Khalid Latif – Perfecting Your Prayer Essentials of Salah (Hanafi) #08
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So
last week,
we started looking at the actual,
like, prayer
and its mechanics.
And we went through the obligatory parts to
it.
I know there's some new people here this
week.
There's people who are typically here who aren't
here with us. So, if it's your first
time here, we've been recording all the classes.
You can find them on our YouTube channel.
You can listen to
things on our podcast.
I'm also happy to meet with people 1
on 1 just to kind of get you
up to speed.
But the idea of us doing this is
to take a deep dive
into
what is a foundational element of
ritual in Islam, the prayer,
meaning the daily prayers.
And to present it in a way for
those who are new to Islam, they might
have been born into a Muslim family, but
they're rebuilding their relationship with their faith, their
converts, they're exploring Islam
that allows for
the mode of engagement to be one that
understands
kind of where you're at
in this phase of your life.
And doesn't necessarily
become overwhelming
in a way that it doesn't have to
be,
But it's presented in a way that shows
there's kind of a systematic approach, so you
don't have to overnight suddenly like learn Arabic,
for example,
Or suddenly
know the meaning of all these different things,
or have things literally get lost in translation,
that makes it feel very kind of disconnected
and foreign. Does that make sense?
And so already what we've done just to
get people up to speed,
we took a deep dive into the first
chapter of the Quran. It's called Surah Fatiha,
means the opening. And it's a chapter that's
recited
in every unit of prayer.
It wasn't just a translation
but to kind of distill like, well, what's
the meaning behind this, right? Because you could
even know the translation of something but doesn't
mean that the words necessarily resonate so well.
In the coming weeks we're gonna look at
2 shorter chapters,
of the Quran,
and kinda go into those in a little
bit more detail. Also,
that as you're learning and memorizing things, you're
able
to kinda understand a little bit more of
what you're talking about.
And that's kind of the idea, right, in
building focus and concentration.
And the example we used at that time
was, say I was standing here speaking a
language that no one could speak in the
room, you know.
Let's say theoretically, no one in the room
could speak Chinese. I don't know if anyone
can speak Chinese in the room. Can any
of you speak Chinese?
Yeah. Great. So if I was standing here
speaking Chinese
or I just pretended like I could and
you had no idea because I don't know
how to speak Chinese but neither do you.
So I could be making up whatever I
want to. You fundamentally
wouldn't be able to build deep concentration
Not for any other reason other than there's
just a language barrier.
So how would you be able to retain
and absorb
when the literal meaning of the words is
something that is beyond our capacity to engage.
Do you know? Let alone then just how
overwhelming it can feel trying to memorize
or regurgitate something,
as you're simultaneously
kinda doing everything else that you're doing. It's
not in a vacuum. Does that make sense?
So today what we're gonna be looking at
is a second bucket
of
what
goes into the mechanics of the prayer. I
like him.
He kinda takes a deep so last week
what we talked about
were the
obligatory
aspects,
what are called the Farud
aspects
of the prayer.
These are things that
if they're not present, like the prayer doesn't
count in and of itself. Not the conditions
outside of the prayer, but what goes into
the mechanics of the prayer
and
what it is that one needs at a
minimum
once you are in
the prayer itself.
Does anybody remember
or wanna kinda walk us through some of
what those were?
The integrals of the prayer for those who
were here last week.
Yeah. Standing?
Yeah. So standing in the prayer is the
second
integral
of the prayer.
Like, the literal standing posture in the prayer.
Yeah.
What was before this?
Intention.
Yeah. So the intention was one of the
conditions outside of the prayer. Right? So you've
made the intention. What do you do next?
The wudu is also a condition outside of
the prayer.
Yeah.
So I made the intention. How do I
enter into the prayer?
It's okay.
Yeah. So you say Allahu Akbar.
Right? Some people can say it's something to
glorify God. This is like the integrals of
the prayer. Right? It might not
be what one
might be accustomed to seeing. It's called the
Tahrima.
So you're essentially saying what is that initial
Allahu Akbar.
And this like puts you in the state
of prayer.
What's next in terms of like the obligations
of prayer?
It's okay if people don't remember they weren't
here last time.
You can also look at notes you took.
So when you're standing, like, what do you
normally do in the standing if you've ever
seen a Muslim person pray?
Yeah. So you're gonna recite.
Right? And
in the obligations,
all you have to recite
is any,
like short verse
of the Quran.
The shortest verse in the Quran is 2
words. It says, Thummanadir,
then he looked.
So if you recite just that,
you meet the obligatory
part of the prayer. That's all you have
to say. Right?
This is in the obligations.
It's not what the end product will look
like as we're going through this, but the
bare minimum. Which
if you have a reason as to why
you would do that, which if you're new
to Islam or you're new to the ritual
prayer in Islam, there's not gonna be an
expectation that you have memorized everything
right off the bat. Does that make sense?
Yeah. What was after this?
What usually comes next if you see it
like a Muslim person pray from the standing
what do they do?
The Yeah. So they're gonna do the bowing
which is called the.
And then
yeah. And then you have a prostration.
And then
the last piece.
Awesome.
Yeah. You're gonna do a final sitting.
So this is what is obligatory
in a prayer.
The only part where you have to say
something
is in this section
reciting
any short verse of the Quran.
