Hamzah Wald Maqbul – Mlik Fiqh Prayer Times Subh to Asr ICC 09221019
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So today is our 1st,
fit class in ICC,
here in Cleveland.
The purpose of this class is what is
that the sharia
is not haphazardly
put together. It systematized. Its rulings were debated
and
refined by the ulama,
and they definitely are transmitted through the madahib,
but the madahib are not they're not a
personal,
takhlid, like a personal imitation of the person
of
the the that founded the madhaib or whose
name is attached to the madhaib.
Heb. Rather, the
the people who the Madahib are named after,
attributed to are just people who systematized and
gathered certain rulings and and certain principles by
which,
rulings are derived.
There's no Madahib that makes
that makes Taqle either follows the sunnah of
its founder, all of them follow the sunnah
of the prophet
and the differences of opinions that they have
between them are about those matters that are
not clearly delineated by the sunnah.
And so it's important to know what those
debates are, what those discussions are because it
allows you to know which things are firm
and
immutable in the DNA. There are a few
things like that in which things there are
differences of opinion and what the scope of
the difference of opinion is. Because sometimes we'll
say, well, let's not fight over small things,
the difference of opinion. But even those differences,
there's a scope to them. So if the
Sahaba have 2 or 3 opinions amongst them,
that means that the 4th and the 5th
one are are not up for debate,
even though there is some some tarahi, some
some leeway within those 2 or 3 opinions.
So,
this book is one of the oldest books
written in the,
in the history of Islam,
in. It's part of the Muqtasr genre. Muqtasr
means what? It means a summary of the
entire Sharia without mentioning every single ruling.
There's certain
that are, like,
the hard data points, certain issues that are
the hard data points of the Sharia around
which the other ones are mapped. If you
understand them, it will allow you to understand
the more detailed issues.
And,
thereafter,
you know, a person once they're oriented within
the shutty out properly, they can understand the
context in which,
certain other more minute issues are are are
dealt
are dealt with. So the the general,
syllabus in every topic, whether it's fiqh or
whether it's aqidah or whether it's hadith or
tafsir or whatever, is that a person takes
an introduction to the to the subject
first by talking about the
the major topics that are discussed,
then by introducing an increasing amount of detail,
and, information with regards to flushing out those
topics.
Then after that,
a person is introduced to the idea of
Dalil. You're You're welcome to join the class
if you like. Please just grab a chair
and sit where where it makes you comfortable.
It's open it's open to everybody.
That's why we have it in this room.
So,
so the the first yeah. So so if
you brothers don't mind sitting on this side,
The sisters, if you like, you can you
can sit sit wherever you like, inshallah.
So to continue,
what happens is
the introductory books, they they talk about what
the most important issues are in that topic.
Then after that, they increase in the amount
of complexity and detail in explaining the topics.
And then after after that orientation is there
telling you the what of the the topic,
then
the added layer on top is what's the.
Why?
So,
the, you know, like, where in the Quran
does it say this? Where in the Hadith
does it say this? Which issue is proven
by by text? Which issue is proven by
rationality,
logic,
or a particular interpretation of the Arabic language?
So the why is then put on top
of understanding what. This is important because unlike,
like, being like an aerospace engineer who's like
designing planes and things like that,
In in in
those types of sciences, material sciences, the why
is probably more important than the what. It's
more important to learn how to think than
to,
learn what to think. The issue with Wahi
with the Ulum, the the the branches of
learning that are based on Wahi is what,
is that Wahi has a a a a
has a an attribute of it, which is
summarized by the first revelation that the Rasul
received,
You see the
prophet do it and you do it because
he the angel Jibril was sent to show
him how to do that. And Allah showed
him in Wahi in a dream or in
some other vision how to do a certain
thing. And so the prophet
is following what the Wahi teaches him,
or in the case of the salat very
particularly and in general the other rights of
the deen, he's following what he was shown
by the angels. Because all of these, different,
like, the dhikr of Allah to Allah, subhanAllah,
hamdulillah, lahu akbar,
the salat,
the,
the hajj, the,
you know, a number of the different modes
of
worship,
they're essentially human beings doing those things that
the angels used to do.
And the the the the salat was taught
to human beings by the angels.
The fast itself is like an imitation of
the angels
as well and,
amongst other things. And so,
these things are taken by Tiba.
So you first, it's important to understand what.
And once the what is correct, then the
why will give you benefit. But the idea
is you're not going to be like a
like a, freestyler,
in these things. Because if you're yourself freestyling
how to do the salat and what they're
based on things that are in the unseen
realm, you'll just end up messing them up.
And so,
that's why the the the mode is reversed
is that you learn the what first because
that comes, through nakal. It's just transmitted from
one person to the other and from the
prophet to the ummah and from the angels
and from the wahi to the prophet.
We received those things through. And then after
understanding the what, then the why has
a beneficial meaning to it. But you don't
want to, you know, you don't wanna mess
up the order. Right? You stir the batter
before putting the cake in the oven. If
you put the cake in the oven first
and then you stir the stir it after,
it's just gonna mess everything up.
And so that's what that is. This book
is, again, one of the early books written
in the history of the Ummah on the
topic of fiqh,
and it's called the Risala, of ibn Abi
Zaid. Ibn Abi Zaid was malaqabimalik
sahir. He was in Qairawan in the modern,
modern,
country of Tunisia.
Qairawan is a city like Kufa that was
founded originally by the companions,
during the Futuhat of North Africa. Part of
the army that conquered North Africa included Saidan
Hassan,
the the grandson of the prophet sallallahu alaihi
wasallam.
And so, Tehran is a early center of
learning in the in the Ummah.
And, the first university,
the first university that was established in the
whole world.
It was established at the hands of the
Ummah in in Qairawan,
and and what's then becomes a Tunis afterward,
I should say. And it's a Jamia Zetuna.
Jamia Zetuna, not the Zetuna that's in California,
but it's the one that the Zetuna in
California is named after. The Zetunah,
a great number of, great Olaman and Mashaikh
went through there, including Ibn Khaldun and a
number of other people, individuals.
And, because it was shut down by the
secularists,
it no longer holds the title of the
oldest university.
