute upon matter a divine attribute.
Of the.
Pre eternality is only for Allah
You're saying the matter has always been there.
There's there's there's it's the first cloud beginning.
That's an attribute of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
This is shit.
Everyone has a god. Whatever takes priority in
your life is a god.
So someone we got it all figured out.
It took us 4 months to plot a
hole in the ocean.
A hole that they made, by the way.
So the prophets were who are intellectual
giants, they took menial jobs.
Carpenters and shepherds. They demonstrate this ecumenical,
nature aspect of the religion, that's universal religion.
It's straight and wide. There's something for everyone,
not straight and narrow. So we need to
work on our our
spiritual excellence.
An experiential theology is real.
So what good is your knowledge if it's
something from your head and has it trickled
down into your brain? There's a parable about
this in the bar. Like a donkey
who carries books on its head. It doesn't
Like a donkey who carries books on its
head. He doesn't benefit from his books. There
has to be something in the heart. Right?
The heart has to be engaged.
It's not all about knowledge. People it's great
to have knowledge. You have to.
I mean, totally everything doesn't matter for the
Muslim. There's no it's
it's it's incumbent on every Muslim to gain
knowledge.
Right? But when we neglect the heart, that's
problematic.
We take stories from the prophets. Khidr alaihi
salami was the teacher of Musa alaihi salami
was Imam.
He had. Musa alaihi wasalam is from Abu
alaihisam. He's one of the 5 most exalted
human beings ever lived. Why isn't Thidr better
than him? He's the teacher of Moses.
Right? He's more knowledgeable than Moses, but Moses
is better because it doesn't always come down
to knowledge. Jibreel alaihi salam is the teacher
of the prophet
But who's the?
Who's the best of creation? Who could not
pass
the?
Jibreel alaihi salaam who was made of flesh,
who was made of of light,
did not pass beyond the region that the
prophet passed, and the prophet is flesh and
blood.
Right? The prophet wants to remove his sandals.
Allah said, keep them on.
Why didn't his sandals burn?
Because they're attached to his blessed feet.
Right?
He's the best of creation. You read how
he saw this as teacher.
We put so much emphasis on knowledge and
that's good. Don't get me wrong. We need
to seek sacred knowledge.
But we have to work on the heart.
It's the most important thing. I've seen I've
seen
students with beautiful Aflac. They'll oversee the sun.
They come back. They're full of all of
this this envy. There's they're very judgmental suddenly.
Yeah. This is hold on. This is a
fast. He's a capper. And then she's this.
But before he was a good guy, very
unassuming,
nice guy, very quiet, but suddenly he's a
he's a
he's an expert or what my people say.
You just say you became a bullah.
So we need to transcend the ritual. Rituals
are a means to an end. So what
is ihsan? This is at the very part
of this lecture. There's a famous hadith,
which is called, hadith Jibrin
So this is narrated by and
when she says,
with exceedingly
white clothes,
with exceedingly
black hair.
Right?
There was no sign of travel on him,
and none of us knew who he was.
Right? So here's this man. He's he's a
stranger.
You would think he's a traveler. The travelers
are disheveled a little bit. They have some
dirt on their clothes. It's hence pristine. Right?
As if he came as if he fell
out of the sky. This is not too
far from the truth of it.
He sat directly in front of the prophet,
and so his knees were touching his knees.
His right his face is right here.
Right?
And he said, oh, Muhammad, tell me about
Islam.
That's
right. And Sayid Omar
says he says,
Sayid Alahu.
Says, that's Alji?
Said
And the prophets of the license of the
6 articles of faith.
Right? But then he asked him a third
question.
Spiritual excellence.
What is the response of the prophet sallallahu
alaihi wa sallam?
He says, Ihsan's spiritual excellence is to worship
Allah as though you can see Allah.
And if you can't see Allah,
be fully cognizant that indeed he sees you.
Alright. This is ihsan.
So how would you stand before Allah
on the day of judgment?
On the day of judgment,
we're going to see the fire of Jahannam.
Right? It's with with with
according to the Quran. We all see it.
The angels will bring it. It'll move to
the left side of the ash according to
the hadith. And when that happens, everyone will
fall to their knees.
Everyone will fall to their knees.
Right? You'll
see everyone on their knees, and they'll be
shaking.
