The Best In Islam #33

Salam alaykum Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh. I'd like to welcome you dear viewers to another in our series, the best in Islam. In this series, we're looking at what Allah and His Messenger have identified for us as the best from an Islamic perspective in all aspects of our life. And in this episode, we're looking at salah, and what is the best prayers that we can do.

That is the form of prayers we called salah.

And we find the Prophet may God's peace and blessings be upon him, as narrated by even Omar who quoted the Prophet sallallahu sallam was saying after the Salawat and the law salatu sushi yomo Juma hottie fija Ma. The prayer which Allah considers best is the Friday morning prayer in congregation. The Friday morning prayer we know as slotted Fajr or sober, they refer to it. Also, this is the best prayer of the week that the Prophet Muhammad wa sallam identified of our obligatory prayers this morning prayer on Friday, in congregation he didn't just say the morning prayer. So it means just simply doing the morning prayer, but doing it in congregation. This has been identified for us as

the best prayer for the week. This one basically we shouldn't miss. If we have been missing prayers of Fudger in the morning, throughout the week, at least tried to make Friday morning Fajr on time, if we're able to establish that, then

it is possible for us then to extend that to the other prayers. But of course praying the five times daily prayer, that's the basic obligation.

But human beings being weak. Among the most difficult prayers to catch in its proper time is Fudger. The morning prayer, because we've been sleeping all night, making that prayer is very difficult, getting up from our sleep, etc. You know so many people miss that morning prayer. So the Prophet may God's peace and blessings be upon him knowing that this is something that people would struggle with. He gave special emphasis to the morning prayer on Friday, Friday being the best day of the week. We already looked at that, you know, one of our previous sessions, the best day of the week is Friday. So that morning prayer on that best day is the best. And if we're able to establish because

really the rest of these prayers become properly established, when the morning prayer is established, if you made that Fajr then the her answer, Margaret Asia will follow. But if you've missed it, you're gonna find you're going to miss one or other of the other prayers of the day. So we want to start that day off, right so especially Friday, we make sure we catch Fajr. And if we manage to establish that at least every Friday we make sure we make that prayer on time, not only on time, but in the masjid and in congregation, then as the prophet may God's peace and blessings be upon him. I told us before that among the deeds most pleasing most beloved to Allah, are those which

are done consistently.

So we tried to establish this as a consistent practice. And he said, even if it is a small deed, so this is small in relationship to all of the prayers of the week, all the different other Friday, prayers of the month, etc. We try to establish Friday morning prayer that will help us to establish Saturday morning Sunday morning and the others. Moving on.

With regards to the form of prayers we also have Zeytinburnu sabbat.

Quoting the Prophet may God's peace and blessings be upon him as saying of the Lucilla to come.

feeble you to come in late October. Your best prayers

Are those done in your homes? Except for the compulsory ones? What does that actually mean? The best prayers are those done in our homes except for the compulsory and for men. Normally we go to the masjid and we pray there. We don't pray in our homes. unless we've missed the prayer. That's the norm. But that's not really what the prophet make us peace and blessings be upon him advised us. He advised us that we should pray. Our Sunnah prayers are recommended prayers in our homes. That's the best place to pray them. Praying in the master is acceptable. You get reward for it. But you get a greater reward for praying the Sunnah in the home.

Why is that person may ask? We're encouraged to be in the mosques, spend more time in the mosque. So why would we want to start praying at home? Well, because we want to establish as the heads of the family, the father,

the husband, we want to establish that prayer in the home also, when the children see you praying, then it becomes something natural for them. They have an idea in their mind that praying is something that we should do. If they're not seeing us pray in the home. They're thinking of prayer as just being okay. You just do it in the mosque. You know, other than that, there's no prayer. But no, prayer can be done anywhere,

at any time, except for certain forbidden times. It should be a part of our life, not just the compulsory prayers, but the voluntary prayers. Were we only praying in the masjid even though we're praying voluntary prayers along with the compulsory prayers, it seems to be one, it seems to be one set. Whereas praying in the home and praying in the masjid, you know, we're establishing prayer in both locations, as an example to the rest of the family, motivating the wife to also establish her prayers, the children see you praying, this is the better prayer. So this is something that most of us are unaware of. And we don't practice it. We will need to struggle with it. To now change our

pattern to pray whenever the other than goes because of course if we go and pray in the home before going to the masjid, if we have delayed the prayer, then if we pray at home we will miss the prayer in the masjid and we know that the prayer in congregation the master this is has the greatest reward. So for us to be able to pray at home the Sunnah before going to the masjid, it means that we have to start preparing for the prayer earlier.