It was before it was made before the
Qalaween and Al Azhar,
which both of which were made long before
any of the universities of Europe.
If the seculars had not shut it down
for because it teaches Deen, we would have
still had this honor. Inshallah, they open it
up again, one day, but, great a number
of great they came from that from that
place. And afterward, the torch passes to the
in in,
in in fast,
because it's continuously open. It was never shut
down. But at any rate, Ibn Abi Zayed
is a great Muhadith and a great Faqid.
And for that reason, one of the favelin
virtues of this book is that that,
I would say at least 40, 50 percent
of the text is directly verbatim, the the
text of either an ayah of the Quran
or hadith of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam.
And, lest a person think that this is
my chance to slam everybody with Maliki propaganda,
the reason we're reading the book is because
of its very elegant
and, simple way of laying out the issues
of the Sharia. When there's a point of
difference of opinion, we'll we'll explain all of
those things inshallah. So this is a occasion
for all of us to learn something rather
than, an occasion for one person to compel
another to follow,
follow them in matters that that there's really
no compulsion in.
So we start today with
the the chapter with regards to the the
timings of the prayers and the names of
the prayers.
Now we live in a time in which
all people know about this the prayers is
what the app tells in the prayer times.
And the prayer times have associated with them
certain certain things. There are certain things that
happen in the unseen world that are connected
with,
astronomical
and
and geological phenomena.
And it's important to understand what time is
what and what the virtue of what time
is. And,
there are a number of words used for
time in the Quran,
and
the Asr, the name of the prayer is
one of them,
and there's a number of words used like
a dar. These all they're all words for
time, but they have a slightly different connotation.
One of the effects on the heart of
a person when they start to observe the
prayer is what? Is they now become
properly cognizant of the passage of time. It
in and of itself just being aware of
the prayer times, what time is is it
now, how much time is it to the
next,
salat, etcetera. This is one of the one
of the forms of the dhikr of Allah
Ta'ala.
This itself is a muraqabah. It's a type
of meditation,
and when a person has it inside, the
benefit it confers on them is it doesn't
allow them to their time. And so that
that happens oftentimes that the the people are
unaware unaware of of these things and are
heedless of the times of the prayer.
Years will go by in their in their
life and they won't know what happened. And
then all of a sudden what happens when
a person starts to pray 5 times a
day, whether it's a non Muslim who embraces
Islam or a non practicing Muslim who starts
to practice, all of a sudden a certain
kefir, a certain condition comes over their heart
in which they freak out and say, oh
my god, I wasted my life and I
this and that. And, you know, you have
to calm those people down and tell them,
okay, but now you're not wasting it anymore.
And so, you know,
that's one beautiful thing. You can't sleep for
10 hours 12 hours straight anymore after becoming
a believer, you know? You can't even if
you waste your time, even if you sit
on your phone, Facebook, and Twitter, and all
these things, they blow so much time. Sometimes,
you know,
a person shouldn't admit their faults in front
of other people, but maybe a person will
sit down and then they'll look at the
time once and then look again and, like,
an hour has gone and you've done officially
nothing.
The the awareness of the prayer times, it
puts a limit to how much that can
happen.
And there's a number of there's a number
of other benefits we'll we'll we'll continue with,
inshaAllah, as we go through the chapter.
So the first issue he mentions is the
first prayer of the day.
The official name of which, is the.
Inshallah, maybe one day we can grab a
a a whiteboard. Is there is there okay.
I see there's, like, a whiteboard behind the
sisters, but, like, I don't know if there's
markers or anything, but I'll ask some pie
basil for
for some for some supplies regarding that later
on. But the the official name for what
we refer to as Fajr,
the official name with the and with the
the the the the
even the Quran itself is what is that,
the name of that prayer is the subh.
It's the morning prayer. The word fajr means
the crack of dawn. And so the subh
prayer, the beginning of it is the phenomenon
known as
fajr.
What is fudger? Fudger is the crack of
dawn. So what ends up happening is that
the,
nighttime,
pitch black.
When the sun comes a certain number of
degrees under the horizon,
what will end up happening is the person
will see a vertical beam of light in
the direct the direct,
direction of east. And it will be vertical
and what will happen is it will start
to expand, and then it will come and
start to cover the horizons from all sides,
expanding from both sides on the east until
it,
surrounds the west. The first the first crack
of,
of of that light that comes up is
called fajr.
Fajr means to flow. It also, like like,
means to explode.
So, like, for example, in Arabic, like, if
a bomb,
blows up, it's called Infijab, something blew up.
Obviously,
it's we're all bearded people and hijab people,
so we should be don't say it too
loud. But we're talking about the dawn, crack
of dawn right now. That's what fajr means,
that the thing just breaks open and it
starts to flow out.
And so that's the beginning of the sobrih
prayer. Is what?
Is
Fajr,
the the crack of dawn. And then the
end of the sobh prayer is when the
top of the disc of the sun hits
the horizon.
So if you look in the east, the
sun will obviously rise from the east, and
so the disc of the sun when the
top of it hits the horizon, that's the
end of the that's the end of the,
subhay prayer time. Obviously, if you go and,
like, try to argue with your relatives and
things like that about this, most of them
probably won't understand nor will they care, and
they'll tell you to stop attending weird, classes
at the masjid. But for the people of
knowledge, this is a type of understanding that
we should preserve.
And so, the first thing I wanted to
mention is what?
The first part of it is the crack
of dawn.
Okay? So that's that's that's what he's saying.
The first thing he mentions is that from
the crack of dawn, that dawn which spreads.
So there is something called the false dawn.
They call it, a a a a a
a a a a a a. One of
the names of the one of the names
of fajr, the crack of dawn is a
subhasadiq, meaning the true dawn.
The false dawn is something that happens at
certain latitudes.
They call it the the zodiacal light,
and what it is is basically,
the light reflects in a certain way when
the sun is
a certain,
number of degrees under the horizon, that there
are certain particles that are there inside the
atmosphere at a certain light and they start
to glisten.