And
it's related that Ibrahim alaihis salam, who is
what's his
Khalid Alba. He's the friend of God.
He will be telling himself,
He's shaking and and and saying to Allah,
just
trying to give himself peace of mind, I
am your friend. I am your friend. This
can't be for me, not this Jehanah. If
Ibrahim
is in that state,
what is our state?
Everyone is in the state except the messenger,
who
will go and walk towards the fire, and
the fire retreats from him.
And he will go and he will make
and
Allah will say,
Raise your head and intercede for your people.
Right? There's certain hadith that Muslims don't go
over a lot. There's a hadith
that's
a
very
famous
hadith.
The my shata'at is for the people of
moral sin in my own mind. But there's
another package for the prophets of the
law. Shafah My shafah is for the majority
of mankind.
Right? People don't like to protest like this.
This is controversial.
Right?
So and then what does it say? What
does our tradition say? Each person, 1 by
1, will be called by a caller.
Allah is calling you. Go stand before him.
Than if you go stand before Allah. Imagine
you're standing before Allah. Pray like that.
Imagine that scene, that's how you should pray.
Pray like that. Imagine you heard your name.
Which is my name. Allah is calling you.
What what's your state of mind?
Pray like that. Imam Ghazali,
he,
he says, there's something called subtle idolatry.
For example, he says, a man is praying,
so you're praying. And,
you notice a great man or woman walking
to the room. Someone that you want to
be depressed.
So what do you do? You extend your
prayer.
Because you want to appear pious. And you
make your frustrations. It's a perfect 90 degrees.
And then that go.
Bam. And he's perfect.
Alright.
You
get that. Right?
You go on to the.
This is called rida, ostentation.
It's a form of in partnering with Allah
So he says mongazawi concludes and says, if
you do that for a great man or
woman who walks into the room, now realize
that the sovereign
ruler of the universe
is watching you. How would you pray? Would
you not perfect your prayer?
Right? Pray like that.
Listen to Allah's description of the monazin being
in the
When they stand prepared, they're lazy.
Right?
When I read that, I almost fainted the
first time. Because here's my prayer.
To
be seen of men. They're ostentatious.
They're ostentatious.
Right? Like, you go into a prayer, you're
leading a group of men, and you're saying,
I'm just gonna do a quick
you
know? Because I'm not really worthy to pray,
and then your father walks in.
And they remember Allah with just a little
bit.
Just a little bit.
They're distracted in the very midst of their
prayer. They're going in and out of the
prayer. They're being distracted. They see something.
The first time I prayed to them, I
was so embarrassed because I didn't know how
to pray. I was 17 years old, and,
I didn't know who I had to do
right on.
And I'm praying, and I found some mistook.
And I thought,
it was like
So they they can't focus.
There's no huloor. There's no presence of mind.
Alright? So this sounds like us. You look
at the Sahaba. It was a Sahabi who
had a compound fracture in his leg. And
back then, you had a compound fracture, you're
gonna lose your leg. Right? You cut your
leg off. So they attempted to cut his
leg off, and he starts screaming in pain.
Right? He's a companion of the prophet
So he said help me up. So they
helped him up. They're holding him up on
his good foot,
Right? There was a a man from the
south who fell into a lion's den.
It's a true story. He fell into a
lion's den. He was there for a long
time. Eventually, they pulled him back out. And
the student asked asked him, what were you
thinking about in the lion's den?
He said, I was thinking about the hookup,
the legal ruling of getting lion lion's dung
on my clothes.
Did I break with it or not?
What's the space of your life? I don't
know why you think it's vital to blow
up a lot of stuff and more time.
So I had some of the dung
on my clothes.
And, you know, there's nothing I can do
with my utility. You'll kill me. But what
do I do about the dung?
That was his position.
The story of Imam Malik.
Focus,
Imam Malik was a the imam of Medina,
and he was he was, he had this
punch list where he would wear a white
shirt and take a shower. He would put
on a robe and this and that.
He would, he would give the hadith for
the public. He would teach them. It was
a book of, hadith maybe the earliest book
of hadith.
With his students in the room, and suddenly,
he's he's in the middle of of of
reciting a hadith.
And suddenly, his face went pale,
And he
he completed the hadith. And then it happened
again.
And he kept creating the hadith. It happened
over and over and over again.
