Mustafa Umar – Islamic Law Fiqh 101 Essentials Of Islamic Practice #4
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You have your laptop? Or
Yeah.
Yes. Yeah.
One row will be sufficient.
Alright.
So before we begin the class today, any
questions from the quiz?
The test?
No?
Okay. Let's begin.
So today we're gonna be starting with prayer.
So we covered last week toilet manners,
how to use the toilet. Hopefully everyone is
practicing those things,
you know, the water and all of that
thing. We talked about what kind of water
you can use,
on Thursday.
It's predicted
to be a 104 degrees. So probably some
people are gonna be going to the beach.
So can you use water from the sea
to make wudu? Yes. You can. So everyone
knows that now.
Concessions,
about wiping over socks, wiping over a bandage
when you're injured, we covered all of that.
We covered the menstruation and and lochia, which
is very, very common questions that people have.
So hopefully that gives some clarity on all
of that. So let's begin with prayer
today, Insha'Allah.
So prayer is a specific form of worship
which Allah
has actually taught to us.
What prayer does, it does a number of
things.
It brings a person closer to Allah.
So that's one of the main parts of
prayer. It brings you closer to Allah
and it also has the benefit of keeping
you away from moral conduct.
Right? It keeps people away from having immoral
bad conduct,
misbehaving,
talking bad, using bad language. That's what prayer
is supposed to do. It actually has these
features that it can get you away from
doing bad things.
So if it's
if you're still doing all of these things
and there's no change in your behavior, then
there's something wrong in the prayer. Right? So
it's not, it's, you know, that's what it's
designed to do.
Also, prayer purifies your sins, the way that
we talked about purification purifies your sins as
well.
And
prayer is something that should never be taken
lightly. It's so important, it's such an essential
part of Islam
that it actually differentiates between a person who's
taking Islam seriously
and who's not taking Islam seriously.
So prayers, the 5 daily prayers that we're
talking about, should not be neglected by anyone.
Unfortunately,
the reality of the world situation is the
vast majority of Muslims in the world neglect
their prayers
today.
This was not the situation in the past.
Right? There was many times in history where
they did not neglect their prayers. And you
find that when the Muslims did not neglect
their prayers and they actually put emphasis on
their prayers, you saw that their situation in
the world and in their own lives, in
their families, everything was very different than what
it is today.
So perhaps the prayer is tied to the
success of a Muslim, not only in the
next life, but in this life as well.
So we should take our prayers very very
seriously. And in the beginning, it's a struggle.
It takes time to get used to it.
It gets it takes time to wake up.
Most people get hit up for prayers at
least. No one really has much of excuse
for the 4 prayers. The biggest one is
the Fajr prayer that people find to be
very difficult.
And the difficulty is just
overcoming
your desire for sleeping and being able to
control yourself when you go to sleep early.
That's that's really all it is. So it's
something that's very within the means of everyone
to actually accomplish.
Even someone who doesn't completely
understand and fulfill all the, you know, meaning
and everything of the prayer perfectly,
you say, well, I'm not gonna do it
because I don't I'm not my prayer is
not perfect.
Well, you still get benefit by taking time
out of your day to go and stand
in front of Allah and you're standing in
front of your Creator. So there is still
benefit even if you don't master the prayer
100%,
even if you're doing it half
or you're doing 20%,
there is still a lot of benefit in
that. Even if someone just performs the actions
and their mind is absent and all of
that. Now you should never be content with
that, but there's still benefit in that. And
what's the benefit in that? Is that the
fact that you took time out of your
schedule, you took time out of your life
to turn off the TV, to say, you
know, to the people at work, I'm gonna
come back in 10 minutes or something. You
took time out for Allah, that's still something
big.
Right? And the fact that you actually did
the motions, at least, you could've
cheated and, you know,
prayed 1 unit of prayer instead of 2.
But you didn't because you know Allah is
watching. So even even if it's the bare
minimum prayer, there's still some benefit in there.
So no one should think that, oh, well,
there's no point in doing this. I'm not
focusing and I'm not doing this. There is
still a great amount of benefit in there,
and of course, it should be eventually,
made a lot better. So that's the
that's the introduction,
to prayer. We're gonna be obviously covering the
legal aspect of prayer. These are just some
of the benefits and the importance of prayer,
but we're gonna be covering the way that
you actually perform the prayer. Alright? And then
there's other spiritual dimensions to the prayer which
are covered in, you know, different classes.
So the 5 daily prayers are the first
and the most important prayers that we're gonna
learn. They're the most important prayers because we
do them on a regular basis
and they're prescribed for us to do. They're
mandatory.
Okay? And what do they do? They refresh
a person's belief. Every time you pray, 5
times a day, it kinda refreshes your belief,
it reminds you what your purpose in life
is, it reminds you why you've been created
by Allah in the first place.
And also,
the reason why these prayers are spread throughout
the day why not just all the prayers
in one part of the day? Or why
not just pray all 35 prayers
in one day and then you're done for
the rest of the week? They're spread out
throughout the day so that you keep a
balance
between this world and the next world. You
keep a balance between your own material life
and your own pleasures
and your servitude to Allah. So it helps
you get that balance so that you don't
get caught up in materialism, you don't get
caught up in your daily work or, you
know, play or something like that. You take
time out to dedicate yourself to Allah. So
that's very important, and it's a really big
blessing for us because it keeps people in
check, and people need to be kept in
check. Right? So these are the 5 daily
prayers. So who needs to pray? Who's actually
required to pray? Well, obviously, it's Muslims. Every
Muslim
is required to pray as long as they
meet these two conditions.
Condition number 1 is maturity.
K. Once they reach the age of maturity,
then they're gonna be held responsible for their
actions.
Before a person reaches the age of maturity,
they're not responsible for their actions.
So
what is
maturity? Maturity basically means that your intellect has
developed
to a level
where you
are cognizant
and you're able to understand things such that
you're gonna be held accountable in the sight
of Allah. That's what maturity means.
But the reality is
nobody can tell
People mature at different times in their life.
So how can you tell who is mature
and who is not mature?
In reality, you can never know 100%.
Because you can look at one person, they
look very mature. Or they're physically, they look
mature, but they're not. Or you can see
another person, they look like very small, but
actually they're very mature. So there's a difference
between people. So what you need is, from
a legal perspective, from from looking at, you
know, what advice do you give to people?
Islamic law has set certain guidelines.
Now the guidelines should be taken into consideration,
but at the same time, Allah knows exactly
when a person reaches the age of maturity
and he does, but we act upon the
external. Because that's what law is. Law is
the external.
So according to Islamic law,
the the criteria is that someone reaches the
age of puberty.
So maturity
is when a person reaches the age of
puberty. Now what is puberty as defined in
Islamic law? Well, a boy
is considered to be a mature adult once
they either have their first * or
equivalent, which means that they're prepared for they're
getting prepared for their body is prepared for
sexual activity. So
So if they have a * or
somehow if they, you know, something else comes
out, which is like * or something, it
means that their body is getting ready. For
maturity, they're considered mature and they're gonna be
treated as a mature person from that time,
from that point in time. In terms of
the prayer, it's gonna be a requirement for
them. Fasting, they're gonna be if they commit
a crime, if they go and kill someone,
if they shoot someone, they're gonna be tried
and held like an adult according to Islamic
law when that time comes.