And so what will happen is that you'll
see that happen in the east,
but the difference between the false dawn and
the true dawn is what? Is that the
false dawn will glisten and then it will
disappear. It'll come like a like a like
a they say like a,
Vanabe Sarhan, like the tail of a fox.
It's like a little bit wider than the
first crack of true dawn. It glistens for
a while and then it disappears. It doesn't
expand.
Whereas the true dawn of Subhasadiq
appears as a column of light in the
east, and then it will start to expand.
And so at some latitudes, you'll see this
false dawn, and it usually is like half
an hour or so, give or take 10,
15 minutes. It's usually about half an hour
or so before the false dawn, the before
the true dawn. And this false dawn, Subhadkathib,
has no
sharia ihukam, no ruling of the sharia as
connected to it. Neither neither does the fajr
start nor does anything start or end according
to it. So if you see the dawn
break
and then it disappears,
then it kinda is what it is. Now
this is an issue again,
we're right now in the class. This is
not the Jumakhotba.
This is not a family party. I'm not
giving a talk at a wedding right now.
This is not the Eid Khutba. This is
within the class, between the students of knowledge.
A person should then ask themselves the apps
that they use. How do they define fajr?
How do they define fajr at the crack
of dawn?
And
this is,
really theoretically speaking because the the deen is
is such that the Nabi is described as
a nabil
said that we're
this, Ummah is
We are we are, an unlettered people,
an unlettered people. And that's not literally what
the word means. If you look at the
word ummi, like, what is if someone from
Pakistan is Pakistani, someone from Iraq is Iraqi.
So what is ummi?
Ummi is someone who has mother, and everybody
has a mother.
Ummi Sadan Adam doesn't have Sadan Alyssa doesn't
have a father yet. At least has a
mother. So means, like, lowest common denominator. Just
a common so we're Umma, just common folks.
We're not fancy pants people. We're not not
engineers and doctors. I mean, some of us
are, but the point is in order to
be a member of the Ummah, you don't
have to be any of that fancy stuff.
And so the the idea there's a concept
amongst the Usuly scholars who themselves are relatively
sophisticated people that all the basics of the
religion have to be
understand by understandable by someone being Umi. The
Rasulullah salallahu alayhi wasalam himself was a very
intelligent person, but there's a hikma in Allah
making him Hafiz ibn Abdul Bara actually writes
that it wasn't that he couldn't read, but
he was commanded
not to. Why? Because
if he read something, then the vast majority
of, for example,
Pakistan, like, they say 40, 50 percent of
the the population isn't literate according to the
UN standard. The UN standard is can you
write your own name and can you read
large signs? It's not like a person is,
like, doing a book report on Shakespeare or
something like that, you know. And so even
by that standard, large swaths of the ummah
are are still, unlettered. The idea is that
the, lettered person cannot follow the sunnah of,
an unlettered person cannot follow the sunnah of
a lettered person, but a lettered person can
follow the sunnah of an unlettered person. Just
like, for example, if there were Nabi who
was a wealthy man, so many sunan of
his would be connected with, like, zakat and
sadaqa and this and that.
Whereas the the the the fuqara then, you
know, they would be unable to follow that
part of the sunnah. So this is one
Usuli, Hikma in the Nabi being Ummi, is
that he wasn't allowed to read and write,
even if he would have been able to.
Why? Because it would have caused a person
to have a shakk that I cannot follow
this person's sunnah. So how that how how
that's relevant to the the prayer times and
all of these things is that before the
app, before any of these things,
the prayer times are are are,
understood through what? Through observation.
So if you have an so your app
says one thing, your app says another, and
your app says a third,
the the way you'll settle the dispute is
what? Ultimately, the way the dispute will be
settled is let's go to a place with
no light pollution on a clear day
and just see when does the when does
the dawn break.
I've done this before,
and I have my conclusions as well.
All of the all of the the,
authorities, different scholarly authorities in the Muslim world,
in the Indian subcontinent,
in Egypt, in,
Turkey, in, North Africa, in the Arabian Peninsula,
all of them, they say that the true
dawn happens when the sun is somewhere between
18 19 and a half degrees below the
horizon, and the difference between them is, like,
3 minutes or so.
For whatever reason in America,
there is something called the ISNA calculation method,
which says that the true dawn happens when
the sun rises to 15 degrees, so 3
degrees higher, 4 and a half degrees higher
than that,
15 degrees below the horizon. I've contacted Isna
before because the person wants to read about
these things, they then all of a sudden
have interest. So I've contacted ISNA. I just
asked them why is that you've done something
that nobody in the Muslim world has observed
before nor are they in tune with. And
they said, well, we have no official,
official position of when Fajr comes in when
the when the crack of dawn is. And
so why why do all I asked, the
someone from the FIC Council of ISNA, why
is it that you guys
and everyone calls us the ISNA method? They
say we have no idea. The app developers,
they just named it that, and we really
don't know. So there you have it. But,
I encourage and I'm going to do this
inshallah. I'm going to do this as well.
One of these days, I'm gonna take, Sheikh
Musa and I have spoken about it. We'll
take some brothers out. Sisters, you're welcome to
have your own observation party as well. Go
out to the county. Go out of the
city where the light pollution is a little
bit less. Make sure it's not an overcast
night. And just, you know, just write down
when is it that you're first able to
see the light in the,
in the east.
Preferably on a night, on a night with
without the moon out.
Because when the moon is out, there's so
much light outside. And before I went to
Mauritania, I was unaware of many of these
things. But, you know, in the Badia, you're
there's so the moon gives so much light
that you actually cast a shadow in the
moonlight.
You know, people who are from the village
back home, they've they've experienced that. People from
the city, they they don't they don't know
any of these things. So wait till it's
a dark a dark dark night,
or wait till a time a time when
the moon is not out at the time
of dawn in order to observe if you
wanna have the most accurate observation.
So that's that that's that. So that's the
beginning of of the time is what is
when the when the the true dawn,
breaks, and the true dawn is distinguishable from
the false dawn. How?
Because the true dawn will expand around the
horizons whereas the false dawn will not. The
false dawn will appear and disappear.
And so, he says then, like we mentioned
from before, that the end of the prayer
time is when the top of the disc
of the sun hits the hits the horizon.