When you talk to somebody
who is Muslim
they might tell you what is the last
kind of element of it. You gotta memorize
this chapter and say all these verses And
when you're bowing you have to say this,
and when you're prostrating you have to say
this, and it can become very overwhelming.
The idea is that as you are doing
this in the window of time you are
at a reasonable pace learning what are the
other elements.
These are the obligatory
parts. So if this doesn't happen in the
course of the prayer, then the prayer doesn't
count.
The next section that we're going to talk
about now are going to be what's called
the necessary
or wajib
parts to the prayer.
So the relationship between this and this
is this is essentially like the skeleton of
the prayer.
And this column is gonna be what adds
like kind of flesh to the prayer.
And then next week what we're gonna discuss
is going to
be what are the recommended
practices
or what are called Sunnah.
And this is what'll add kind of
ornamental like beauty to the prayer. Does that
make sense? So you conceptualize this as your
physical body.
Like here is the innermost part of you,
that skeleton.
Building upon it now are these necessary actions.
And
here is then what is that kind of
final phase
of the prayer itself.
What most people get and what most people
give right from the onset is this bucket
right here.
And it becomes really overwhelming
as you'll see as we build this list
out. Is gonna go from just these 6
things to a lot more stuff that says,
here, figure all of this out.
And you don't want to do that in
a way that is either overwhelming the person
you're trying to teach
or also kind of overwhelming yourself if you're
trying to figure it out. Do you know
what I mean?
Because the posture is here and the mechanics
to this
make it very simple
as you're learning these other boxes.
Right? And you can do this in a
way that also creates an ease as you're
getting acclimated to like the schedule of things.
You know, somebody has not prayed
5 times a day in their life ever.
Somebody has never woken up at sunrise before.
Let alone tries to figure out now, like,
as they've woken up, Like, how do I
do this in a way that also
I am not dealing with dejection because I
don't know these words. I don't know if
I'm doing every single thing right. Right?
But the notion is such that in Islam,
like God knows his creation better than his
creation knows
itself. And so there's going to be a
pedagogy
to like teaching
that isn't just simply enough to say that
because a Muslim person prays, they know how
to teach us how to pray. You know,
and someone might just give you what they
have in the first place. But if they're
giving you this last bucket as a first
step it can create like a lot of
stress. Do you get what I mean? So
this is where you want to see like,
for somebody who's new to it. Somebody's building
a relationship.
It becomes a reason as to why they
would do this. And we're working our way
towards this box, which we're going to talk
about this one next week. And we're going
to go through this section today. Does that
make sense?
Okay.
So where
you have now in the necessary
acts
I'm gonna use a different color marker.
You're going to have
And you want to kind of compare these
2.
So the necessary
acts the first one is going to be
actually saying
the words Allahu Akbar.
Whereas here
you could say something that's just glorifying God
in some capacity.
Right? But here now
the actual words of saying Allahu Akbar
At the initiation
of the prayer,
when you're beginning the prayer in the Tahrimah,
as opposed to some other form
of kind of remembrance of God. Does that
make sense?
Right? So this phrase wouldn't be something that
like describes
God in his essence, but just something that
is kind of praising God, glorifying God. And
now here the specifics of it are going
to be that you say Allahu Akbar
in this opening
thing that's called the Tahrima. Right? And for
those who aren't here,
like a lot of you have probably heard
the word haram before.
It means strictly prohibited.
So those letters are still in this word.
Right? Tahrima haram.
You can hear like the letters in both
that are similar.
So the idea with this is that when
you're entering into prayer,
you're now rendering for that portion of time
things that are normally permissible. They're going to
be impermissible
for some period of time. Right? Like you're
not going to be talking to your friend
while you're praying. You're You're not gonna pick
up the phone while you're praying. You're not
eating a sandwich when you're praying. You know,
I used the example last week where a
friend of mine who used to live with
me before I got married. It was like
the time of our sunset prayer.
And I said, hey, we gotta pray. And
he was watching the NBA finals. And you've
been to my apartment before, with some of
you have, like their TV faces the direction
kind of of Mecca.
And so he said, okay. Let's pray. And
he just muted the television, but the game
was still going on. And I was like,
hey, man. Like, that's not gonna work. And
he was like, no, it's fine. I'm not
gonna watch it. And I'm like, no. Like,
what do you mean? It's literally a flat
screen right in front of us. How would
you not watch it? The challenge isn't one
of anything judgmental,
but it can't have like simultaneous
actions
happening
in the course of the prayer. You can't
be like watching TV while you're praying the
ritual prayer. You know, just like you wouldn't
be
like walking or doing different actions simultaneously.
Right? So the tahrimah
is putting you in that state that in
that moment, it's not that it's religiously impermissible
to talk, but in the course of the
prayer you're not going to be speaking to
someone. Does that make sense? So transitioning from
here to here, the specifics
of it are that you are going to
start
entering the prayer
with this phrase
right at the onset.
Allahu Akbar
that
God is
greater. God is the greatest.
Does that make sense?
And you want to think about it from
the standpoint of mindfulness.
Right? They're not just words that are being
uttered,
but it's giving an affirmation. Right? God is
greater than that anxiety that I feel. God
is greater
than the argument that I have. God is
greater than the boss who won't let me
pray this prayer. Right? You're in this space
where you are now affirming
that I am here
standing in front of my creator.