For a girl,
it's similar is that when she sees her
first * or equivalent
or
if she begins her menstrual period. She's considered
to be a mature person at that time
or a someone who's reached the age of
puberty. So she's gonna be held responsible from
that period of time. If neither of these,
no menstruation,
no *, no equivalent,
occurs before the age of 15,
then by the age of 15, the person
is gonna be considered mature already.
So usually, menstruation,
wet dreams, those kind of things, they happen
different people
to different people in different cultures
depending on their, you know, climate, depending on
other factors in their life and all of
that. So it varies. It could be between
the age of 9 and 11 and 12
and 13, 15.
Sometimes he goes over 15. So if he
goes over 15,
then that person is considered to be mature
in the side of the law, meaning Islamic
law, at the age of 15, if they
if they've not had one of these things
earlier. So usually people mature earlier,
maybe 12, maybe 13, maybe 11.
But if they don't hit that by the
age of 15, then at the age of
15 they're considered mature, they're gonna be held
accountable.
Now keep in mind, the age of 15
is defined in Islamic terms as lunar years.
So 15 lunar years. So there's a difference
between a solar year or, you know, the
Gregorian calendar and the Muslim calendar. So the
Muslim the Gregorian calendar has how many days
in a year?
365.
I hope you knew that. Alright. So now
the Islamic calendar, I don't expect you to
know, how many days in a year are
there in the Islamic calendar?
354.
So we're talking about a difference of 11
days.
11 days times
15 years,
we're talking about 6 months, approximately.
So technically
people will hit the age of maturity if
they don't have one of these things. At
what age?
14a half, Saqboolaker.
So 14a half. So that's the key to
the the thing to keep in mind. Okay?
Imam Abu Hanifa, by the way, one of
the other scholars, he said the age was
18.
Okay. So there's some difference of opinion here,
but the majority say 15.
Alright. So what does that mean? That means
that children
need to start praying once they hit that
age of maturity. But does that mean that
they we wait until they start praying at
that point in time? No. You should actually
teach children how to pray by the age
of 7.
And this is according to the prophet, by
the age of 7.
Right? Now is that 7 lunar years or
7 solar years?
7 lunar years. So is that less than
7 or greater than 7?
It's actually less than the age of 7.
So we're talking about 6 and some amount
of months, a little bit under the age
of 7. That's when you're supposed to get
them to start praying. That's when you teach
them to start praying and get them into
the habit and explaining to them this is
what prayer is about. And this is the
time where they're not doing all 5 prayers.
This is the time where you're kind of
teaching them, look, stand next to me, stand,
you know, you know, put your hands up
and just follow what I'm doing and all
of that. Year 7, year 8, you can
start explaining to them, look, this is the
Fatiha, how you can they if they haven't
already memorized it, if they haven't already memorized
the Quran by the age of 7. Like,
standard standard Egyptian practice is
is memorized by the age of standard Indian
Pakistani practice, for those who are really into
this. Memorize the age of finish the memorizing
by the age of 7. It's very, very
common, in Egypt, in Pakistan, in India, and
all these places. So if they haven't memorized
the Fatiha yet, you know, for some reason,
this is the time to get them to
memorize it, get them to understand it, understand
what they're saying and all of that, maybe
learn some of the other parts of prayer.
By the age of 9, they probably got
the entire prayer down. They understand what they're
saying. They know what to do and all
that. By the age of 10 they've already
had 3 years now. By the age of
10,
now you make them pray. It's your responsibility
as a parent to make them pray at
the age of 10, and this is what
the prophet said. So now they're praying 5
prayers by the time they hit the age
of 10, and this is the requirement. This
is what parents are responsible for. K. So
this is not to,
put anyone down, but the reality is how
many Muslims actually went through this process which
is part of Islam? How many of you
actually went through the process? Age of 7
to 10 started that, Masha'Allah. 1,
as a blessing, as a blessing. But most
didn't.
Which means what? Which means you learn from
the mistakes, you learn from this, you make
sure your children
are gonna be following the formula in Islam.
Right? So you take it very very seriously.
And then you don't have to worry about,
well, you know what? I tried to make
them start praying, and he's 15, and he
doesn't wanna pray. Of course, he doesn't wanna
pray because you never taught him anything, and
now he's had exposure to all these other
things, or she's had exposure to so many
things.
They're already a full cup, And there's you
you have to empty that cup before you
can actually put something else in there. So
you have to be very cautious about that.
So that's maturity.
Okay? Then the second the second criteria is
sanity.
So when they have,
full sanity, that's when you can have intellectual
maturity. If someone has a defect or an
illness,
such that, you know, their intellect is impaired
in a significant way, then they're not gonna
be considered responsible adults.
And they're not in in a sense, they're
gonna be treated like children
because their their mind functions like a child.
So therefore, they're not gonna be held accountable
for certain things. You know, if if they
drop something or you you know, if they
if they break something, they're not held accountable
in the same way. Likewise, when it comes
to prayer, they're not gonna be held accountable
in front of Allah the same way that
a responsible adult is gonna be held accountable.
Right? So because that's one of the things
that, you know, that they've been tested with.
So if someone has,
that,
then it's they're not responsible. They don't have
to pray. Right? But,
of course, you should encourage them to pray
anyways. You should try and teach them, just
like children. Teach them what it is. Let
them pray a few times and all of
that. So you put them in the category
of, kind of, like, somewhere between 7 and
10 and allow them to pray and all
of that. Encourage them, but they're not required
to pray.
Now what does that mean? That means that
any Muslim who's reached the age of maturity
and who has sanity,
right, who doesn't have a intellect a defect
in their intellect, is required to pray all
5 times a day. It's not an optional
thing. It's not something that, you know, we
do in our own convenience when we feel
like it. It's a requirement and it's something
that we actually need. So that's those are
the people who actually need to pray. Now
when are the prayers? When do the prayers
actually take place, and when is the time
to perform the prayers? Well, the timings are
fixed. So there's fixed timings for the prayers,
and they're spread throughout the day so that
you're constantly remembering Allah throughout the day at
different times.
Now all the prayer timings
are dependent on the position of the sun.
And the reason why they're dependent on the
position of the sun is because it's one
of the easiest things to tell time when
you don't have watches and you don't have
computers and all of that. It's one of
the easiest ways to figure out, when the
right time would be. So therefore, if it's
dependent on the position of the sun,
and has nothing to do with the sun
itself, but it's dependent on telling what the
environment is, what the timing is,
then it's gonna change every single day
and it's gonna change based on the season.
So you have to know the you have
to know the way that it you know,
you have to figure out how to calculate
it and all of these things. So
remember that each period, each prayer has a
period of time and it lasts a certain
amount of time so it actually makes life
easy for you. So you don't have to
pray exactly at that moment, but you could
pray anywhere in that prayer time period in
case you're preoccupied, in case you're busy with
something. You can actually go and pray any
time within that time period, that time frame.
So that makes life a lot easier. So
what are the actual what is the
what is the essence
or or of the prayer times? K. Most
people don't know most people know their calculators
and their, you know, prayer calendars and all
that, which is good. But it's also good
to know where it came from. How did
Muslims in the past used to actually calculate
their prayers?
So we got 5 prayers.
The first prayer is the Fajr prayer, known
as the dawn prayer,
and it consists of 2 units, which we'll
talk about.
And the timing of this prayer, it begins
from the appearance of dawn, and it lasts
until the beginning of sunrise.
So what is the appearance of dawn? What
is the definition of
dawn? Who knows what it is?
And the wild side
is
Yeah. So if you look out in the
horizon, what's the horizon is basically if you
could look outside and there was no obstruction
in your way. There's no mountain, there's no
building, there's nothing. And you could see all
the way straightforward in the horizon, you could
see, like, the edge of the farthest you
can see.