And then he,
mentions that between the 2 of them, there's
a open time.
Meaning, there's no
there's no blame on a person who prays
the prayer earlier and there's no blame on
a person who prays it later. Although there's
a mild preference as he mentions, there's a
mild pressure preference to pray earlier. Why?
Because in general, in the in the deen,
this is a principle of deen, that the
sunnah is taajirul khair. Everything that's good, you
should do it sooner rather than later. But
it's a mild preference that's in absence of
other other issues.
And so the Fokaha have a difference of
opinion about this. So the Shafreis, they take
this prescription very,
very,
literally.
Hadith of the prophet that what's the best
of deeds,
Rasuulullah
said,
the prayer time as soon as it comes
in.
And in general, nobody obviously, the Rasuulullah
said it, so nobody nobody disagrees.
However, the interpretation of what the meaning of
that is is what according to the the
ahanaf,
and,
somewhat the maliki, they say that this is
an absence of other considerations.
Whereas the the the shafirs say, no. This
is a mutlak
prescription. This is always gonna be true.
And so the daleel that the Hanafis bring
is another hadith which is found in the
sunun of Imam Tirmidi, in which the Messenger
of Allah sallallahu alaihi wa sallam said,
that pray the fajr prayer
when it becomes light outside.
So the word isfar means 2 things. It
can
or
it means the actual sunrise.
And so and and then the word isfar
without a qualification,
it means the the later part of the
fajr time before the sunrises when it's light
outside. And so the Hanafi the Hanafi rationale
of praying the the Sabah prayer later, and
many of the Hanafi countries, they'll pray it
45 minutes after or an hour after the
the the true dawn comes in is because,
you you it's matlub to have more more
people in your jannah. If it allows more
people to join the congregational prayer, then that's
a
a consideration that takes priority over the consideration
of praying earlier. Because this is also an
objective of deen that as many people, especially
the men, should pray,
the prayer in the congregation or pray all
of the prayers in the congregation.
And the the nadir of this is likewise
an isha as well.
Sayidna Omar
who hits his fatwa that he used to,
pray,
Isha once 1 third of the night is
done. Because by that time, everybody is done
with their business of the day.
And more people he would notice more people
would come at that time. And so he
delayed the the salat for, for that reason.
And so this is this is a a
2 ways of looking at the Sharia. Both
are based on the sunnah of the prophet
but they're a matter of preference.
I would be lying if I said I
I I wouldn't,
prefer that even in the Masjid, we pray
the the subakkah prayer a little later, especially
in the summer. However,
I hope you can appreciate that, me mentioning
the issues doesn't mean that I'm here to,
like, cause fitna. I didn't go in guns
blazing and try to rip everything apart and
reshape the world in my own image. But,
these are these are the these are the
the issues that we should consider when as
a community coming together to decide these things.
And so one of the things he mentions,
which a lot of people are really,
taken aback by,
is that there's
a statement in the Quran,
that guard guard your prayers,
be vigilant about your prayer times, and in
particular, be vigilant about the salatul gusta, the
middle prayer. And
when you stand in front of Allah, Ta'ala
stand in humility and submission.
Means submission, it
means ta'a,
obedience, it means
sukut, silence, and it means
stillness.
Sukun, it means stillness. So all of these
things that when you stand in the prayer,
don't move around, don't make noises, and and
stand in obedience and humility in front of
Allah. And so the salatullustah,
if you ask the Sahaba
which of the prayers is the salatullustah,
they'll all say different things. The preference of
the muhaddi thing is in general, the later
muhaddi thing is that the salatulusta is salatulasser.
And it's narrated by a number of it's
narrated
by a number of the companions.
There's an other another,
the I guess the rationality with it is
that what it's the end of the day,
and it's,
kinda halfway between the the middle of the
day and between Maghrib and people oftentimes. Because
the word asr itself, it means time, but
in a
sense of something that's diminishing,
something that's, like, evaporating. And that's what the
whole point of, you know,
right, that by the vanishing time,
is is in loss.
And so that's that's
because of those factors, majority of the
they they,
their Milan was toward what? Their inclination was
toward accepting that it's a salatul Asr, and
it's probably the opinion most of you are
familiar with.
It is narrated by Sayyidina, that
it's a Zuhr. Why? Because Zuhr is in
the middle of the day, so it's a
it's a time of noon or begins after
the time of noon. But the opinion of
Malik
and another group of and is
that,
that it's the.
Why? Because it's halfway between the night and
halfway between the day. Half of it looks
like night and half of it looks like
day.
Lest
a
person, lest a person lest a person be
head on or or amazed or astounded by
this opinion,
I think it makes sense because at least
the day of age that we live in
right now,
my anecdotal
observation is that if people are to miss
one prayer and it's time, it's usually subeh.
It's usually the subeh prayer. I remember I
was sitting with my sheikh once.
Allah, ta'ala, have mercy on him. And, as
is the custom of the people in the
Darul Islam
that they they love and they revere, people
would come and ask him to make dua
when they're distraught.
And so we were sitting in the once,
and some young man came crying.
And,
he said he said, Sheikh, I have my
exams in school are too hard. I can't
deal with it and make dua that I
pass and I don't fail and blah blah
blah. And so the Sheikh says,
do you pray? He says, yeah.
He says, do you pray on time? He
says, yeah. He goes, how many prayers in
the day do you pray on time? He
says, at least 4. And so the sheikh,
like, he looks at him, he's like,
how many prayers does Allah have?
And he says, 5. He goes, so do
you pray for yourself or do you pray
for Allah ta'ala?
He says,
for Allah. He says, well, Allah has 5.
So don't say don't don't pray 4 and
then expect that you're gonna get what you
need from from what you should get be
getting from 5, from 4. He says, pray
your other prayer on time. And he would
do this. Sometimes he would straighten out people,
but at the end, he would always
he would always say, now let's make dua.
We always make dua for the people. There's
a number of comical
incidents like someone, oh, sheikh, make du'a, my
my fiance broke off the engagement,
and then,
he says, how long you've been engaged for?
It's just 2 years. He goes, 2 years.