After the dinosaur student said,
yeah, Shay, well, now what happened to you?
Why did you why did you have that?
He said, look, between my back and my
throat, they looked. A scorpion had lashed him
16 times.
But he didn't wanna interrupt that. I left
I left for that.
This is called focus.
We need to have this focus. Also, the
say,
don't jump into your prayer.
Sometimes we jump into the prayer. Like, we're
doing something completely and and then we suddenly
jump into the prayer. Alright? They throw on
the phone, yeah, large pepperoni,
halal,
2 liter Coke,
And how much is that 29 and 95?
Thank you very much. Goodbye. All the
coke.
Don't jump into your prayer. You know, athletes,
they visualize.
And athletes, they'll visualize how we began,
you know, the middle of the every step,
actually, you'll visualize. That's what we have to
prepare yourself for the prayer. Feel your opening.
You don't have to hear it, but feel
it. It'll wake you up. We have to
have.
He's not a
normal, entity, if I could use that word.
Not anyone else you're dealing with.
I I dealt with Allah. It was a
it was a it was a wide receiver
on the Buffalo Bills. You probably heard about
this picture. He dropped the ball in the
end zone
at at,
in overtime.
That means they could've won the game. Right?
This is a professional football player. He's one
of the most blessed people in the world
in this this with respect to the knockout.
He tweeted God
after this. He tweeted
God. Eric Wright.
He tweeted God, and he said, quote,
I praise you 247,
and you do it like this.
I'm not joking.
We have to have Adah with the messenger
of Allah and
when we mention his name, we don't just
throw it out, Muhammad, Muhammad, Muhammad, Muhammad, like
a mechanic. You're done.
When you pray, pray something like your last
prayer. Pray like that.
Ilhamah also mentioned a way to light in
the heart, and salah is
is to recite the Quran
with contemplation, with penetrating thoughts.
Means to penetrate, but to find the end
of something.
Penetrating thoughts when you're reciting the Quran, and
I highly, highly advise you to study the
Arabic language.
You know, it's, it's a it's a it's
a door to many sciences.
Understand what's being recited at salatul tawiyyah.
Tawiyyah means to rest. This is it's supposed
to be our repose.
Right? Now we say I'm too tired to
go to how do we you're too tired
to to last.
Doesn't make any sense. Because we look at
it as a chore.
And it doesn't mean when I say it
means the rest, it doesn't mean that you're
leaving. Absolutely. You're leaning on walls.
During the prayer, leaning on walls.
Wall. There was
a there was a brother a long time
ago, Vicente Rowan must have he locked his
knees and thought we are. And then bam.
He fell flat on his face.
He locked him. He was on blood flow.
The
prophet
said, my prayer is my repose.
What's your repose?
Watching TV?
You know, when we synchronize our brainwaves with
the cathode rays,
the synchronization.
That's a repose for many people. They can't
wait to go and watch TV because that's
their,
when the prophet answered prayer, that was his,
moment.
That was that was his repose.
Think about that. What's your propose? Eating? Well,
overly gluttonous.
There are provisions in this in our sharia.
In the happy school of thought, A woman
who's fasting can taste the food,
right, as long as she doesn't swallow it.
She can taste the food to see if
it's salty or bitter or whatever because if
her husband has a bad temper
right? I mean, there's provisions for you. There's
there's men who are beating their wives over
food,
and it's so common. It's mentioned in the
This is
the
The prophet
never raised his hand to a woman,
a child, or a servant with the intention
of hurting him.
We have men beating their wives over burnt
rice. Would you like to be a goner?
My mother doesn't make you like this. It's
a fun time. I'll try.
You know how to say time flies when
you're having fun? The prophet
he would recite the Quran sometimes
for hours and hours and hours on end
Because he would you lose yourself.
Right?
Because time goes by. It's like when you're
watching Titanic for the first time.
It's over.
3 hours of the 4th house. Hey, you're
fine.
You're watching a really good movie. It's the
only analogy I can use that will understand.
When you watch a really good movie, let's
see. No. Man, it's It's 3 hours later.
That's what the prayer of the prophet was.
In fact, Abdullah
ibn Mas'rud,
when he had become Muslim, he
he prayed behind the prophet one prayer,
and he said the prophet began reciting Al
Baqarah,
and he got through the entire Surah. And
then he started adding
rock. He finished the entire Surah, and then
he started and he sat, and he finished
the entire and one rock.