When you see the darkness in the night,
and all of a sudden in the horizon
you see this white thread of lights, little
tiny line going across the horizon when you're
looking at it,
that is what is called dawn. It's called
breaking of dawn.
Right?
So, you know, Americans didn't even know what
this meant until the movie recently came out,
you know. So they they didn't know anything.
So now the dawn is actually when that
white thread of light just starts coming out.
That's called the the dawn is breaking. Right?
Meaning that the darkness now has a little
bit of light. That's when the beginning time
for Fajr actually starts.
The that time lasts until
sunrise.
Now what is the definition of sunrise, like,
right before sunrise?
If you hit sunrise, it's already too late.
Fajr time is over. So what is the
actual definition
of sunrise?
Right. It's very similar. You look out in
the horizon.
Like, let's say you're in the desert or
somewhere, there's no obstruction. You look out in
the horizon, and it's already brightness is already
coming. That's because the sun,
you know, is is appearing that it's coming
up, it's coming up, it's coming up above
the horizon which you're looking at. So there's
land, and then there's the sky that you're
seeing. What as soon as the disc of
the sun just goes above the horizon so
that you can actually see the little tiny
disc of the sun creeping up, that's called
sunrise.
The sun has risen the moment you can
actually see a little tiny bit of the
sun in the horizon.
That's the definition of sunrise.
So until that little disc goes above,
you right right when it's below, you still
have time for Fajr. And this is a
very common misconception among Muslims. They say that,
you know what? I missed Fajr. There's too
much light out there. K. When the sun
is getting near the horizon,
there's a lot of light, actually.
A lot of light is there because the
sun's light still penetrates through the Earth's atmosphere.
But even though you have not seen the
actual sunrise, the disc has not come up
yet. So the time for Fajr is still
valid until that sunrise
begins. So these are the timings for the
Fajr prayer, from dawn
until sunrise.
Okay. The second prayer is the Lohr prayer,
what's known as the midday prayer.
And it consists of 4 units,
and it begins
after noon.
Okay. Now what is noon?
Noon is not 12 PM.
K? Noon, in the Islamic terminology, is real
noon.
Real noon, basically what they used to call,
you know, in the Wild West and all
that, high noon.
Meet you on the at high noon with
the guns and all that. So it's very
typical. High noon is when the sun is
directly
above
you.
That's the definition of noon. Now 12 PM
is not always the case that way. So
noon means high noon when the sun is
directly above,
the location that you are actually in.
So that's,
that's when the time begins
right after the noon, right after the sun
passes,
that area. So to define it,
let's see.
It's not defined here. There's no need to
define it. When when the sun basically begins
to decline. So what's happening is that the
sun is rising. Right? It's going up, going
up, going up. Once it hits noon,
it starts declining and going down,
right, starts setting. It's very, very slowly. So
once it crosses the noon barrier, that's when
the time for Zohar actually begins,
right afterwards. Okay? That's the beginning time, and
it lasts until,
an object equals its shadow. So let me
explain what that means.
So you take,
oh, wait, wait, wait, wait. It explains here.
Okay.
This is how you figure out how newness.
Very easy way to figure out how noon
is. You could do an experiment if you
want. You take a simple stick,
you go outside,
and you watch around the time when noon
is gonna be coming, and you watch the
shadow of that stick. And what's gonna happen
is the shadow is gonna be, let's say,
long. As you get closer and closer to
noon, what's gonna happen to the shadow?
It's gonna get smaller and smaller and smaller
and smaller and smaller. As soon as you
see that it's gotten to its smallest point
and then it starts getting longer again,
that's when you know you had hit noon
at that part where it's not getting any
shorter. That's the definition of noon at that
moment. Alright?
So that's how you figure it out. Now
you say, well, wait a minute. If the
sun is directly overhead, then there shouldn't be
any shadow.
Right? But that's not true
because it depends on your location. So the
curvature of the earth does not mean that
there's gonna be zero shadow always
depending on where your location is. There may
be some places like that, maybe near the
equator or something, but not always. So it's
where the shadow actually stops. And it lasts
until
an object
is equal to its own shadow.
So what that means is that you take
that same stick and you're watching the stick.
Right?
And the stick is actually equal
to the shadow of the stick. They become
equal.
That's what the original time would be. But
there's one little problem.
And the problem is that if you're in
a region
where when you're at noontime,
there's still some shadow. There's not zero shadow.
There's still some shadow. So what do you
have to do?
You have to add that. Exactly.
So you add that. You should check the
length of the object. You add that amount.
Check the length of the object, and then
you determine that's gonna be the time. So
you have to remove that from the equation
as well. K. So that's how you figure
out when the time of,
the Zohar prayer ends. K. So you use
well, you subtract it, actually. Right? Minus its
shadow at noontime.
The Asar prayer,
is 4 units.
It begins when the time for Zohar ends.
So if I was gonna ask you, like,
in a test question, when does the time
for Asr begin?
You can't just say when Zohar ends. I'm
giving you the easy way. You would have
to say,
when an object
equals its shadow
minus the shadow at noon.
That's the actual definition.
Okay?
And it lasts until
sunset.
It lasts until the sun sets.
Now what is the definition of sunset?
You're looking in the horizon, you see the
sun going down down down down down. So
is it when the first part of the
sun goes below the horizon, or is it
when the last part of the sun goes
below the horizon?
The last part. Right. So the sun is
completely gone from view, and now you look
in the horizon, you can't see the sun
anymore. You just see some light there, but
you can't see the tip of the sun.
That's known as sunset.
Has anyone ever gone into the beach or
something and actually watched the sunset?
Okay. Good. So those of you who are
not married,
you need to do this before you get
married. It's a very romantic thing or something
like that. So anyways,
so it's very common for people to go
and watch the sunset.
So that's when the time for Azar ends,
and that's when the time for Maghrib begins.
Right? When that time comes in. So Maghrib
is 3 units. When Asr ends, that's when
the time begins, and it lasts until
the whiteness,
the whiteness in the sky,
after that reddish glow goes away, disappears, and
the darkness starts spreading in the horizon. So
what that means is, basically, look, you're looking
out there. When the sun sets, Maghrib time,
has come in, it's gonna be pretty bright
still. It's getting darker darker, but it's gonna
be it's gonna be a little bit bright.
When you look out into the sky, what
you're gonna see is
that
the daytime starts turning into, like, this reddish
glow in the sky.
After the reddish glow, you see, like, red
in the sky, it's gonna start changing into,
like, this white glow.
Once the white glow starts going away, what's
this gonna change into?
Just darkness.
Exactly.
So when that white glow in the sky
goes away, that's when the time for Maghrib
is finished.
And it's probably an easy thing to determine.
You don't need to really look much in
the horizon either. You can just kind of
see in the sky, is that whiteness kind
of gone or it's not? So when it's
still there, you still got some time for
Maghrib. When it's not and the there's darkness
now has spread about and there's no more,
like, you know, whiteness in the sky, that's
when you know that the time for Maghrib
is over. Okay? So that's,
the timing for Maghrib. Some scholars have said
it's the reddish glow instead of the white
glow, which ends the time and starts the
time for the next prayer. Okay. So just
know just understand that.
So that's the time for Maghrib.
Then
we have the Ishaa prayer, which is the
night prayer.
It consists of 4 units, and it begins
when Maghrib ends,
and it lasts until the beginning of Fajr.
So what was the beginning of Fajr?