Islam is a very pure monotheism.
You don't need somebody who is quote unquote
religious to lead you in prayer. You don't
need somebody else to like supplicate to God
for you. Your prayer is heard across the
board.
There's not somebody who can sanctify for you.
There's not somebody who is more elevated than
you. Like your voice is as important
and in this you're affirming that whatever it
is that I'm stepping away from
God is greater than this.
Right? And I'm literally at a moment now
of replenishment inwardly
that this is meant to be a spiritual
exercise
that is helping me to connect to the
divine
and allowing for me to see it as
a means to something not as an ends.
Does that make sense? Right? So that initial
Allahu Akbar
it's giving that affirmation.
The second
necessary act is the recitation
of the first chapter,
which is called
Al Fatiha,
meaning
the opening.
If you miss, like, the 3 or 4
weeks that we went through each verse, I
would recommend listening to the podcast, listening to
it on YouTube, or just shoot me an
email and we can kinda talk it out.
Because there's a lot of depth that's in
this chapter and there's a reason as to
why
it's something that is supposed to be recited
in every cycle of prayer again and again
that you can pull so much from it.
Do you know? And translations are important. You
don't want to knock translations.
I was talking to somebody
just earlier today who is interested in becoming
Muslim
and he saw 2 translations of the Quran
on my desk and he said do you
think there's a limitation to me just engaging
the translation?
I said, no. Like when you think about
where Islam started, it starts in a Mecca
in Arabia
and it now extends.
And the communities that are in existence at
that time are not all Arabic speaking communities.
There's Byzantines,
and Persians, and Romans, and huge empires
in Abyssinia, what is Ethiopia, and so many
other places where people don't speak Arabic.
And when people are going to exchange ideas
and have conversations,
and they're talking about this new religion that
exists now in Mecca.
They're talking through translation.
They're engaging in translation.
Where you can find meaning
through knowing primary language. Nobody can say that
that's not something that's advantageous,
but it doesn't mean that where you're at
is some place that is somehow not also
where you're supposed to be. Like you're working
towards something. Do you know what I mean?
So you want to
build that relationship with it and not just
the translation but the meaning
and that is going to be something that's
a necessary act. Right? Which is where we
were telling people that you want to start
to memorize it
and have it be one of the first
things that you're adding now
to this part of the prayer.
This is going to happen in the standing
position.
So in that standing,
you're going to recite this,
and it's going to be recited
as a necessary
act. Does that make sense? Does anybody have
any questions on that?
What I would suggest if you haven't started
to memorize it already
just like week by week. You are spending
time like learning each verse,
you listen to it online,
and you just go at a pace that
makes sense for you. Because this is happening
as you are learning this in a reasonable
amount of time, you know. And reasonable is
very subjective.
But if you have the capacity
to kind
of recognize your ability to just absorb and
take in words,
We could probably right now, for example, I
don't know how old any of you are.
I'm 40 years old now at this point
in my life. And I know my white
beard probably tells a little bit about that.
But like, you know,
Khalid and I have some whites in our
hair. And I'm pretty sure like we could
put on something that we listened to in
the 90s, right? Or in the 80s that
we haven't listened to for decades.
And it would just flow from us like
we were hearing it yesterday, you know. That's
the capacity you're built with, right? You can
take in things and they will just like
come in some capacity
out because they're stored within you in a
place that you're not necessarily paying attention to.
So if you just go word by word
or verse by verse and be at a
place where you're patient.
The advantage of this not being here
is that you don't have to start with
an anxiety that says this doesn't count unless
this is happening.
Do you get what I
mean? And it allows for you to now
have a pursuit that says, like, hey, you
know what? There's not a time frame on
this that says I have to learn this
by tomorrow.
So I can go at a pace that
works for me, but I also still have
to recognize the pace that I can go
at. Do you know what I mean? So
if every day you're just learning one of
the words to the verse
then in a couple of weeks you would
have the whole thing under your belt.
Does that make sense?
So this first chapter is important
and it's in the necessary acts. That's why
we started with this so that we could
have that relationship with it. Does anybody have
any questions on this piece?
Does it make sense?
Yeah.
And building off of this you're going to
recite
1 long verse
or 3 short verses
from
any part of the Quran.
And that's why we're gonna look at those
2 chapters
in the coming week. One is called, which
in Arabic,
it means essentially like,
a multitude of, like, blessings.
Right? Like,
if you have any familiarity with Arabic as
a language,
words are built off of, like,
kind of patterns
with root letters.
Does that make sense? Is that like a
good description?
No. It's not. I can tell from your
faces. Great. Like, in,
in Arabic,
if you have,
the word for prostration is sajda
in Arabic.
And the place of prostration
is called masjid.
Right? It's got the same letters, right? A
book in Arabic is Kitab
and the word for office in Arabic is
Maqtab.
And the word
for library is Maqtaba.
Right? It's got the same letters. You see
what I mean? Right? So things follow patterns
and you just stick the letters in the
patterns
and they'll denote like a meaning.
And so
the word
for example, like the word for like
a lot of stars in Arabic is.
Right? Like we were just in Northern California,
my family and I. And my kids, like
we've taken them to different places before.
But if you ever been in the mountains
of Northern California,
or parts of like Reno, Nevada at night.