The sunnah is they're like the the barakah
is in short engagements. He goes, what do
you expect is gonna happen for 2 years?
You know, like, it didn't happen in 2,
it happened. Okay. Fine. Everyone make du offer
the guy. Shey, make du offer my son.
He's in England, and there's all these anti
Muslim hate crimes over there. So she says,
oh, you guys you spend your brightest children
to go and, like, build up the countries
of of, of those people who hate us,
and then you'd cry and come, did I
did I did you ask me my opinion?
Should he move to England or not? And,
no, it's okay. Everybody make dua for him
that Allah protected me. We always make dua
for you. You would tell him what's up,
you know. And this last example is, I
guess, kind of ironic that we're mentioning here
in America. But, now that we're here, we
may as well make we may as well
make a go of it. Right? We didn't
ask,
before leaving, but now that we're here, we
may as well. I'm Mir Saab Mashallah is
here from from Accident, and I also, you
know, the angels didn't ask me which, which
side I'd like to go to. But, you
know, we're all here. So why why be
upset about it? You know, let's make the
best of it inshallah. Make du'a so all
of you make du'a as well. So at
any rate, the the the the prayer I've
seen anecdotally that the people blow off the
most is the the prayer. For me, personally,
it was the most difficult one to bring
in the line.
And so I think that this this, prescription
of of particular
paying particular detail and attention to the soft
will will stop being fajr. I don't think
it's far fetched, and Allah knows best what
the what the what the the correct answer
is. If it was just like open chat,
this, that, or the other thing, then we
would say whoever says it's x prayers, right,
and everyone else's account, but it's not like
that. That. There's a very few issues in
the Sharia are like that.
And
so,
that's the last level, by the way, of
complexity in teaching the the books of any
science. This the penultimate level is what is
that you learn the dalil. And the ultimate
level is then you learn the filaf, the
who has other opinions than this, why do
they hold those opinions,
what is our response to their, opinion, and
what is their rebuttal to our response and
what is our response to their rebuttal. Not
necessarily because you wanna fight with people but
because you can always learn something from someone
who disagrees with you as long as that
person has knowledge.
Someone who agrees with you and is an
idiot, you will never benefit or learn from
them. And someone who disagrees with you but
they have knowledge, even if you don't agree
with their opinion, from listening to their perspective,
you always learn,
something. And this,
this ability to hear a different point of
view without freaking out or losing it, this
is a sign of a person's helm and
their their their their ilm, their their forbearance,
and the depth of their knowledge in our
in our tradition.
Someone says 2 gods, obviously, we're not gonna
entertain them. There are very few issues that
are like that in the Sharia.
Very few issues indeed.
So that's the the time in the walk
of of the subah.
And so, his opinion is that there's no
there's only a very mild preference for praying
earlier rather than later.
There there there is from amongst the, I
guess, the of the mad hub,
this idea that because
because there's
there's hadith that indicate the
the the superiority of praying earlier and superiority
of praying later. But amongst them, the exact
best thing is to pray the prayer start
the prayer in the nighttime looking part and
end it when it looks like day. Because
there's a hadith of the prophet that,
that the people used to actually several hadith
that are narrated by the sahaba radiAllahu anhu,
that the people when they would leave the
the masjid, there would be enough light for
people to recognize the silhouette of a person
at some distance that a human being is
there, but not enough to see who it
is. You would see the figure, but you
wouldn't see the face.
And so this is, this is, there's again,
these are matters of mild preference, But if
you want to do it in a
as best as you can,
that's really the best time to do it
in the masjid.
If you're praying alone like the ladies, there's
more reward for them to pray at home
than in the masjid even though it's valid
just like a man can pray in his
home as well. There's nothing wrong with ladies
praying in the masjid, and there's more reward
for praying alone rather than praying the jama'ah,
even though there's nothing wrong with them praying
in the jama'ah as well. For them, the
optimal,
the optimal time to pray is in the
beginning.
The reason there's, some optimality in delay and
even the reason the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa
sallam recommended delaying some of the prayers is
because, it facilitates the people gathering,
gathering in the masjid, which is also an
imperative of the sharia,
that ideally no man should pray his 5
daily prayers alone.
But
form follows function. You know? And so the
people who build the masajid, most of them
in North America,
their, fikr was not necessarily based on these
books, but they had other issues that they
were dealing with. And that's why they built
the masajid where and how, they did Allah
to reward them. But in the future, you
know,
these are things to keep in mind.
So the next prayer is the.
Means to become apparent and manifest.
This is the time when the sun is
beating down the hardest on a person
right after the right after the the high
noon.
And
living in the Badia, living in the open
desert in Mauritania teaches you a lot about
the natural world that you don't really get
when you sit in AC or under inside
of a building.
It really is it it really is a
hot time of
day. And so it's a mercy of the
lord
that he didn't make the fajr time at
high noon.
Because if it did, it would have really
burned,
burned really hard to to come to the
masjid.
And, I guess people like us would probably
not just, like, not even bother, but there
are people in the Ummah that that if
they had to do it, they would do
it. And so I know brothers who have,
like, literally, like, heat rashes and heat blisters
till the masha'a would tell them go pray
just pray your lord in the tent. Don't
come to the masjid.
But that's a good problem to have now.
It's like I heard somebody in another state
had heat or rash like 10 years ago,
so I'm just not gonna go,
one extreme or the other. Right?
So,
so the the the zohr time,
it starts right after it has
So the word
the word oftentimes, linguistically, we mean it to
we use it to mean, like, downfall. But
the literal meaning of the word zawal is
when something is at its height, it's at
its peak. Why? Because from the top, there's
nowhere to go but down.
So even though you're at your top right
now,
there's no good in the future left for
you.
And so the zawal of the Shams is
the is what is what they call high
noon.
It's when the the sun reaches its zenith,
its highest point in the,
in the,
in the sky. And so Zuhr doesn't start
at that time, rather it starts when the
sun has visibly moved from that time.
So, for example,
if the sun is at high noon,
then the shadow of any object will be
at its shortest.