And Abdullah ibn Masud said suddenly a terrible
hot came from vibrating.
That I was going to lead the prayer.
But the messenger who lost the law, he
said,
I shall relate to beautiful happiness. In the
very late night, when the two lovers would
come together, he would go to his beloved.
The very late night of the 2 lovers
would come together, he, salallahu alaihi, salallahu alaihi,
and he would stand and worship. That was
his repose.
Right? That was his repose.
And he would pray till his feet were
swollen, and his wife said, why do you
do this with the messenger of God, your
beloved?
Shall I not be a grateful servant? Shall
I not be a grateful, loving servant? The
prophet is worshiping Allah out of kashia.
There's 2 types of fear. There's khalth and
kashia.
Koth means you have fear of bodily injury.
And the example of a man walking through
a a forest, and he's hearing noises like,
oh.
And so he's scared for his his
his his personal his physical personal. That's on
oath. And this and then we worship a
lot of oath, and it shouldn't be downplayed.
Right? The Ahmad al Sohu, they
said don't belittle that because Allah does not
belittle it in the Quran.
Right? To worship Allah is fear of the
fire or wanting
hope for the paradise.
But there's a higher level called kashiyyah,
which is fear of displeasure.
Not fear of bodily harm, but a fear
of displeasing someone.
For example,
there are children who don't disobey their parents
because they don't wanna eat beef. That's called
hope. I can't do that because my dad
would be
makes sense. Right? That's called hope. But then
there are children who love their parents so
much, and their parents love them
that they don't wanna displease their father.
They don't care about getting beat. My father's
gonna be disappointed.
And I can't deal with the disappointment. My
father's disappointed, I'm disappointed.
This is the this is the
prayer of the prophet
said, if kings knew the pleasure that were
in in our prayer, they would set their
armies to come and and take it from
us.
If the kings knew the pleasure of that
word in our prayer,
and the prophet will recite the Quran in
slow measured
rhythmic
tones,
and he'd repeat verses.
Aisha said
He would repeat 1 verse in the Quran
the entire night.
One verse in the
Quran.
He's the prophet
when he's repeating these verses.
Some of the pre eternal meanings which are
infinite in the Quran would occur to his
heart. He would have
openings
upon openings while reciting the Quran.
And this is possible for us too. It's
not just for the prophets.
Recite the Quran with tadaqul.
Think about it.
When you enter
after the prayer,
enunciate.
Right?
The prophet noticed one time, he put his
blessed hand up like this in the middle
of his prayer, like this. Put his hand
out. And then he retreated very quickly.
And And they asked him about this. I
said, why don't you do that? He said,
suddenly, a vision of the grapes of paradise
occurred before my eyes. And I reached and
grabbed them, and then I saw a fire
at the end of
my hand.
This is someone who is whose heart is
annihilated in the lost of power. This is
the prayer. It's possible for us.
Experience your theology. When you go down in
the saitha,
I'm almost done, When you go down to
saitha, increase your supplications. The prophet said,
the
closest his servant is to his lord is
when he is in
Is that clock right? 445.
Yeah. It's 445. Oh, I'm pulling there. Oh,
but I don't know that it says 445.
The closest a servant is, it was lower.
In reality, not in the anthropomorphic or spatial
way, is when you're inside.
Right? So they all must say that
who was fithumat
in 3 levels of darkness,
the darkness of the whale, the darkness of
the ocean, the darkness of the night when
he was in the belly of the whale,
but he made
in reality, he's closer to to Allah
than an angel standing in the big blackboard
of the 7th heaven. Because there's no proximity
with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
Right? He transcends
space, time, and direction.
Was closer to Allah in reality
than an angel standing in the celestial Kaaba
because he's in synagogue.
If the worshiper knew the extent of mercy
that surrounded him or her during sajdah, he
or she would never raise
his or her head from.
It was be in and be content.
There's a hadith of, Rabia
who
said,
who the hadith is is an Sahih Muslim.
He served the prophet
he brought him a he brought the prophet,
he bucked him with water so the prophet
came and he goes, that's that's what he
did. And the prophet looked at him and
said, son,
ask me for something. Can you imagine?
Ask me for something.