It's just like an open sky filled with
like beautiful array of stars. It's amazing to
see. It's very replenishing,
right? To go out into these places in
Islam
is very much so like a religion that's
based off of kind of having
this elemental relationship with the world around you.
We make
our kind of washing up for prayers with
water. You know, our prayers ourselves are based
off of like a cyclical pattern of the
sun. It's telling you to look at the
natural world around you.
So when there's like all of these stars
surrounding us
that would be described as kokab. Right? Just
like
thousands of stars all around you. The word
Gautha,
like you can hear how it has the
same kind of pronunciation as kokab. Gautha.
So Gautam isn't just blessing,
but it's like
tons of blessings.
You know, that chapter
is a chapter that like most Muslims memorize
because it's super short. Right? And there's a
ton of people who they just read that
in the prayer. It's got a lot of
deep meaning to it. The other chapter we're
going to look at is called Ikhlas
which is
sincerity.
And it talks a lot about like who
God is in Islam.
And next week we'll do a deep dive
into that.
And that's one of the also necessary components
is that you're
learning
and you're reciting either one long verse or
3 short verses
these two things
they're done in
the first
2
cycles of
each obligatory
prayer
and
in every cycle
of a voluntary prayer.
So if we just take a pause at
these three steps,
do you see how this is a lot
more than just this?
Right?
Yes or no?
Yeah.
And can you imagine
if this is what you were expected to
do
right from the minute, like, you become Muslim,
it's obligatory upon you to say your prayers.
So if somebody had to do even a
portion of these things or we're teaching somebody,
Okay. Now you got to do this, this,
this, and this, and this. Right? And they're
like, how? Like, how do I do this?
Do you know what I mean?
And all kinds of things that you'll see
people are trying to figure out that create,
like, more
stress.
Whereas, like, this is supposed to be a
replenishing act not an act that creates distress.
You see?
So this
is
like the next necessary act.
Any questions on this?
Yes? No?
Okay.
Then the next necessary act is to prostrate.
With
most of the forehead,
and the hard part
of the nose
touching the ground.
So your nose has 2 parts to it.
Right? This thing right here. Right? I got
a big nose, so it's easy to kinda
like look around. You can see, like, this
is the soft part of your nose. Right?
And this part is the hard part of
your nose. So when you're prostrating,
like this part of your nose should also
ideally be touching the ground.
Why are these mechanics important
in Islam?
Right? What do you think?
What I want you to do just because
now we're getting into things
that have mechanical
elements to them.
You wanna build an understanding of like why.
Like why is this something that
has like this much kind of detail to
it. If you can turn to the person
next to you, if you don't know their
names already just exchange names. You want to
start to think, right? The Quran is a
text and invites on every page it's reader
to not mute their intellectual capacity,
but to utilize their intellectual capacity. Right? To
be aware, to reflect, to contemplate.
So why are these things like things that
actually play a role
to
have some element
of kind of spiritual upliftment. And they're not
just like a checkbox to be able to
kind of assess am I good at this
or not? Do you get what I mean?
Like, why would it be defined in this
much detail? If you can turn to the
person next to you and just talk it
out for a couple of minutes, like, what
comes to mind? And then we'll come back
and discuss. Go ahead.
Okay. So what are some of the things
we're coming up with?
Like, why would this get to these details?
Why are they important to think about?
What did you discuss?
Do you wanna say something?
Uh-oh. You don't wanna say something?
Why don't you tell us what you talked
about?
I actually
always use my forehead. I was never
told about the nose.
And I was thinking since
Oh, interesting. Yeah. Amazing. What else?
And not just, like, limited to the prostration,
but all the mechanics. Right? Yeah. Go ahead.
We were sharing,
I said that it's best practice.
I said Hasid mentioned something about, like, humility
and,
like, how you present yourself in the very
past.
Okay. Like, what does that mean?
Like,
it's like how we sit on the ground
compared to sitting in shoes.
It's, like, the most the closest you are
to Allah is when you're
on on at ground level. So it's like
when you're prostrating,
it's
like you're in such that, like, that's the
closest you come to
engaging with Allah. Like, you're at the most
humblest
Yeah. Amazing. And what do you mean by
best practice?
Like, it's like,
like at work, we oftentimes
recommend to people, like, how to best
do something. Granted they don't have to do
it, but then somewhere down the line they
email us telling us this doesn't work. It's
kinda like that. It's
like you if you ask me what is
how do you get the maximum
cross screening
results that you can get? Like,
your face being
like, your vision being blocked, your face in
that position.
That that is how you do it. Not,
you know, still being able to kind of
look out of your peripheral ears. So like
something like that. Like
that makes sense. Just thinking of more What
is like the yield supposed to be? Yeah.
As at the end of this? Like what's
the impact
like, theoretically through all this supposed to be?
I worship.
Yeah. But to to in order to achieve
what?
Like a God consciousness, like a baqa.
Yeah. Right? So something that's internal.
Right? The external is meant to have an
impact
and it's it's a spiritual exercise. What else
anybody else? What did you discuss?
Yeah.
Structure of the so on. Yeah. And so
the word beta in Arabic means innovation. Right?
So you're not adding new things and these
kinds of things.
But think about any exercise that you have.
Do you know? And what the impact is,
and how you relate to it individually.
If you've never, for example, like, run before.
I used to run track.