Since we're not within the tropics, we'll never
have a time when an object will have
no shadow at all. If you're within the
tropics,
if you're on the tropic of Capricorn or
Cancer, then one day of the year,
the
either of the, of the solstices,
the sun will be directly overhead. And if
you're within them, then 2 days within the
year, the sun will come directly overhead.
And so
that's
that's that's the time of
Zohar.
The Zohar is after Zohar. So the way
you can tell Zuhr has come in is
that the shadow reaches its shortest length.
And then what happens is, like, up until
that, the shadow is longer and it's getting
shorter shorter shorter shorter shorter, it reaches a
kind of a stage where it doesn't move
for a while. Then once you can visibly
observe that the shadow starts lengthening again, that's
when the time of that's when the time
of luhar comes in. So that takes a
couple of minutes. That takes a couple of
minutes after high noon for for the luhar
time to come in. The reason this small
detail is important to, mention is that, again,
you can use, like, astronomical
calculations to calculate compute the exact time of
ZOAL. But because all of these rulings have
to be
implementable
without,
needing to actually
use, like, astronomical sophisticated astronomical calculations or or
machinery or tools. That's why what it is
is, like, once you notice, like, the you
draw a line and you could see that
the shadows actually cross that line again, that's
when the that's when the luhr time
has has come in. Now there's a discussion
amongst the olamas to
when it is
best
when it is most virtuous to pray the
whole time.
The first the first opinion is, again, like
in is at the beginning of its time.
As soon as you see the the the
shadow start to to extend again, that's the
best time. That's the first opinion. The second
opinion is that it is,
a a a it is
a virtuous to wait for the
shadow of an object to increase by 1
quarter of its length.
So if you have a 4 foot tall
stick,
right, it will cast a shadow even at
high noon. That zero shadow, ignore it. So
from that zero shadow, whatever cast shadow it
casts at noon,
wait for it to go one foot out
from there, meaning a quarter of its height.
Why? Because it's a hadith because the hadith
of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam,
that the Prophet
said that cool the prayer down,
meaning prayer in a cooler time of
day because the,
the severity of the heat, the intensity of
the heat,
at that time is like a blast of
air from the hellfire.
And so you'll see that that actually, like,
the highest temperature in the day oftentimes will
be like 2 or 3 o'clock. But
the heat is not necessarily what harms a
person. It's the direct sunlight beating down on
them.
Because if you're if it's like, you know,
like, 78
during high noon,
and, like, 85 during, like like, 2:30 or
3 o'clock,
the 85 is not as harmful as the
direct sunlight coming down on you is. And
if you stand in the direct sunlight, you
will warm up much more than 85 very
quickly. Or if you put something, a dark
colored object or something in the direct sun.
Whereas 85 in the shade, people will survive
that.
And so this is sunnah, and you'll notice
this in the subcontinent actually.
They they still do this. That usually, Zuhr
and Jama'an and things like that, it's like
2:15
or or or or it's significantly later than
the time the the the the time comes
in. And
because the, again, the
the the the,
the Shafi'i is Hanabila, Ahlul Hadid,
Salafiya. They they they generally prefer they give
the the commandment to pray the prayer and
it's a first time more strength in their
Madhab,
Because of that, they'll usually pray the Zohar
right when it comes in.
But that's not that's not,
the opinion of all of the fokaha,
and really it's not the opinion of majority
of the Muslim world,
which is also based on hadith of the
prophet in which he says,
delay the the the prayer because the intensity
of the heat is from the blast blast
of heat from the hellfire.
So Moritania ends the same thing, Juman and
and,
Juman and,
Salat al Zohar were usually at 2:15,
2:30. Same thing in Morocco.
Jumad, they would pray on time, but the
regular
daily prayers were a little bit a little
bit later.
So that's that's the opinion with regards to
that.
We can do with it what we like.
And the 3rd opinion is what? The 3rd
so the first opinion is what? Pray at
the beginning. The second opinion is pray in
the jama'at,
in the masajid where the where the congregations
are called, pray in the cooler time. But
if you're praying on your own, pray in
the earlier time because you're not gonna go
out in the direct sunlight, so
what's the point? And the 3rd opinion is
don't know even the person praying at home
alone should pray in the cooler time because
of the hadith of the prophet sallallahu alaihi
wa sallam. And the practice the practice of
the the malaikia is the second opinion.
And the practice
of the ahnaf is according to the second
opinion, but he mentions that these are the
three opinions about when
it's,
best to pray the salat of Dhuhr. Whoever
takes from any of the three opinions is
making amal on one of the sunnahs of
the prophet
is acting according to one of the sunnahs
of the prophet, sallallahu alaihi. So you have
a little bit about, like, 45 minutes or
something? Like, 30 minutes maybe. Yeah. Yeah. It's
not that much.
Yeah. Because the thing is this. Right? Like,
you you're an engineer. Right?
So, like, if you have a,
like, a parabolic curve. Right?
Or sorry. Not I apologize.
If you it's like a it's like a
a cycle. Right? Basically, if you're if you're
at the the zenith or the top of
the cycle,
when will you lose the most
the most, because the the the amount of
energy that the the light is gonna put
into the object that it's hitting is gonna
be,
most when when it's when it's perpendicular to
the surface. Right? And so when are you
gonna have the most loss of energy transfer?
It's gonna be at the top of the
curve, not at the bottom. So half an
hour up here is gonna make a much
bigger difference than half an hour down here.
Yeah.
That's that's the hikmah. That's the hikmah. Then
you just cut the edge off of the
off of that that that that heat.
I'm told that sisters oftentimes are asked by
non Muslim random non Muslims aren't too hot
in that thing. So you can say, yes.
This is why Zohr is
delayed delayed by a a quarter length of
the shadow.
And so,
then he mentions on what the end of
the time is.
And so the end of the time is
what?
Is when
the,
length of the shadow of an object is
equal to the length of that object.
Not counting the the length of the shadow
at high noon because so when it's high
noon, something will have a residual shadow because
the sun doesn't always come directly overhead.
So subtract that amount, but if you have
a stick that's a meter long,
then, subtract that that amount of the shadow
at noon.
Once the shadow extends beyond that by a
meter, which is the same as the length,
then the the time is over.
