Faraz Rabbani – Weekly Q&A Does Struggling to Focus on Prayer Mean One Is Failing in Their Prayer

The struggling to focus in prayer mean that

one is failing

in prayer?

Should one be self critical for it? No.

If you are striving, you you have responsible

you're responsible for 2 things, to seek and

to strive. That's it.

To seek and strive.

If you commit a sin or fall short,

you repent and rectify.

These are the four duties of the believer.

S s r r,

seek

and strive.

If you

repent and rectify,

and then return. Right? Seek,

strive. And one of the most hope inducing

verses in the Quran,

Allah tells us

in the Quran,

and that each person

shall only have

what they strived for.

That is both a warning that you can't

just sit back and chill out,

but also it's

absolute hope in Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala.

And that each person shall have

whatsoever

they strive for.

And their striving

will then

be beheld.

And so you don't have to achieve quote,

unquote success.

You don't have to have

presence of heart and prayer.

You have to strive for presence of heart

and prayer. That's why even the term sincerity.

What is

it is striving

to be sincere.

You're not responsible

for attaining sincerity.

You are responsible

for striving.

That's mercy. Even the term for sincerity comes

from

this notion of striving.

And the very fact that you feel bad

for it means that

you should have gratitude. The believer is between

hope and fear in Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.

If we struggle but then we we take

the means. Okay. What do I we don't

should look back and say, oh I'm a

loser,

I'm failing. No. How do I improve?

If you only have 21 percent

presence of heart let's say, you can't quantify

that.

The point have first begin with gratitude.

I have

21%.

Right?

Presence of heart.

For the blessing of prayer.

For the blessing

of this concern I find within me to

do better.

And ask Allah for increase. But then also

that the

it's not about being self critical.

The the positive

self criticism

is to see what do I need to

rectify going forward. So you say, you know

what? I was sitting watching a whole bunch

of TikTok reels and then I prayed

and my mind was ticking and talking about

all kinds of things besides

Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.

So so okay.

Now for for Asad prayer, I'm not gonna

do that. I'm gonna

focus a little bit. Then you find you

watch some TikTok reels before tahajjud and your

mind was all over the place. Say, you

know what? Maybe I should reduce some of

these distractions. That is positive self criticism, which

looks at

what

causes led to the undesired effects

and you

remove

or diminish

those

harmful causes.

The smart person, said the prophet is the

one who takes themselves to account.

Positive self accounting is not criticism and putting

yourself down, but rather say, okay, what

there

are negative outcomes

that

arose that, you know,

effects

have causes. So you identify what did I

do wrong?

So I rectify it going forward. You say

I seek Allah's forgiveness and repent to him.

You ask Allah for facilitation. Allah

assist me in the good and then you

commit to it.