I had played football. I was supposed to
play in college. You can tell because I'm
just a massive huge person. I'm sure, you
know, that's what you thought as soon as
you saw me.
And I got injured in my senior year
of high school, so I didn't end up
playing in college and recruiting stopped. I had
multiple concussions.
And
I did that for a while. I had
a trainer and, you know, all these kinds
of things.
And I have 2 children. My daughter's 10.
My son is 7. They're amazing. I love
them both.
And I remember seeing my daughter run,
like once some years ago, and I turned
to my wife and I was like, she
runs so weird.
Like
when she runs, it looks so crazy when
she runs. My wife said stop talking about
your child. Right?
But it's not just about,
like, what you look like, but what it's
actually doing to your body.
If you don't if you most of us,
if we went to a physical therapist,
you know, and you just show them how
you step,
and where and how our walking isn't done
properly.
Again. It's like
a slow yield
on really messing up kind of your physical
being. Do you get what I mean? Right?
Or you go to a doctor
and you go to the dentist. I don't
know how many of you go to the
dentist.
I particularly don't go to the dentist as
much as I should.
And where and how you can talk to
the dentist. And the dentist will say, like,
if you don't start doing these things, you
will not have teeth in your mouth when
you are older.
Right? It's a prescription
that necessitates
understanding
a connection to a regimen
that then yields something. That if you deter
from it, like that's fine, but it's going
to have consequential
impact. It's a spiritual exercise.
It's gonna have mechanics. They're meant to, like,
go into a place. Does it mean you
would get nothing from it? No. If I
run ugly up a mountain, I still ran
ugly up a mountain, and I probably build
up endurance and lung capacity,
but it's not getting to the maximum
of what I could yield if I was
doing it formulaically
correctly. Do you know?
If I had never, like, exercised before. Right?
If any of you have tried to lift
weights. The first part to it, you're not
gonna lift as much as you automatically could
because you're getting used to, like, the balance
of something. Right? And doing something you've never
done before.
And when you do it for like a
month or a year, you're that much more
kind of innate in the practice. You get
what I mean? Does that make sense? So
these mechanics are outlined as the best practice
that allows for us to be able to
recognize
that in Islam,
like, God is telling you the best way
to engage in building a connection to him.
And
all of these things go in a sense
of 2 fold. 1, there's an ideal that
you wanna get to, which is that end
form.
And working your way to it is gonna
be a process.
And 2,
that that end result
is going to be what is not, like,
outwardly the goal, but inwardly will yield the
maximum potential
as a spiritual
exercise
for the deepest connection to God. Do you
see what I'm saying?
Does that make sense?
Right?
So as we start to go through some
of these things,
does it make a difference?
It makes a difference in terms of just,
like, the intentionality
behind it and recognizing
that I'm not the one that is determining
the best way to do this. Like, this
is being outlined for me, and I want
to have particulars with it. Do you get
what I mean? Does that make sense?
But just as you're starting out again, it's
a little bit more simple than that. Do
you know? Because you're getting used to things.
If you've never, like, prostrated your head to
the ground, you gotta get used to it.
Right? If you've ever been here when somebody
takes their shahada or they convert after jummah.
And I'm usually sitting just on my knees
because I've been sitting like that for a
long period of time. Right? People come and
they try to, like, mimic it, and then
their legs fall asleep, and they can't move.
And then when they try to stand up,
they, like, fall over. Because it never, like,
sat like that before. Do you know?
And I'll say it to them, you don't
have to sit like this. Like, it's not
something that's a part of this thing. You
can stay in the chair. You can do
this or that. But
it's something that there's a wisdom to it
being a gradual progression
because you have to get accustomed to even
being in those positions if you've never done
it before. Right? Who bows on a daily
basis?
Do you know?
And so just getting used to the posture.
Do you see what I mean? Right? Who
puts their forehead on the ground on a
daily basis?
Right? And just getting accustomed to it, and
then working your way to a place where
it becomes more precise. Does that make sense?
So here, this is now,
necessary
component
that you are prostrating in that way. Can
I erase this?
Yeah? Okay.
You're gonna have
then the performance
of
a second prostration
Before moving on
to other parts of the prayer.
So when I'm praying,
right,
I'm gonna be in the standing position,
I'm reciting
those verses from the Quran,
I'm going down into a bowing position,
And what we said was like standing,
if we were to give a definition to
it, is that you're standing straight enough that
your arms couldn't touch your knees.
Right? That's like the standing position.
And the bowing
is that you are bent enough so that
you could touch your knees.
Right? You want to be in a place
where as much as it is, it's creating
this kind of like 90 degree angle.
And from the bowing,
you're back in a standing position.
And then from here, you're going into a
prostration,
and you're gonna do that twice
in every cycle of the prayer when you're
going down. Does that make sense? Right? As
opposed to doing it just at a minimum
one time.
Do you get what I mean? Yeah?
Okay.
Then this one is gonna be really important
because it's easy to get away from it.
You want to be still
in
every,
integral
of the prayer.
Yeah.
Does that include when you have the scratch
or something? What do you mean? Like, doing
it itchy?
Yeah. If you have, like, a itch, you
know, you could scratch it. Right? But as
you're building this as a spiritual exercise, what
people will say is like,
where your heart now starts to be present
in prayer, it starts to become like what
is kinda
overseeing the rest of your being. Do you
know? So it doesn't mean you become like
devoid of your surroundings necessarily. Like when you're
taught to lead the prayer, for example, right,
you have to be able to hear what's
going on around you. Because if you make
a mistake in the recitation,
somebody behind you is gonna correct you.