Now there's also difference of opinion amongst the
with
regards to
with regards to this. Imam Abu Hanifa from
amongst the said that, no.
The,
the
the time that the Zohar ends is not
when the length of the shadow is equivalent
to the length of the object, but double
that.
So that's why if you have, like, your
prayer time prayer time app calculator or whatever,
it'll ask you the Hanafi time or the
the,
Shafe'i time.
And it's not really Hanafi Shafi'i. It's Imam
o Hanifa and, like, all the other madav,
including the 2 imams of the Hanafi, Madhab
Imam Khadhi Abu Yusuf. All of the imams
agreed that it's the the her time ends
when
the object,
is the length of the object is equal
to the length of its shadow.
And Hanafi Madhab is built on 3 opinions.
It's built on Abu Hanifa's opinion. He's the
Ustad and he has 2 students whose opinion
it's built on, Qadhi Abu Yusuf and Qadhi
Abu Yusuf and Imam Mohammed. So the 2
students actually sided with with Malik on this
issue
and,
against their teacher. This is important to understand
why because people make this claim that somehow
the madhabs are like the personal
following the personal example of some imam. Why
would we part follow a personal example of
imam when we could follow personal example of
the prophet
and that's not the case at all.
It's often every one of the imams have
had major students that have disagreed with them.
And every one of the imams have certain
issues in which the the the consensus of
the madhhab later on will go against the
imam.
And the reason is what? They're all reasonable
people. These are issues that are reasoned out.
They're not issues of just blind blind following.
And so,
the the practice of the Hanafis in general
is to pray the
pray the asr in the later time and
pray the in the earlier time.
But the fatwa is is what? If you
look in the books of fatwa, even Abidine,
even the fatwa of the Indian subcontinent,
etcetera.
The fatwa is that the, the Assur time
starts at the earlier of the two times.
But the jama'at and the masjids because of,
because of cautiousness will have them in the
later of the two times. But when the
length of an
object equals the length of its shadow, that's
the last time of the of the Duhr
prayer. This is what the the the fatwa
is according to, and the practice is what?
To pray Asr in the later time just
to be sure.
But like Turkey, for example, Turkey, Syria, these
are countries that have large Hanafi populations,
and they actually pray Asar in the earlier
time as well in those places.
And so, you know, this is something I
think I I've seen people in the Masjid,
especially our Hanafi brothers from back home that
stick to the Madhub, which I don't think
is a bad thing. I think it's a
good thing. I mean, it shows that someone's
serious about about their practice of dine and
not wishy washy. But oftentimes, they'll they'll get
a little bent out of shape about this
issue, and there's really no need to. If
you actually look in the books of Fatwa,
it's valid.
It's valid. It's just a matter of consciousness,
that a person,
it's the Hanafis considered superior to pray in
the later time, but their prayer is valid.
Don't believe me? Go ask Sheikh Musa. He's
a Hanafi. Maliki
guys running static and trying to mess with
us. Go ask him insha'Allah.
This is one thing. Also, in
in in ilm in general, it's better to
hear hear from straight from the source. Right?
So if the muhaddithin, for example, if one
person narrates from x, who narrates from y
who narrates from z and you can just
go straight to y instead of going to
z, that's what they used to do. You
go straight to the source as close as
you can. So if you wanna hear the
about the Maliki madhhab, then ask me. If
you ask me about Hanafi madhhab, and I
know I'll answer the question. If I don't
know, I'll say I don't know, But always
better go straight to the source.
Don't read about other people's madhabs from other
people's books.
Because sometimes somebody doesn't take time to understand
the other madhab as much as they take
the time to understand their own, so they
may it's oftentimes they'll accidentally misreport something or
not understand the issue in its complete completeness.
And so I I I encourage you all.
Go and ask inshallah if you have, you
know. And the Hanafi,
we've always heard about that twice the size
of the shadow.
So does that mean that the hard time
continues till then? Or not? So so there
is there is, according to some of the
some of some of the Hanafi Fokaha,
the time between one one shadow length and
two shadow lengths is Mushtarak.
It's,
it's it's both Dhuhr and Asr
in some sense. And they make that wheel
that every hadith in which it says that
the prophet
joined between and was always in that time.
And the fatwa is that it's haram to
make a practice of joining the prayer times
as a as a habit because the prophet
never did that. But if when traveling or
because of some need at some particular time
you need to do it, it's valid. But
it's haram to make a habit out of
it.
Otherwise, what ends up happening is that the
the the the shiaar of this ummah is
to pray 5 times a day.
The yahud pray 3 times a day. So
if you join Maghrib and Aisha and you
join,
Duhr and Asr,
then you basically made tashabuh with the yahud,
which is itself a haram act. Even
though in in in a vacuum without considering
that issue, the prayers may be valid, but
it's not you you're not we're not allowed
to make a habit out of that. The
masajid should have separate adams for 5 different
prayers, and a person in their daily life
should pray the the prayer 5 5 different.
The time between 1 shadow and 2 shadows
is musharak between it's it's it's, like, divided
between between
and that a person cannot cannot say with
jazm that the is not valid and the
person cannot say with jazm that the is
not valid in this time.
Rather the fatwa, one of the one of
the
hikmas, the, wisdoms of the fatwa of Abu
Hanifas, it separates them completely.
So a person as a habit should try
to pray Zohar before the first shadow length
they hid him, and they should try to
pray Asar after the second shadow length according
to the Hanafeez. Why? Because that we keep
the prayer times separate and not mixed.
If if a person does it one once
or twice because of need, it's it's fine.
But if a person makes a habit out
of that, that becomes a sin then.
Then. But I mentioned this I mentioned this
so that a person doesn't feel haraj. It
doesn't feel bad like, oh, you know, we're
praying too early or praying praying this like
that. Or or on the flip side that
a person who's accustomed to praying in the
earlier time doesn't feel haraj if they pray
late in the masjid. Either way, it's fine.
It's valid according to everybody
It's valid. It's.
So these are 2 very strong opinions within
the ummah. Like, in the ummah split almost
5050 between these 2 by by by population.