Yeah, have to start preparing for the prayer early we cannot afford to delay it once the design has been given. So once we hear the plan, we start the process of making will do you know and preparing ourselves, make the prayer in the home, then we go everything falls in place. And that's what is best as we said before, the best prayers, as the Prophet Musa Salam had mentioned, were those done at the beginning of its time are those done in the proper time. So this is a general practice we want to establish and establishing our Sunnah prayers at home helps us to do so. Moving on with the prayers, as was mentioned earlier, when we spoke about the night prayers that were encouraged to do

in Ramadan, but which represent night prayer tahajud throughout the rest of the year. And this is among the best of the prayers we spoke about it before. We now have a narration from Abu Huraira in which he said that the Prophet may God's peace and blessings be upon him and said, of the loose allottee by the tuba as Salah to fee JioFi Lail but after the CM by the Shari Ramadan, sha Allah al Muharram. The best prayer after the compulsory ones is that which is done in the middle of the night. And the best time to fast after the month of Ramadan is the month of Muharram the first month of the Islamic calendar. So the best prayer is that done in the middle of the night, and we said

this is called tahajjud called tarawih during Ramadan but tahajjud is the basic name. This prayer is

The best after the obligatory prayers. This is a Sunnah prayer, it is not obligatory. Some people mistakenly think that that midnight prayer is obligatory, but it's not. Or Witter, which is associated with that midnight prayer is obligatory, but it's not that prayer is a recommended prayer. But of all the recommended prayers, it is the one with the greatest reward. Why? We said before, that it is of the greatest reward because of the fact that when a person gets up from his sleep, that's an effort. First and foremost, you get up from sleep,

and you pray in the middle of the night, when nobody can see you. Nobody's watching, nobody knows what you're doing. This is just between you and Allah. If you're not sincere with prayer, you can't do this, you're not going to be able to do it, you're only going to be able to do it if you're showing off, showing off to others, trying to make an impression on others. But to do it consistently, or to even do it at all. For most people. It's not possible if one is not sincere in one's faith and in one's prayers. So it's of the greatest reward, because of the fact of this highest of sincerity level.

Even in relationship to the compulsory prayers, the sincerity level of night prayer is higher. But because the compulsory prayers are what have been fixed by Allah on a regular basis and obligatory, then its reward is greater. But

when we get to Ramadan, and we pray Taraweeh we must remember that this prayers are to encourage us to establish at least once a week, once a month, from time to time to establish that prayer in the middle of the night to get the maximum reward. Another advice of the Prophet may God's peace and blessings be upon him which addresses again the best with regards to Salah we have Java ribbon Abdullah quoting the Prophet sallahu wa sallam was saying of the Salah T. Toulon connote the best prayer is the one with the long standing. We're going to look at that in more detail after the break.

So I'll see you shortly.

Slava dayco Well, welcome from the break. As we said, Before the break,

the prophet may God's peace and blessings be upon him, had said that the best prayer is the one with long standing here refers to long recitation within the prayer itself. And also, this is connected with all of the different prayers that we make supplications that we make throughout the prayer, the prayer which is reduced down to quick movements, quick statements, such a prayer, the prophet may God's peace and blessings be upon him and some occasions referred to as not being prayer at all. On one occasion, a man had come into the mosque and made two units of prayer before joining the prophets circle. And the Prophet told him to go back and pray because he hadn't prayed. So the man

came again, after going and making two units of prayer. And the Prophet told him to go back and pray because he hadn't prayed. The third time. He did the same thing came back and the prophets was telling him to go back. And he told the prophet at this point, I don't know any other prayer, tell me what I'm supposed to do. So then the Prophet explained to him, that when you stand up, you should stand until all of the bones of your body fall into place. Settle.

Meaning that you don't stand up, and you start to bow right after that. We have some people praying, they get up to pray, they've, by the time they say Allahu Akbar, they're bowing.

This is not an acceptable prayer. When people are doing it, quickly running through, but this is not an acceptable prayer.

The ideal prayer is one in which we have taken our time

we've reflected on what we're saying. We're conscious of what we're seeing. So that type of prayer is going to be one which will take time. Similarly, when the Prophet may God's peace and blessings be upon him, wanted to stress to us the importance and not from another perspective of taking our time with our prayer, he said, Solu salata, Medine, pray a farewell prayer, try to make your prayers, a farewell prayer, meaning that if somebody told you, this is the last prayer you can make before you leave this world, you're going to die. This is the last chance you have one chance to make one prayer. How would that prayer be? Like the one we talked about jumping up and making

record? Of course not. Then that one we would stand with the greatest of reflection, and calmness and focus, and we pray the whole prayer like that.