Not sunrise.
Dawn. Dawn. Alright. Dawn. It's very important to
differentiate between dawn and sunrise. So dawn. So
anytime before dawn, you still have time for
the Ishaa prayer.
Okay.
Now
there are a bunch of programs,
that actually calculate the exact times for prayer
based on your location. So it's recommended to
use these programs. There's no there's no, like,
added benefit. You get more reward if you,
like, go and get you have your stick
in your backpack, you know, and you're measuring
or something like that. There's no extra reward
for that. Use the programs,
use the calculations, there's nothing wrong with that.
But just note, you if you have it
on your phone, there are phone apps you
can download on your smartphone. You have a
smartwatch, you can download, you know, a thing
on your watch, you can,
print them out from the Internet,
you can get them from your local, you
know, Masjid, your local mosque or something like
that. So you should get those prayer times,
so you can get them way in advance.
You can get them in advance for 20
years, and they're already been calculated. So you
can just use that timing and, you know,
makes your life a lot easier.
But just note some things, that there are
some differences in the in the ways and
the methods of calculation. Like I mentioned a
few differences here and there. So there's a
few differences particularly for the Fajr prayer and
for the Isha prayer. The way that it's
calculated
is different is different because of the scientific
method
has a little bit difference of opinion as
well. K. So just keep that in mind.
It's not a major thing. The best thing
is you follow your local Muslim community. You
follow your local Muslim community in terms of
what to do, and that's gonna be the
best thing for you. Alright. So if you
follow our community here, recently we've actually done
some tests
with our CIS students, actually, last year. They
actually went out into the desert and they
checked the calculation, they checked what degrees are
gonna be correct and all that. So for
summertime,
we're actually going with 15 degrees,
instead of the 18 degrees,
in this region.
Now the the timing's changed, the seasons changed
for winter and all that. We couldn't get
anyone to go out in the winter, but
we did go out in the summer around
the same time right now. So we've already
checked it, the 15 degree for the Isha
prayer and for the Fajr prayer has been
something which is agreed upon. K? So,
that's the prayer timings. Now it's recommended
it's recommended that you don't delay your prayer
time. You don't delay your prayers without some
reason. So whenever you get a chance, you
should always try to pray at the beginning
of the time.
And it's very common for people to just
procrastinate,
procrastinate, and they end up delaying their prayers,
you know, for late. So it's it's, it's
better to always pray at the beginning, pray
at the beginning of time,
not so that you're getting it out of
the way, because that's not what prayer should
be, but so that, hamdah, you don't have
to worry about, you know, getting late or
something like that. So it's always recommended.
But there are some times where it's better
to actually delay the prayer,
and that's when there's a community benefit involved
in delaying the prayer.
So the only here are the times where
you should be delaying or not delaying the
prayer. Here's some recommended rules. The general rule
is you prayed in the beginning of time.
But if it comes for Fajr prayer and
you're praying in a group, then it's actually
recommended to delay the prayer a little bit
so that people will more people will be
able to come, so it's easier for them
to attend. Because Fajr is one of the
most it's a early prayer. It's difficult for
people. So it's recommended to delay a little
bit so that more people will be able
to come to the congregation. They'll be praying
together in a group. Otherwise, you can have
less people at the beginning of time. Right?
So that's usually the way that it works,
except sometimes
it works the other way around. So if
people live in a big city
and they need to go to work and
there's a lot of traffic, then they actually
prefer the earlier time because they gotta jump
on the freeway immediately afterwards. So if you
delay the prayer, like like 6 AM, you
find there's less people than when the prayer
is at 5:30 AM because they gotta go
to work. So you have to do what's
it's it's recommended to do what will cause
more people to attend the prayer inside the
mosque.
Number 2,
if you have a very warm climate,
very hot area,
it's recommended to delay the Zuhr prayer in
the summertime.
Why? Because it's so hot and if people
are let's say people are walking, most people
driving now, but even if they're driving, it's
really really hot. If they park their cars
outside, it's boiling hot. So it's recommended to
delay it a little bit till the end
of maybe later on in the time so
it's a little bit cooler. It's not so
burning hot like at noontime.
So it's recommended for that.
The Asar prayer
is recommended to not delay it until the
end of time.
So you can pray anytime but it's really
really emphasized do not delay your Usher prayer
until, like, the last half an hour when
the sun starts going down
because that's that's considered to be the Usher
prayer is a really important prayer which many
people miss because they're at work, they're busy,
they're doing things, and they end up just
neglecting this prayer. So it's very important and
this prayer has been mentioned in the Quran
specifically
that don't, you know, don't mess with this
prayer. Don't don't neglect this prayer. It's easy
to neglect it.
The Maghrib prayer should always be prayed at
the beginning of its time. It's recommended.
Always recommend it to be as early as
you possibly can.
And the Isha prayer
should not be delayed past midnight.
So it's allowed but it's not recommend it's
recommended to not delay
past midnight.
And what does midnight actually mean?
Midnight doesn't mean 12 PM. Right?
Midnight means
you calculate
from sunset,
right, until dawn,
right, or sunrise or dawn or something like
that. What you do is
you take in between the middle time between
that, which usually is around midnight. Right? It
happens to be around 12 PM, but not
exactly the case. So midnight, do not delay
past midnight.
And you should not go to sleep before
praying the Isha prayer. So even if the
time has come in and you think, you
know what, I'm gonna sleep 2 hours and
I'm gonna wake up at 11:30
PM and I'll still make it before midnight,
It's not recommended just in case you just
you keep on sleeping because it's sleeping time.
Right? And it's a very common practice, unfortunately,
in the Muslim world that, especially when there's
a party, there's a social gathering, there's a
wedding or something, everyone ends up delaying their
prayer past midnight, and they shouldn't do that.
So they should just simply pray at the
venue that they're at. Just take out 5
or 10 minutes, pray right there, and then
you go home and you pray, you know,
whatever else is later, you keep on celebrating.
So it's, we should change this habit.
And now that you're CIS students and now
that you know, don't delay after midnight. We
make
this cultural change within the Muslim community, and
we don't delay our prayers, especially not past
midnight.
So these are the recommended,
timings that are there.
Moving on to the prerequisites.
Okay.
So there are certain prerequisites
that are needed
before prayer.
Before you actually start praying, if you don't
have these prerequisites,
your prayer will not count.
Very similar to what we discussed in wudu,
there's certain things that you need to have
in wudu. If you don't have these things,
your prayer your wudu is not gonna count,
likewise for the prayer. So the number one
thing
is being in a state of purity
by performing wudu or performing or something like
that. The whole point of the last chapter
was mainly to get you prepared to meet
the prerequisites
of being able to pray. So that's just
it's just repeating what this is. This is
basically what's the subject of the entire last
chapter. So you make sure that you're in
a state of purity.
Right? Check all of that. Then the second
condition
is that you make sure your clothes, your
body,
and your place of prayer is free from
impurities.
And we covered that in the last chapter
as well. Right?
Now when it says you close your body
in your place of prayer,
the place of prayer refers to the place
where your body will actually touch.
So where will your body actually touch?
So your hands are gonna be touching the
floor,
your forehead is gonna be touching part of
the ground, right, your nose is gonna be
touching part of the ground, your knees are
gonna be on the ground.
But let's say, right below your chin, for
example, it's not gonna be touching part of
the ground. Let's say there was some impurity
right there underneath your, you know, underneath your
chest or something like that. You're not gonna
be touching that part of the ground. So
it's recommended not to have it anyways on
your prayer place.