So that's that's fine. There's no no reason
to get bent out of shape about it.
They're both solid opinions.
So,
the that's the end of the time.
And so the time of Asr is what?
The time of Asr is when according to
the Malekis at any rate comes in, and
we've mentioned when it comes in for the
Hanafis.
That for the Malekis when the the zur
ends, meaning when the length of the shadow
of an object is equal to the length
of the object. And again, we mentioned the
khilah that Abu Hanifa amongst the imams,
considered it to be double the shadow of
the object.
That's when the
And so he mentions 2 opinions about when
the the the time of Asr ends.
One is when the
length of the object
sorry. The length of the shadow of an
object is double its length.
That's one opinion of when it enters, but
that opinion is a weak opinion.
The correct opinion is the second one that
he mentions is isfearar.
Isfearar means what? Isfeara yasfearu is for when
things turn yellow. So, like, when the daylight
comes down, like, from noon,
it's clear. It doesn't have a color. But
when the when the sunlight goes down closer
and closer to the horizon,
when the the the,
rays of the shams shams when the rays
of the sun hit the hit the wall,
they're like yellow in color.
So this is is farar. This is a
really interesting anyone here take sarf before? Anyone?
Sarf. Right? So there's a special
a special wasn't in sarf that's only reserved
for things becoming colors. So isfarachdarrahmara,
hmerar ishderar
ishderar ish
means for things to turn yellow. So when
the light starts to turn yellow, this means
what? This means that you cannot delay the
prayer anymore. It's haram for you to do
anything but pray at that time.
Before that time, if you have something to
do or if there's a reason we can
get together as a community and decide to
pray earlier or later, there's nothing wrong with
that. But once isfirah happens, when the light
of the sun starts to turn yellow, this
means we've, like, hit the wall. You have
to just drop what you're doing and pray
at that time.
And so that's that's the end of the
that's the end of the of the Assur
time. And so I assume, like, you know,
depending on what time of year it is
between summer and winter, it's something between, like,
15, 17 minutes to, like, 10 minutes, 8
minutes.
Before sunset. Yeah. Before sunset. Before sunset.
And so there's a little more complexity. We'll
add a layer of complexity to the hookahum,
but this is when you should have prayed
by this time. If you pray after it,
it's makru, it's not invalid until the sun
actually
the bottom of the disc of the sun
hits the horizon, then you've you've actually missed
it. But until then, it's makrude to delay
into that that last 10, 15 minutes. It's
you've you've done wrong by doing that.
And so he gives another because the issue
of link measuring shadows. Right?
This is a, it's a weird issue.
Who here knows how long the shadow is
at high noon today?
A 1 meter object, how long of a
shadow will it cast? Nobody knows. Right? Nobody
bothered. You guys should actually figure these things
out. Someone look at your, at the almanac
and see when high noon is. Take a
object and measure, like, a meter or a
foot long object. Measure how long the shadow
is. You should know these things. It's going
to be shorter in the summer, in the
solstice, and it's gonna be the longest at
the winter solstice.
So people used to know about these things.
And every masjid, like, it has a a
an imam
and it has a. In the old days,
the masjid used to have timekeepers as well
so that they can be aware of these
things. And they kept almanacs and they kept
very detailed records. Because once you know the
prayer times for 1 year, the next year
and subsequent years, the prayer times will be
the same. And so they would tran transmit
and and train
people in in the preservation of this knowledge.
So one way you can tell with regards
to so we're gonna say, for example, that
the the starts when the length of,
a a shadow of an object is equal
to the length of the object plus whatever
residual shadow it has at high noon. What's
a way of measuring that? You guys can
go home and and do that. If we
had the,
class in the masjid, I'd have you do
it right now. Usually, I just have people
do it right now, but we can't because
the the floor is not super clean.
I guess if you're really, like, gung ho
about Elm, you can do it and wash
your clothes afterward. Allah would reward you. If
I was a student, I'd probably do it.
But then again, people tell me I'm not
normal. So, if you if you wanna know
how long your your
your shadow is, what you can do is,
like, you can look at the shadow where
it comes to the ground and then take
your shoes off
and and just just put your step one
after the other. A normally formed person is
7 foot 7 feet of their own feet,
not like of the imperial foot. Of their
own feet, they're 7 feet in length. 1,
2, 3,
4,
5, 6,
7. And so what happens is you'll be
a little bit more, a little bit less
than that depending on what your,
you know, the way your body is.
But a normal person who is, like, normally
proportioned
is around 7 feet. So this is a
way you can tell without having to actually,
like, lay down
and measure these things or, like, look for
a a because sometimes you need a yardstick,
but you don't have one and you don't
know where to find one. So this is
a way of of
approximating these things.
He mentions another way of telling whether Assur
is in or not that's easier than that.
This other way that he mentions is not
it's not an exact way of knowing whether
Assur is in, but it's a very rough
way of gauging. And that is what?
That if you look at the sun, right,
wherever whatever direction the sun is. For example,
the sun is there,
you stand straight
and, you you put your head
like straight. And if the sun is above
your like, it's above my range of vision,
it comes in the range of vision right
here.
If it comes within the range of vision,
as long as you're not looking up or
you're not looking down, once the sun is
in your range of vision, you know that
that Asar is in now.
That's a very simple way of knowing. That's
not exactly when it comes in. It comes
in a little bit earlier than that usually.
That's not exactly what it's in, but when
it's come to that point, you know it's
in now.
Now
this is not a hard and fast rule
either. This may not be a a something
that that works in the winter. Why? Because
we live at such a northerly latitude.
He mentioned this in the book. We we
live at far more north than
Perawan. Right? Beituan, Tunis is far further south.
So the sun the the difference between summer
and winter is not all that different. If
you're in Norway when it's, like, night during,
like, half of the year,
there will be days when the sun never
even gets above that point.
But for I would say at least for
for 10 months out of the year over
here, the standard would work.
Or if you live in California or something
like that.
I used to live in California.
It was
fun.
And now it's now it's over.
So, that's that's the, that's the the time
of the
time of Asr. And,
you know what? I think that's a good
place to stop. We'll we'll we'll continue this,
next week inshallah.