You can't hear them correct you if you
can't, like, hear what's going on around you.
Right? You're not in this, like, Jedi night
moment
where all of your senses are suddenly just
zeroed in to, like, what's right ahead of
you.
Or when you're taught to lead the prayer,
you're taught for example
to listen. Like if a baby cries,
you know, the prophet Muhammad peace be upon
him, he would shorten like the recitation of
the prayer. Because you don't want to cause
difficulty to the parent, you know. You're in
a place where you have like kids in
your life, right, and you hear them crying
in whatever capacity.
Like, do you get what I mean? Right?
So you want to limit
movements
unnecessarily,
in the course of your prayer. Right? But
stillness
is both in terms of, like, your actual
form in it, as well as, like, when
you're reaching, like, certain postures in the prayer.
Right? So I don't wanna, like, go up
and then down and up and down and
up and down without any kind of, like,
rest of it.
You know? Because then it's just, like,
not separate motions,
but just one, like, big movement altogether.
Right? And each of these is meant to
be its own posture. This becomes really hard
for people, you know?
Right? Like
there's,
social experiments that are done where individuals
are put in a place
of isolation,
and they're given like nothing
other than there's a button in the middle
of the room. And they're told, if you
push the button, it's going to shock you.
You know?
And then they're just left to their own
devices in the room.
And statistically,
like most people push the button.
Right?
More men
push in a higher number of times than
women,
and you'll have some that push it just
like a little bit, a couple of times,
a handful of times. And then there's some
people who are, like, pushing it a 100
times. Right? You're like, why would you do
that? Because people don't know how to be
with themselves.
Do you know what I mean? There's like
this constant need of having to exert,
relationship of something outward.
I don't know how to be still. Right?
In modernity,
there's so much that is amazing. You know,
we can literally land on Mars. We're in
a place where you can understand things at
a subatomic level. We could, right now, live
stream this to people all over the world.
I get emails from people after who aren't
here in person. I'm listening to this from
this part of the country. I'm listening to
this from here. I'm on your podcast here
or there. Right? Which is great.
Modernity also has certain gaps, and one of
the biggest gaps in the prism of modernity
is the diminishing of places of stillness.
That people don't know how to rest.
Do you know? And they don't know how
to find rest. That's why this is an
amazing pedagogy on teaching
because the idea isn't to create anxiety through
prayers, to create stillness through prayer. And you
wanna find stillness in each of these postures.
Right? You wanna be in a place where
you don't kinda
deny yourself,
but allow for yourself to take breaths in
the course of your prayer. Right? Let that
be something that releases, like, stress and allows
for you to have that much more focus.
Do do you get what I mean? Does
that make sense?
The next is gonna be
the first
sitting
in a prayer. So here we have as
an obligation a final sitting.
Right?
But this is going to be a first
sitting.
Prayers take place in units, cycles. In Arabic
it's called raka.
And you're gonna have, like, 2 cycles of
prayer, 3 cycles of prayer, 4 cycles of
prayer.
In anything that's more than 2,
there is going to be 2 sittings.
If you have 2
cycles of prayer, the sittings are just going
to be like 1 in the sense of
you're in that kneeling position
as, like, a culmination to the prayer. Does
that make sense?
So that first sitting is one of the
necessary acts in the course of the prayer
as well.
Then there's a part to this that after
we do
those 2 chapters
that you're gonna learn to recite in the
first cycle of prayer, there's something that's called
the,
And this is something
that you're going to recite
in each sitting
of the prayer.
So in a 2 cycle prayer you do
this once.
And in a 3 cycle prayer and 4
cycle prayer, you're going to
do it twice.
Right? The first part of it is replicating
a conversation that takes place,
between the prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him,
and God,
over the course of,
a really vividly described,
like, moment
where the prophet is taken from his home
to the city of Jerusalem.
There he prays with every prophet
in
a act of just kinda
overall religious
kinda
bond and unity.
And from Jerusalem he's taken into the heavens,
meets like a different prophet at every level
of heaven,
and ultimately
at the
kind of end culmination of
it, engages
in a direct conversation with God. And in
the course of that, you have the first
part of the which
is a conversation
with the prophet
and God,
Where it's essentially
like starting,
saying,
like, greetings
and well-being is like for God.
And all things that are good and prayers.
And the prophet is then given a response,
that
there's like a greeting of peace descended to
him. And then he responds again
that,
that greeting of peace is upon all of
us as well as like those who
are the righteous servants of God. Right? But
customary and the prophet, and we'll go into
it more deeper,
and explain each word. But it's like a
characteristic that whenever the prophet is given an
opportunity for a unique
blessing or privilege,
he's constantly asking for things for like all
of humanity,
for all people, like,
intercession,
you know, paradise, heaven, etcetera.
And then embedded in this is that you
say, like, the shahada
in some capacity.
And that's where you might see people, like,
raising their finger and this kind of stuff.
But this is something that's a necessary act
in each sitting of the prayer.
Then you're going to
to say salaam
at the
end of the prayer.
So in the obligations,
that's not like an obligatory
act.