But since it's not touching, it's not a
prerequisite.
K. So it just has to be clean
to that extent. K. So you make sure
that, you know, you're not gonna be
praying near a garbage dump or something like
that.
So once your all of that is clean,
there are a few more requirements.
The other requirements are your body should be
covered proper has to be covered properly
even if you're alone.
It's very important. It's even if you're alone.
It doesn't matter if you're praying among other
people or not. Even if you're alone by
yourself, you can't pray, in your underwear or
something like that. And I'm gonna explain to
you why. Okay? So how do you know
that? So you have to be, covered.
A male must cover between what is between
the navel and the knees.
K. Between the the belly button, the navel,
up until the knee should be covered, has
to be covered.
So what is do does the navel actually
have to be covered? Do the knees actually
have to be covered? There's a difference of
opinion among scholars on whether this can be
open or this can be open just a
little bit. Like, right above the knees or
right below the knees? Right above the navel
or right below the navel? The recommended what
I recommend to people is, if there's no
real difficulty, just try to cover it all
the time. It's the best thing. Just put
on a shirt or put your, you know,
put on your boarding shorts or what whatever
it is, make sure that everything is covered
properly.
And obviously be careful. This people who play
basketball and stuff, this is a problem for
them. Because they pull down their shorts,
and then what they end up doing is
when they this is throughout the prayer. So
they end up going in bowing position, all
of that, and all of a sudden the
shirt is too short, and then something else
gets revealed. So you have to be covering
all of this,
at this part of time,
throughout the prayer.
If a small area is uncovered during the
prayer time of this area,
you just recover it. So let's say, you
know,
your knees are supposed to be covered.
As all of a sudden a little bit
gets uncovered for a moment, you recover it
again. K. Likewise for a female, which we're
gonna talk about, you just simply recover it
again.
For,
if there's a large,
area
that is uncovered,
then you need to, repeat the prayer. So,
like, let's let's look at the female example.
So,
a woman must cover her entire body
except
the face,
the hands,
and the feet. So these are the three
parts that don't have to be covered. Now
let's say she's in the middle of prayer
and little bit hair starts coming out and,
you know, the hijab was not tied correctly.
So she can recover that part again and
she's gonna be fine. If a large portion
gets uncovered, all of a sudden the hijab
slips off. Right? You have to repeat the
prayer.
Likewise for the man. All of a sudden
his knees become exposed all the way up
to his thigh, he has to go and
repeat the prayer. And this is a very
problem for the guys. You have to see
guys who have the really tight clothing nowadays.
Lot of people, and I've actually had sisters
come up to me and complain, and this
should not be happening. Right? Sisters coming up
to me and saying, we can actually see
the crack of the brother from behind when
he's going into frustration.
This should not be happening. Right? Because that
means so if your private part gets revealed
to that extent, you gotta repeat the prayer
again, because that's a law that's a very
essential part,
to keep covered.
So
make sure you either tuck in your shirt,
or you wear a longer shirt, or you
pull up your pants, or you do something
so that that's not happening.
So that's
the part that needs to be covered. So
you need to make sure your body is
covered properly. Requirement of prayer. K. The next
requirement of prayer, so you have to face
the Qibla.
Face the direction of prayer. The direction of
prayer, which is
Makkah,
right, wherever you are that's known as the
Qibla.
The direction of Makkah is known as the
Qibla,
with your chest at minimum.
Your chest has to be facing the Qibla
at all times throughout the prayer. So if
all of a sudden
you sneeze,
right, you have to sneeze and you go
and you you keep your you keep your
chest towards the qibla and you move your
head this way,
your prayer is still fine.
If you sneeze and you turn your chest
away completely from the qiblah, you have to
repeat your prayer and start all over. Because
this is a prerequisite, it's a requirement of
the prayer.
So keep make sure that that's the bare
minimum, your chest is at least facing the
qiblah. Now how do you figure out the
qiblah? You can use a compass
to figure it out.
What is the degrees
here in Southern California?
15 degree about 15 degrees, which is North
Northeast.
Not just Northeast, but North Northeast.
Okay?
You can use a a compass, you can
use one of those calculators, you can use
one of the apps to figure out exactly
where it is. Or you can, if you're
really slick and you know your astronomy, you
can calculate based on the direction of the
sun or the position of the sun or
the north star or whatever way you calculate
doesn't make a difference. What if you cannot
figure out what direction to pray?
And you're around and you can't you just
you don't have the app with you. You
don't have a compass with you. And,
how do you figure out the direction? So
what you do is you're supposed to estimate.
So either you estimate, you try and figure
it out or you ask someone. So if
you ask someone just one moment. If you
ask
someone, hopefully they're gonna give you the right
information if they know. Right? So if they
tell you this is what it is, just
you go ahead and you follow it.
If there's no one to ask, nobody knows,
everyone you ask, they have no idea, which
is very common. If you go around asking,
like, 10 people, not a single person knows
what direction is where. It's very common in
today's society.
Then you try and figure out some way.
So you look at, like, the
freeway. Right? You say, well, that's a 91
freeway. That way is going west. That way
is going east. So that must be north.
So north northeast is approximately,
like, around there. You try and figure it
out somehow the closest you can get.
There's always a way to kind of figure
it out and you go ahead and you
pray in that direction that you kind of
tried your best to figure out.
Alright. And,
or you look at the sun or you
check the time and you say, well, based
on the time, the sun should be in
this location. You use something to try and
figure it out. And if you discover
that you were wrong
after the prayer is over,
you don't need to repeat your prayer.
Even if you are completely wrong, you are
180
degrees off.
You totally missed the whole thing. You still
don't need to repeat your prayer as long
as you put some effort into it. If
you put no effort into it then you
should go and repeat your prayer. So if
you're in the middle of prayer and then
you realize that you're wrong, somehow it dawns
on you,
you know what? The 91 freeway goes
opposite way east. I'm in the wrong direction.
You turn around in the middle of prayer.
Right? If someone comes and notifies you that,
you know what? Your direction is wrong and
you can hear that what they're saying, you
just move. If you see someone praying in
the wrong direction and you know that they're
praying in the wrong direction, you just take
them by the shoulders and you readjust them
a little bit.
So now you know if someone's grabbing you
and they're adjusting you, they're not trying to
mess with you while you're in the middle
of prayer, they're trying to readjust you. So
don't, you know, don't get alarmed, don't get
frightened, don't turn around and say, what the
heck are you doing? Because you just lost
your prayer because you talked number 1 and
number 2, your chest went away from the
qiblah. Right. So you understand someone's trying to
redirect you.
If you're not able to face the Qibla,
for some reason
there's some danger
involved,
there's
you have an illness. You're lying on a
hospital bed and you can't move and it's
very very difficult. They can't move the bed
for you or something. Or there's no space
for you to move around. You're on an
airplane and you can't face the qiblah in
that direction because there's there's no way. And
if you try and go in the back
where the wait waiters and waitresses are and
all of that, you try and pray over
there, you're probably gonna get, you know,
boarded by, you know, the US Air Force
or something and they're gonna land the plane
and say this guy was planning something or
whatever it is. So what you can do
is you you don't have to face the
qiblah in that instance, and you could pray
in whatever direction that you can get closest
to the qiblah. Just pray in whatever direction
you, you know, you're able to pray in.
Alright?
So that's when it comes to the direction.
You wanted to correct something?
Yeah. I know it's not 15 degrees.
Yeah. It's it's close to 15 degree.
30, 23.