So that's the prayer that we should be praying all the time. That's the one that we should strive for, and that one will have a long standing, because the longest of things that we have to say in the prayer is while we're standing, so when the Prophet SAW Selim talked about the Salah, with the long standing he was talking about what we recite in Fatiha, how we recite it, is it Alhamdulillah? I mean, or do we actually go and say Alhamdulillah hear of Bill Alameen or rock man Rahim bit by bit verse by verse, and then after, after we have recited the Fatiha what do we decide after that? Most of us we just say Kamala Harris

finished even the surah Han who Allahu Ahad or Surah Nicholas, also known as Torah Tauheed, this surah if said, properly, like the salah that we spoke about the farewell Salah it will even take time in spite of being one of the shortest chapters of the whole Quran, it will take time. And the longer we spend in are recitation and reflection, the greater the reward. So this is what Prophet may God's peace and blessings be upon him, was advising us and directing us towards again concerning salah

and the best in Salah. We have a narration from Ibn Abbas, in which he quotes the Prophet sallahu wa Salam is saying, PR O come, and ye Newcomb, mana Kiba his Salah, the best of you are those who have the softest shoulders in prayer. What does that mean? The soft shoulders.

What it means is that when we're praying together, and the Prophet may God's peace and blessing be upon him and told us that when we pray, we should pray shoulder to shoulder, feet, two feet, so our shoulders should touch, and our feet should touch this is the proper prayer. I know. Some of us may be taught that when you pray, you pray without touching the people on either sides. And your feet are close together, so you don't touch the feet of others. But really, that is not the prayer of the Prophet, may God's peace and blessings be upon him. His prayer, the prayer that he taught was shoulder to shoulder. That means the person on your right is touching his shoulder with yours, on

your left is touching his shoulder with yours are female. Same thing, there's no difference between the prayer of the male or the female. And similarly, feet are also touching. Now, that means that when we're praying, we're praying like one body

that has unified us. No gaps in between because gaps then allows one to go ahead and one after. But when we're linked up like this, then we pray as one body and that's what the Prophet SAW Salem wants us to experience. We in prayer are like one body we're led by a leader, the prayer leader, the Imam, and we all follow together. That is the prayer which is

most preferable. Now when we are coming together praying shoulder to shoulder feet two feet. Now the space that's there, you know maybe one which with people place their hands this way. Then this one will be pushing the other one and he will be

His shoulder will be pushing against the other one. So you bring your hands closer, then this pressure from your shoulder area is less. So you're able to fit in, people are in contact without one hurting or pressurizing the other. Same thing with feet two feet, some recommendation was that it was ankle to ankle. But for a lot of people's feet, if you try to put ankle to ankle, it becomes very strange, you end up twisting your feet in uncomfortable ways. So it's enough just to be feet, two feet, but even feet two feet, some people may be pushing their feet, you know, against yours until your foot is hurting you. Some people in trying to make feet two feet, they also are too harsh

and too rough with it. So in the same way, although the province was Salah was spoken about soft shoulders, we should also have soft feet. So that the prayer is not one where we feeling pressure on us. You know, your brain is thinking, you know this person is hurting me. They're your brain should be focused on Allah, on worshipping Allah. Moving on. We also have

our last Hadith concerning Salah that we'll be covering in this episode. And this hadith is from Abdullah bin Omar, He quoted the Prophet SAW Salem as saying LATAM narrow Nyssa ACOEM al masajid Prabhu to Hoonah highroller Hoonah do not prevent your women from attending prayers in the mosques. However, praying in their homes is better for them. Do not prevent your women from attending prayer in the mosque. This for a good portion of the Muslim world unfortunately, has been lost. We have masjids in places like India and Pakistan where there's no place for women at all. If a woman wanted to go in the masjid, they would stand at the doors and block her from entering the restroom. And

we're even seeing that it on the news in the UK where some women decided to challenge this. And they tried to enter mustards in the UK. And sure enough, the men were there at the door blocking them from entering the masjid. And of course, this was put on the news. And it made Muslims of course, look in a very bad light. But the reality is that those people are doing that are ignorant. They're thinking that women should not be in the mosque. The mosque is only for men. And of course this is not true at all. The mosque is for the worship of Allah. Both men and women are welcome. The women around the Prophet Muhammad Salah Salem, his wives, etcetera, they came to the prayers, especially

Fajr and Asia. They especially those two prayers, beginning of the day, end of the day, they used to pray in the masjid, along with the Prophet sallahu Salah before Allah subhanaw taala men and women are equal before Allah subhanho wa Taala and the mosque, the place where we establish that relationship with Allah communication with Allah on a formal basis that is open and should be open to both males and females. Who that their viewers would like to thank you for being with us in this segment of our program, the best in Islam, and we hope that you will continue to follow this program throughout its coming episodes. Till then we bid you farewell. Salaam Alaikum Warahmatullahi

Wabarakatuh