Right? What you would do here is just
like end the prayer. You do an act
that one could easily discern is outside of
the course of the prayer. You know? You
like reach for your coffee. You like do
this. You do that. Do you you know
what I mean? Does that make sense? Yeah.
And then if you're leading in prayer,
right, the one leading the prayer,
recites
out loud
in the first two cycles
of an obligatory prayer.
So
the first prayer of the day is at
sunrise,
and the 4th prayer is at sunset, and
the 5th is at night.
And if you pray,
in
congregation, the person leading the prayer
is,
going to recite out loud,
in those first two cycles. The first chapter,
Surah Fatihah, and the portion of the Quran
that they're reading.
In the 2 middle prayers, like the one
that's at noon and in the mid afternoon,
it's not recited out loud.
And,
when you're reading alone,
In the other prayers or if you're leading
alone,
you read silently.
And silently means like
where if somebody was standing next to me,
like that person might be able to hear
what I'm saying.
But,
like, someone on the other side of the
room couldn't hear what I was reciting. Does
that make sense?
Okay. There's 2 other parts that fit to
this
that,
are related to the Eid prayer
as well as, like, another prayer is called
the wither prayer that we'll talk about another
day. We're taking, like, a quick pause here.
But what I'd love for you to do
is just talk about what you're taking away
from this, any kind of questions that come
up,
and then I'll be right back and we'll
wrap up with a couple of other things.
Yeah? Okay.
So where are people at? Where did you
take from this so far? What were you
talking about
in your kind of groups and conversations?
Yeah.
I was nice enough to talk to Hector
That,
I was sharing that being born into Islam,
I'm happy that you're breaking this down because
as a kid, you only know, like, what
I was saying the extreme right, which is
the sunnah.
So as growing up, if you don't do
it
like the sunnah,
sometimes people start pointing at you. Like, hey.
You missed this or you missed that,
or that wasn't correct. Or like, oh, it's
not you know, the whole prayer is, like,
not valid anymore. But I was telling Hector
that I'm happy that you kinda broke it
down like this
because,
it makes me feel better because maybe as
a kid,
like, I was technically doing everything right on
the left. Right? Like on a technical basis.
And even people in my family who,
didn't know how to read all the surahs
or knew how to do it,
that people may would have criticized,
they were technically doing
it correct.
So I was just saying that I'm happy
that I'm learning it,
how you're learning it even though I was
born born into Islam that
makes me feel better.
Yeah. So thank you. I'm glad to hear
that. Yeah.
Any other things that come up for people
with thoughts, reflections on things?
Yeah.
Great.
So what you wanna start to do is
as you're exploring
it, again, like, think out this part
and recognize.
Like, whatever part of the journey that you're
in is not something that requires you to
know everything
before
you become Muslim.
Right?
And where and how you might be building
a relationship again if you were born into
Islam,
being able to recognize
that
there's
different modes through which we can engage some
of this. It it still creates like an
ease
and we're working our way
towards like an end product.
And we want to start to
build a relationship with some of those necessary
parts. So you're going to like memorize the
first chapter of the Quran, Surah Fateha,
and then some of those smaller chapters that
we talked about and kinda plunge into it
a little bit.
So a couple of other things.
I know we're kind of at a time
that we normally stop. If anybody has to
leave, feel free.
But just to go through a couple of
things really quickly,
we're going to resume kinda
looking at the alphabet again,
which we had done, like, some weeks ago
and went through the first handful of letters.
I'm going to
bring those whiteboards
that,
Kiara brought for everybody and we'll pass those
out so that you can start to practice
that in real time.
And next week, we'll start to look at
the recommended acts, which is that last bucket.
And we'll look at those 2 chapters,
the 2 shorter ones, so we can start
to build a relationship with some of those
things. I know there's some people who weren't
here like, months ago when we talked about,
like, a similar breakdown to how to wash
up for prayer,
and what are the kind of obligatory aspects
and the necessary aspects of these kinds of
things. So why are these things important for
example?
Well, there's other situations beyond just learning how
to pray
that you want to know what are the
necessary components and the obligatory components.
Because
you might have to, in a situation,
do something that's not like the norm. Right?
So right now, for example,
is the window of time for the 4th
prayer, the 3rd prayer of the day, the
Asar prayer, which is the mid afternoon prayer.
Right? The next prayer of the day doesn't
start for a little less than an hour.
So you still have some time. Do you
know what I mean?
But,
like, these prayers have windows of time. So
say, for example, you woke up tomorrow morning,
and you're Muslim,
and you're supposed to be praying.
And the first prayer of the day, the
prayer,
it goes right now from, like, 4 AM
ish
till about 5:45
in the morning.
And you wake up tomorrow at 5:40 in
the morning.
You get what I mean? You have 5
minutes
to
wash up and pray the prayer. Does that
make sense?
So situationally,
like, when you're washing up for prayer, you
might only do the obligatory
parts to it. And you might have to
just do what's the bare minimum
so that you actually pray within the course
of the window of time. Do you get
what I mean? And you can adapt to
it. Right? It's not like the ideal,
but that circumstance might come up. Do you
get what I'm saying? Right? Or situationally,
for example, you're at the workplace,
and you have to figure out how am
I Muslim
in a place that Islam is not the
norm.
Like what do I do in these situations
that's different from when I'm in the comfort
of my own apartment?