Is it 23?
I thought it was around 19 or something
like that. No.
Did we say 23? Okay. Yeah. 23. So
yeah. Okay. So 45 degrees would be northeast.
So, yeah. It's north northeast. It's in between
0 and 45. So 23 sounds about right.
That's where it should be. Alright. So you
can always you can check on your app.
They tell you the degrees and everything.
So that's a requirement. Make sure you face
the qibla or you try your best
if you can. And if you can't, they
don't have to worry about it.
Make sure that the time for prayer you're
about to perform has entered. So you gotta
check to see if the time has entered.
So So what's gonna happen is if you
don't check the time and you start praying
and all of a sudden after you're done,
you look at the time and all of
a sudden your watch starts beeping. The time
for Zohar just came in. You gotta repeat
your prayer because you didn't check. You should
check and make sure that the time is
actually correct and it's come in.
So these are the requirements,
before prayer that need to be done,
before you actually engage and start your prayer.
And these are mandatory and they should be,
they should be maintained throughout the prayer. So
for example, purity is one of the requirements.
If you lose
purity
by passing gas or something like that, then
your prayer is gonna be invalid. Facing the
qiblah is one of the requirements. If all
of a sudden you are not facing the
qiblah anymore, your prayer is gonna be invalid.
Making sure your body is covered, same thing.
If it's all of a sudden it's not
uncovered anymore for an extended period of time
or a major part of it, then your
prayer has to be repeated. You start again.
Alright. So that's the the prerequisites.
Now how do we pray? Now how do
we actually perform the prayer?
So
I'm gonna assume that most people
kind of know a little bit about the
prayer.
And if you don't, this kind of gives
you the details
of the prayer. If you're starting out in
the beginning, you've never prayed before or something
like that, I recommend there's another book. It's
called How to Pray, A Step by Step
Guide for New Muslims.
K? Really cool author, Mustafa Umar. Alright. Check
out the book. It helps you to, kind
of, gradually ease your way into the prayer.
If you've already done a little bit of
prayer, then this will be, kind of, a
lot of this is review, but it, kind
of, fills in some of the gaps that
you might not have known. K. So,
just keep that in mind. So this is
how
the prayers are gonna be performed. Each prayer
has a number of units or cycles, what
they call raka'ah.
And you're basically repeating a lot of what
you do in each and every single cycle,
each and every single unit. And there are
3 main types of prayer among the 5
daily prayers. There's a 2 unit prayer, there's
a 3 unit prayer, and there's a 4
unit prayer. K? So let's start
by looking at how you perform a 2
unit prayer to kind of give you the
foundation, and then we can build off the
other prayers from this one.
So the first thing you're gonna do when
you're starting to pray, after you've met all
the prerequisites and everything,
you check a place, you find a place
that you're not gonna be disturbed.
Right? You make sure that you're gonna be
in a good place for prayer. And it's
recommended that you actually mark your place,
either with the, like, a large object like
a backpack or a chair or something like
that, or you draw a line
where you're gonna be praying, in terms of
the edge of where you're gonna be prostrating,
and you mark that location off so that
no one's gonna be walking in front of
you or crossing in front of you. They
understand whether they understand or they don't understand,
you're marking your own location so that no
one bothers you, at least where you are.
If you're praying on a carpet
if you're praying on a carpet, then the
edge of that carpet
is gonna be the barrier. Like, you know
those prayer carpets you pray on? The edge
of the carpet is considered the barrier for
you already. It's the marking for you. So
you don't need to place like another chair
in front of you. Some people do that,
but you don't have to. If you're praying
in the mosque or something like that, the
line that's built into the carpet is considered
to be a barrier for you as well.
So you've done your job.
Alright. Now people walking in front of you,
that's another issue. But you your job, your
responsibility
is has been done. Alright. So you mark
your own line, you get, like, a kind
of a barrier there, so no one walks
directly in front of your prayer area where
you're gonna be praying.
So once you've done that, and that's recommended,
once you've done that, you make the intention,
what's known as the niya.
K? The intention
for prayer is done immediately before you start
praying.
So what you do is you stand there
and all you need to do for the
intention is that you're conscious,
you understand you're going into prayer, and you
know which prayer you're praying. You gotta make
sure your intention is correct. If you have
the wrong intention and you start the prayer
and then when you when you finish,
right, all of a sudden or you start
changing the intention or something. You're in the
middle of prayer, you thought you're praying,
you know, you thought you're praying Maghrib and
you're actually praying Isha, or vice versa. You
have to have the correct intention in terms
of what prayer you're actually praying. All you
gotta do is focus your thoughts. You don't
have to actually say anything. If you wanna
say something, you can go ahead and say
that. Some people make that, they say, I
wanna say, you know, I'm entering into prayer,
Maghrib prayer, I'm gonna be performing 3 units
of prayer, and then they wanna start. You
can do that
in your mind. You could do that
whispering,
but you don't have to. As long as
it's in your mind, it's clear what you're
doing, that's your intention.
So what you do is you start by
standing, what's known as qiyam. You start by
standing up straight, your hands are to your
sides,
right,
and your feet should be pointing forward.
And as you make sure your feet are
actually forward, they're not
sideways or something like that. Probably not too
comfortable in any ways.
And
then you make sure your feet are spread
apart
at least one hand span.
So one hand span, if you were to
put your hand between your feet, you wanna
make sure that your feet are at least
a little bit spread out. They're not joined
together.
K? And there's the prophet told us not
to do that.
And then you wanna make sure that your
feet are no more than shoulder length, shoulder
width apart.
K? So you should not be more than
your shoulder width apart.
The problem with that is if you are
and you become more than shoulder width apart,
now you're not if you're praying in a
group, you're not gonna be standing next to
the person because there's gonna be a gap
between your shoulders. So you should only stand
shoulder width apart. This is a big problem,
in the Muslim community, and it's based on
a misconception
that some people have.
We can comment on that some other day,
but
be careful of that. So it's minimum, about
this much gap, maximum
shoulder width.
Don't exceed it and don't go feet together.
Your eyes
should be focused on the ground where you're
actually gonna be prostrating. So your eyes, when
you're about to start, you're actually looking at
the ground, so you're not looking up like
this. You're not staring at the sky or
something like that. You make sure that you're
looking at the place where you're gonna be
prostrating.
Now throughout the prayer, you can actually close
your eyes at any time for the sake
of concentration.
So if you wanna close your eyes, you
can do that as well. But keep your
head in the right direction. Don't move your
head like here and say, well, my eyes
were closed.
Don't keep your you know, don't move around
or something like that.
What does this stance represent? So once you're
like this, you're about to start the prayer,
you're standing properly, you're looking, your head is
about a little bit down and everything, you're
about to start your prayer, this represents a
person who's at full attention.
Right? This is not the laid back, loose,
casual, you know, stance. This is someone who's
actually ready to get into something serious. So
this is what the stance represents right before
you start the prayer. And you begin the
prayer by raising your hands. So it's known
as rafaa yadayn.
So you raise
your hands up,
right,
Like this. And what happens, you make sure
your palms are facing forward.
It's very common for people to put their
palms inward or something like that. Your palm
should be facing forward. Okay.
What does this signify?
It signifies that when you actually raise your
hands like this, scholars have commented on the
wisdom, you're doing 2 things. Number 1
is you can imagine, like, all the thoughts
that are distracting you in your mind and
everything, you're kind of putting them all out.
Just let them all go back, Let everything
out.
And the second thing you're doing is,
what does this look like?