And
you know, he didn't say, you know, I
want some a herd of camels or goats
or
he didn't think about.
I ask you for your companionship in paradise.
And then the prophet said,
oh, anything else? Anything else? Right? Look at
the look at the generous
nature, magnanimous
nature of the prophet.
Well, they're the like. Go with that guy.
That's it.
That's all I want.
So
help me accomplish this for you by making
such that in abundance.
Help me accomplish this for you by making
such that in abundance.
Such is a means by which we can
draw near to the messenger of Allah sallallahu
alaihi sallam. The prophet says there's a lump
of flesh in the sun of Adam.
One lump of flesh in the sun of
Adam. If it is sound, the entire body
is sound. It is the heart. Ask Allah
for a sound heart and work on the
heart. We work on our brains, work on
our bodies,
work on everything else, work on the heart.
Ask Allah to purify your heart and takes
take
steps to acknowledge that.
A sound heart is a soft heart. There
are some people who have hearts like stones.
Allah says in the Quran. Oh,
or even harder than a stone.
There's two signs that you have a hard
heart. Two signs. The Quran doesn't affect you.
When you hear the Quran, it doesn't affect
you. It's like you're hearing a news cast.
You know a news cast? Unless it's Fox
News or something. It's in any hoax in
motion. It's all lies.
I'm talking about, like, the regular news, like,
how local television, they're honest on local.
It's like, when you hear the Quran, that's
what we're
Pauli Diyan mentions in the that a group
of Muslims were making zinger or franking, and
a Christian traveler walked by. A Christian,
He walked by. Just walked by and overheard
the Quran and started crying.
A Christian traveler. And so when they finished
their prayer, they caught up to the man
and said, what made you cry? He said,
what an exquisite recital
about God. What was that? He's a Christian
who was affected by it. He started crying.
When the court of the Najashi heard Surah
Maryam.
Right? Surah Maryam has 98 verses. 72 of
them end with the same two letters. This
is an amazing symphony, Surah Baniyan.
When the Christians, the the court of the
Najashri heard Surah Maniam,
in Arabic, they cry.
And they don't really understand Arabic. It's like
the difference between Farsi and Arabic now. Some
words will pick up. It was translated. They
cried again
because they recognize they have soft hearts. That's
one sign. The Quran doesn't affect you.
The second sign is,
the unmoved eye,
the dry eye.
You don't cry.
This is a sign of a of a
hard heart. The prophet would
weep frequently,
and he would break certain cultural norms. Like,
it was seen as uncouth
for Arab men at the time to cry.
If men cry, it would go inside their
tent and cry. They would cry very openly.
He'd weep frequently.
It was also untooth
for, for a man to say his wife's
name, which would be that he loves her.
Right? He loved his people the Arabs loved
their wives, but you can't you can't you
can't say it to anyone. You can't say
her name.
I will ask He said her name and
he made it public. Right? He would kiss
children,
also seen as uncouth,
Like the Arab man who said, you kiss
her when he kiss the prophet kissed Al
Hassan and his grandchildren.
And the Arab man said, you kiss children.
I have 10 sons. I've never just said
and the prophet said, there's nothing in my
religion for those who have no compassion in
their hearts.
So the comprehensive treatment for the heart. Almost
done in show.
Number 1,
hunger.
This is how to treat the heart. K?
This is for the notetakers.
Or if you have a good memory, which
I doubt.
Remember the story from chapter 8 earlier?
Oh, yeah.
Hunger. If his stomach is full, the limbs
become anxious and wanna do things.
Right? Have some hunger in your stomach. So,
yeah, he said
He said a man
a man whose main concern
is what goes into his stomach into his
stomach is only as good as what comes
out of his stomach.
Vigilance at night. Just 2.
Pray to a hundred. 22.
Takes you 2 minutes. You can play
which is
It's worth a third of the Quran.
It takes 2 minutes.
Prayer in the night is,
is directly tied to the prophet's
rank.
Pray in the night. It's an additional prayer
for you. Soon will the lord raise you
to an exalted praiseworthy rank. It's tied to
his rank.
Prayer in the night. The say that
the sainthood is given in the night.
Right?
Allah says
on the top of his messenger, Muhammad
says my my servant does not draw close
unto me with anything more beloved by me
than his his obligatory acts of worship.