Or if my family is not Muslim, and
they don't know that I'm Muslim. Like how
do I kind of manage some of these
things still
that require me to be able to still
get done what I need to get done,
but in a place situationally
where I know how to adapt and apply
it
that other people might not understand the nuance
of that. Right? And the generalization I'm comfortable
making is, like, sometimes people who are born
into it,
they don't get what it's like to actually
convert into it.
And they don't know how to kind of
give it to us in a way that
allows for us to think about this like
situationally.
Do you know?
And see where there is like flexibility and
see where there's malleability.
Do you get what I mean? It doesn't
mean that everybody
who is kind of giving us instruction
is in a place where they're doing it
maliciously.
But people are only going to give to
you what you possess, what they possess in
the first place.
And they're going to think about it in
this way.
I want you to be able to relate
to this
whether you are Muslim or not in a
way that allows for you to think this
out situationally
so it doesn't create anxiety.
But you can be like, oh, man.
I just woke up and there's 5 minutes
left to pray. You know? I was stuck
in that meeting,
and I didn't know how to tell my
boss that I gotta leave. Or I was
taking this exam, and I lost track of
time. And there's, like, 3 minutes to get
this thing done. Do you get what I'm
saying? Right? The ability to adapt.
I'll give you a better example. Like when
you wash up for prayer,
there's a chapter in the Quran that has
a verse
that is the basis for the washing up.
And it mentions
everything in the washing up of the prayer,
your body parts,
other than the mouth and the nose. So
you're gonna wash, like, your face. You're gonna
wash your arms up to the elbows. You're
gonna wipe over your head. You're gonna wash
your feet up to the ankles. Your hands
get washed in the course of this as
well.
The verse doesn't mention the number of times
you wash something. The order in which it's
watched,
is not an obligation.
Do you know? These kinds of things as
well as the rinsing of the mouth and
your nose.
Why do you want to know these things
situationally?
Right?
I had some students
who called me as the sun was setting
and that window of time, the 4th prayer
time is coming to a close. This is
in the winter and they're sledding in Central
Park. And they're,
like, what do we do? Like, we have
to wash up for prayer. Can we use
the snow? The answer is, like, yes. You
can use snow.
There are different types of water you can
wash up with and clean snow. Not like
yellow snow, but white snow you can wash
up with.
And they have to be able to know
in that circumstance,
like, how to make wudu to wash up
with snow.
If somebody tells you,
you have to,
obligatory,
rinse out your mouth and your nostrils.
What are these guys gonna do? Like shove
snow up their nose?
Right?
But how would you know the difference
if what somebody told you is not something
that you can adapt situationally?
It's just the end result
and at the end of it, you're like
shoving snow in your socks
and you're gargling snow. Do you get what
I'm saying? Right? Does that make sense? So
we wanna learn it in these ways
methodically
so that you can then learn how to
adapt in the course of it. Right? And
that's why I'm saying let me know if
you miss some of those things. We could
go through it. You know, like, if you
wear a headscarf
and you have to wipe up for you
wash up for prayer.
Right? The minimum that you have to wash
in some opinions
is just a fourth of your head. In
some opinions, it's just like any part of
your hair. So if I'm already kinda like
wrapped up and I'm in this, like, non
Muslim environment
that isn't conducive to this and I'm washing
up in the bathroom,
like, I don't have to take everything off.
I could just, like, stick my head under
my scarf. So it doesn't create more anxieties.
Do you know what I mean? It might
not have to do anything with washing up
for prayer, but it's just like it took
me so long to put this on to
begin with. Now I have to kind of
unravel it and do it. Do you get
what I'm saying? Right? And so we want
to learn it in this way
so that you're able to then think out
in scenarios
something that allows for it to be easily
adapted to. You're gonna say something? Yeah. Thank
thank you. I just had a quick technical
question. Yeah. You talked about even talking about
the window of prayer.
I cut my prayers pretty close to keep
1 wudu.
Now when you for a hypothetical
situation, like say, I know this is not
Maghrib time, but say Maghrib
is at 8:30.
Do I have to finish the entire Asar
prayer right at
or, like, before the azan for Madhrib?
Yeah. You have to finish the prayer before
the time of the next prayer comes. Or
can I be in Asar prayer and then
the azan is going off? No. You can
finish the prayer,
but you wanna pray the prayer in its
entirety before the next prayers window starts.
Does that make sense?
No. Like, if you started to pray Asar.
Not yet. One minute to go before Maghrib.
Yeah. You wanna finish it before Maghrib starts.
But that Asr prayer is valid even though
Yeah. If you pray it during Maghrib time,
then you're praying it late.
Like, the entirety of it should be prayed
prior to the next prayer window coming in.
Does that make sense? Oh, but I might
have. But you wanna then that's why, like,
it's it's like you're doing what's the minimum
parts to it so it gets done. Do
you know? So if you stand to pray
and there's like 2 minutes to pray, and
in the first standing,
like you decide to recite
the longest chapter of the Quran, then,
you know, you're not understanding, like, the technical
aspects to it. Do you know what I
mean? So the performance of the prayer and
its window of time
is something
that
kinda trumps,
like, the longevity of a cycle of prayer.
Do you get what I mean? Like the
praying in its window of time is really
important.
So let's take a pause here and we'll
pick up next Wednesday.
And we'll see everybody then.
Thank you.