You know when someone points a gun at
you?
I
surrender. Right? I exactly.
You're surrendering yourself in front of Allah. So
you're putting your hands up. You're surrendering. I'm
surrendering myself to you. This is what my
prayer is representing, my obedience and my surrender
to the Lord of the worlds. Right? So
you're leaving your because you're leaving your desires
for what Allah commanded you to do. Otherwise,
you could go be eating, ice cream or
something, but you went and you started praying.
So this represents that. So while you're raising
your hands, k, or right before you raise
your hands, or right after you raise your
hands, you say the Takbir, it's known as
the glorification of Allah, which is Allahu Akbar.
So you can say Allahu Akbar, then raise
your hands. While you're raising your hands, Allahu
Akbar. Or you could raise your hands and
then say Allahu Akbar, come back. So this
is this means Allah is the greatest.
This is the definition, it means Allah is
the greatest, and that's when you've begun your
prayer. Now you're in prayer, actually.
This is the time where you make sure
you don't violate any of those,
conditions,
for prayer.
So you start the prayer
by you're standing,
right, what's known as standing for recitation,
the qira'ah which you're gonna be reciting. What
you do is you start, say,
and then you lower your hands down
and you use your right hand and you
grab your left hand with your right hand,
you know, either at the wrist
or at the forearm.
Either way, there's there's flexibility
along this line. And you take both of
your hands and you place them on your
body,
either above your navel,
below your navel,
or,
on your chest.
Okay. So there's flexibility, as long as it's
on your torso. You're not, like, on the
side or backwards or something like that. Alright.
So there's a lot of flexibility in this.
What is this stance? When you're standing like
this and you've got your hands like this,
it's a stance of humility.
It's a stance of humility, you're standing in
front of Allah, and it's very common in
a lot of cultures. That when you're standing
in front of someone, like a dignitary or,
you know, a president
that actually deserves some respect, or a king
or something like that, then you're you get
your you kind of many people, like, fold
their hands kind of like this, as a
sign of, you know, we're not just standing
like this. We're actually standing like this. It's
like a sign of humility, a sense of
humility as a respect to the person in
front of you. It's very, very common. It's
universal
gesture.
Except in America, it's not very common. So
in in places where, like, there's not really
too much of a sense of honor or
respect that's really built into the culture, they
kinda lost that. But generally, it's very universal,
stance.
So it's quite well known to a lot
of people.
But the average American or Westerner, for example,
would not even understand, well, I never thought
I never realized that's kind of the wisdom
behind it because we don't do that anymore.
But you look at people from other cultures,
you find them when someone walks in, they're
kind of like always standing like this or
standing like this with their hands folded in
some way, shape, or form, Muslim or non
Muslim, and that's a sign of respect, for
people. So it's very similar to that. So
once you're in prayer, your hands are folded,
you're standing there, the first thing you recite
is the opening supplication, which is the Istiftah.
K. And this is
recommended,
obviously.
Little bit less slightly recommended, but it's still
recommended.
And that is there's many there's many of
them. There's more than 1, but this is
one example.
You say,
And I have in the notes for you
the transliteration
to pronounce it. And what that means is,
it's glory to you, oh Allah.
May you be praised. Your name is blessed.
Your greatness is exalted
over all others. And no one is deserving
of worship but you.
Okay. So this is this starts your prayer
in the beginning. This is how you introduce
the prayer.
After you make this opening supplication,
you begin by seeking refuge in Allah, the
Tawaz,
before you recite the Quran. And you say,
Awaz Abilahimina
Shaytaanir Rajeem.
Okay.
And then, this means I seek refuge in
Allah from the cursed Satan.
So before you recite Quran, this is what,
is recommended to say before you actually start
reciting Quran.
Then you begin by mentioning Allah's name, the
Basmala, you say, BismillahirRahmanir
Rahim,
which means in the name of Allah, the
compassionate, the merciful. So you begin in the
name of Allah.
Now you recite al Fatiha, which is the
first chapter, the first surah in the Quran.
Reciting the first chapter,
and it's always recommended to recite in a
melodious voice. So you try to recite in
a very nice voice whenever you're reciting Quran.
After you've done and you've finished reciting Al
Fatiha,
you say Amin.
And Amin means accept this prayer.
And if you wanna connect it, you wanna
understand why you're saying Amin, what prayer, when
when you actually recited Surah Fatiha, you actually
made a prayer. And that is the prayer
when you said,
it actually means, oh, Lord, guide us to
the straight path.
Alright. So you're asking Allah, guide us to
the right path, to the straight path.
And then at the end, you're saying, oh,
Allah, accept this prayer that we just made.
The prayer that you're saying, you know, god
accept it,
is we we need to be guided to
the straight path. So you say it every
single day. Sometimes you may not realize it,
but that's what you're asking Allah for, and
you're adding emphasis by saying, amin. Accept that
prayer that we just made.
Now the Quranic recitation follows, which is the
Qura'a,
you recite some verses of Quran after you
recite the Fatiha.
So what verses of Quran? You can recite
anywhere you want from the Quran. You can
recite an entire Surah, an entire chapter, or
you can just recite a few verses from
any chapter you want. There's nothing specific that
needs to be read as long as it's
a decent amount.
You don't just recite, like, you know, one
half of a verse or something.
You're done. Something a little bit longer than
that. No, like,
and then all of a sudden, you go
in. Actually, I had a friend of mine
did that one time. He did
He goes in the prayer.
So,
Yeah. There's a recommendation that it's a minimum
of 3, but it doesn't have to be
3. It can be one long one, and
long is relative. Right? So if it's a
long one, it's like it lasts a little
bit time. You know? So get yeah, give
it, like, 10, 20, 30 seconds at least,
you know, something around there.
Don't try to make it too too short.
But you can you can start in the
middle of a surah if you want. You
can start at the beginning. You don't have
to finish the entire surah, just a few
verses of prayer. But don't, like, skip. I'm
gonna hit that verse and I'm gonna hit
the other verse and then go backwards to
the other verse. Just do a section of
the Quran.
And then once you're done,
you,
you're gonna go into bowing position, which is
Ruquah position.
So what you're gonna do is, you're in
the middle of you've you're standing, you've done
your recitation, you did your fataha, you said
Amin, you recited the verses.
What comes next? Now you're gonna go into
bowing. So what you do is, you're gonna
say Allahu Akbar,
the Saylat Takbir, while you're bending down. And
you bend down all the way, and you
go into bowing position, you're gonna grab your
knees. Alright. So you go down and you
actually grab your knees,
and while you're grabbing your knees, you make
sure that your fingers are slightly so imagine
this is your knee. Okay? Your fingers are
slightly spread out. Okay? Fingers are a little
bit spread out and you're actually grabbing your
knee. This actually helps you to get support
on the knees. Otherwise, if you're stuck like
this your your your hands can slide.
And,
your eyes
should be focused
in the region of kinda where your feet
are.
Alright. So now you're not looking at the
place of your prostration anymore. Otherwise, your your
head would be sticking up a little bit.
So it's just where your kinda like your
feet are, this area.
And then
you
try to keep your back straight as much
as possible.
So try to try to actually have
this 90 degree angle as much as possible,
as close as you can get to a
90 degree angle. So don't be too some
people don't bend too much. They, like, bend
like this much. If you have a knee
problem, it's different. But if you can bend
down, you need to bend down more. Some
people are too flexible, and they bend down
like all the way like this. Don't bend
down too much either. That's why your hands
on your knees gives you a perfect almost
90 90 degree position. If you have your
arms straight out, locked, the knees on the
fingers, your back is kind of stretched out.