And my servant continues
to draw close unto me
with his his super operatory acts of worship,
like prayer in the night.
Until I love him,
this is the law speaking on the tongue
of the messengers
until I love him. Prayer tonight leads to
the love of Allah
and then he continues,
and then I become the eye by which
he sees, the hand in which he strikes,
the foot by which he walks. If he
were to ask anything from me, I shall
surely give it to him. In no anthropomorphic
way, it doesn't mean that Allah becomes your
eye and your hand. We're not we're not
literalists.
Right? We can see this in the Quran.
Zakaria alaihi salam was an old man. He
was a prophet.
Right? A prophet. And he prayed for a
son. His old wife, Allah, did not give
him a son. He forsook his gua. He
said it's not gonna happen. My wife is
too old, not too old. So he he
did foresook.
And then he walked into the chamber of
the of Mariam, who's
11 or 12 years old. This is a
prophet. He was white hair. What side of
that, she shaved his head was gray in
a provinces.
An old prophet was a priest. He's a
high priest. She's a 12 year old girl,
and there's fruit next to her out of
season.
There's fruit out of season.
So he
said,
Where did you get this from?
This is from God.
Don't you know that God gives to whomever
he wills without measure? He learned this lesson
from a 12 year old girl, Mariam Alaihi
Salam. There's a strong opinion. It's a minority
opinion. It's an opinion
that Mariam was a prophet based on these
stories.
She's teaching a spiritual lesson to Zakaria alayhi
salam who is a prophet. He's from God.
What happened?
What happened right after that?
He immediately turned back to Allah
and, later
He prayed immediately.
He was given bushrah of a son named
Yahya
alayhis salam.
If he
until I love him, and then I'm the
eye by which he sees, the hand by
which he strikes, the foot by which he
walks, if he asks anything from me, I
shall surely give it to him. Number
3, silence. Be taciturn in speech. Don't talk
a lot.
Right? I should tell myself. This is this
is this is 1 minute ago. This is
1 minute 10 minutes ago.
Be contemplative.
The
prophet said, whoever is silent is safe.
If you're silent, you're safe.
Whoever believes in Allah on the last stage
to say what is good or to speak
on.
They came
to this is according to our traditions.
They came to and they said,
oh spirit of god, give us some advice.
He says, don't
talk. He said, we can't do that. He
said, don't talk. So we can't do that.
Then he said, then talk only when absolutely
necessary.
That was his advice. Number 4,
meditate in private.
Find a private place? Meditate.
And assess your day.
Assess take yourself to account before you take
it to account.
All this is number of all the laws
that I'm take yourself to account before you
take into account. And when I say meditate
in private, it doesn't mean you take your
privacy a little gadget where
you're you're using your thumbs or
no. Get away from the gadgets. Don't be
Inspector Gadget. You get everyone Inspector Gadget?
Don't use your gadgets. Right? One hour of
tittakkur and sasakkur according to the hadith is
better than an entire night of worship.
Use your brain. Exercise your brain.
Use that hour to memorize.
Use that hour to memorize hadith. Use that
hour to just contemplate what what you did
during that day.
Alright?
And in your prayer, send salawat upon the
prophet
This is the logic according to Imam Shafi'i.
I'm out of time. I I wanted to
get into the supplication.
I'll just end with this one last point.
I'm sorry.
There's an amazing hadith that you should there's
a there's a supplication of du'ahu. Hope you
write it down,
that that for after your prayer. It's found
in the book of Abu Dawood and Nasai
and also in al Wissam alayhi. The
prophet
came to
Imagine this.
Usually in a hadith,
it's the that are coming to the prophet
and saying, oh messenger of god, I love
you. Oh messenger of god, I love you.
This time the prophet goes to mawad Abu
Jabal.
I swear to Allah, give me verily
that
I love you.
And I exhort you.
Don't leave your place of prayer until you
say
Learn this
to remember
you to be grateful to you
and to be a good worshiper
of you. Very short hadith. This is a
hadith that the prophet taught after
testifying to him that he loved him.
This is SubhanAllah.
You can find this Hari's in, like I
said,
Sunan Abu Dawood, Sunan,
and Nisai,
and Brael de Saliqeen, which everyone should have
at their house. Volley 1 is hadith in
384
and following 1 of Abu Zakaria and Now
Louise. I'm
sorry I took too much for your time.