Such that the Prophet actually mentioned something, is
that if you were to have a cup
of water, we put it on your back,
a cup of water would be fine. It
wouldn't be tripping. It wouldn't be falling. That's
a good test. And don't go around testing
people when in the middle of prayer. But
you can test yourself
to see if you're doing it correctly.
Yeah. You gotta put your Starbucks on top
of us.
Thank you very much. Yeah.
So that's that's the way it should be,
90 degrees. Right?
So,
once you're down,
in that position, think about what that position
signifies. When you bow down, it's a humbling
stance. It's a very humbling stance. It's like,
for example, when people in martial arts, when
they're about to spar or they're about to,
you know, get into a fight,
they start bowing. So the bowing represents a
sign of respect and dignity. And usually they
don't bow too much. Going further down is
a sign of more humility and respect. And
this is exactly what you're doing when you're
actually praying in front of Allah.
So you're in bowing position,
you say 3 times,
3 times,
which means glory be to my lord the
great.
Right. And it's interesting that you're actually saying
this while you're in the bowing position.
So you're glorifying Allah and at the same
time you're doing what to yourself?
You're humbling yourself.
So you're down, you're humbling yourself, and you're
glorifying Allah. That's the best way to do
it simultaneously.
And then once you're done with that position,
you're about to stand back up, you go
back to standing position
with your arms to your sides like you
had in the beginning before you started prayer,
and while you're getting up you say,
or
Both are fine. Which means Allah has heard
the one who praised him. Our Lord, you
are praised. So basically what you're saying is
you're in the middle, you're in bowing position
here. Right? And then once you're all the
way down, you're coming up, you're saying
and once you're standing up straight,
say
once you're in the standing position. And think
about what you're saying now. So
Allah has heard the one who praised him.
So who just praised him?
You did.
In which position?
In the bowing, you just praised Allah. You
just said, glory be to my lord,
the great. So you just praised Allah. So
now when you stood up, what are you
actually saying when you say, Sami Allahu aliman
Hamida?
You're saying
that Allah has heard the one who just
praised him, meaning I know that Allah has
heard me. You're actually speaking to Allah, but
you're just using a third person. You're saying,
oh, Allah. I know that you heard what
I just said to you in my praise
of you. Right? And then once you say,
our
lord, you be praised. So you praise him
again. So you say, we know that you
just heard the praise that we just made,
and we're gonna praise you again one more
time. It's exactly what you're saying. Many people
have not reflected on this. Alright? Now it
kind of makes more sense. Right? Many people
who've studied
all Islamic law for 5 or 10 years,
they still have not reflected on this. It's
a very very important point to reflect on.
Helps you in your prayer when you understand
what's going on.
So then you're in standing position now, arms
to the sides.
Now you're about to go into prostration.
What's known as sajda or sujud?
So you go down all the way into
prostration while saying Allahu Akbar again for the
transition,
and you get down on the floor
while you're moving towards and saying the text.
You're saying Allahu Akbar. Now how do you
do this? There's 2 ways to do it.
Either you can bend your knees
and put your knees down on the floor
first, and then move yourself all the way
down to the ground.
Or you can bend your knees down a
little bit and get on your hands first
before your knees. It doesn't make a difference.
Both of them are fine.
So what you do is you're gonna bend
down, you're saying Allahu Akbar, and you put
your you're gonna go into prostration. So what
do you do? The way that you do
it is, number 1,
you're gonna
put your forehead
and your nose
on the ground. K? Completely on the ground
in between your hands.
K. So you got your forehead and your
nose, and they're in between your hands. So
your hands are not all the way out
like this,
and they're not all the way in like
this.
Your hands are actually in between, almost like
when you started the the prayer like this.
It's almost in between like this. Okay. So
that's where your hands are gonna be.
What else? Make sure that your fingers are
together.
Your fingers are not supposed to be spread
out now because you're not grabbing your knees,
you're not grabbing the floor. So they're together.
And
your fingers are forward.
They're forward like this. They're not sideways or
something like that.
What else?
Make sure that your elbows are actually off
the ground. Your elbows should not actually be
on the ground, your elbows are off the
ground, and that your elbows are away from
your sides.
So you're not tucked all the way in,
your elbows are a little bit away from
your sides. Now don't overdo it when you're
praying in a group. If you overdo it,
what happens?
There's no space for the other guy and
he ends up getting stuck like this. And
it's very annoying,
and it's very problematic. So don't do that.
And at the same time when you're praying
alone just keep it, you know, keep it
good balance.
And some scholars say that the women, in
order to be more concealed, should keep it
in and keep their, actually, hands down. And
they can do that, it's not a big
deal if they do, but it's not, you
know, it's not really required.
Also, keep some space between your stomach and
your thighs.
So you're not supposed to be
if you know yoga,
there's something called child's pose.
Right? It's not child's pose. Okay? So child's
pose is you're you're bending down and your
stomach is basically on your thighs. It's not
that position. It's
more
your body is spread out a little bit
more, you're a little bit more forward when
you're doing the actual, thing. So that there's
a little bit space between here. So much
so that, like, imagine, like, a little baby's
crawling, the little baby could actually walk underneath
you and just could make it the other
way. That's not the purpose behind it, but
it could. It could if it needed to.
Alright. So keep some space there.
The bottom
it would be okay if if the woman
can seal up a little bit more, especially
if there's men present, then, yeah, definitely.
The bottom of your toes,
should be on the floor when you're in
prostration. So your feet don't stick up from
the back. Right? Your bottom of your toes
are on the floor
and they're facing forward. So your toes,
I I can't get my foot up here,
but,
your toes are, you know, you're down and
your feet, your toes are facing forward, but
your feet are actually sticking up. So your
whole foot is not on the floor, but
your your toe is up. I did. There's
pictures in the book, if you look at
the book, if you bought the book. If
you didn't buy the book,
there's no pictures for you. So you can
ask someone to check the pictures, on their
book. This is I did demonstration last time
because we had a table here. So I
could actually get my foot up here. This
would be a little bit tough, I think,
you know. I I gotta stretch a little
bit more beforehand.
So
you got your feet out like this.
The bottom of your toes are facing forward.
The rest of your feet are off the
ground. That's pretty much what it is.
And this stance is
this prostration
is the most humbling stance you could possibly
get. If you think about it, that your
face
generally represents your honor. And this is like
a universal culture. Your face represents your honor.
So much so that, you know what, those
those bullies in school and stuff like that,
or your friends who they think you're your
friends, they punch you in the arm and
they're hitting you in the back and all
of that. If one of them comes and
just slaps you on the face,
even though the pain from the punch was
more than the pain from the slap, Right?
This is probably only American culture. This happens.
Your friends do this to you, right, in
in high school.
The pain from the slap is a lot
less, but it's
bothersome.
It's more insulting
than even the person who was causing you
more pain. So it's considered your honor. Someone
is messing with your honor when they actually
hit you in the face or they slap
you in the face. So what you're doing
in prostration is you're taking the most honored
part of your body that represents your honor,
and you're putting it all the way down
on the ground on the floor
in front of Allah to show your humility
in front of Allah. This is the greatest
and most humbling stance that you could possibly
be in. And it's interesting that when you're
in this humbling stance, what are you saying?
So three times,
Which means glory be to my lord,
the highest,
the most high. And what position are you
in?
You're in the absolute lowest position that you
can possibly get into.
So this shows you your status and then
status of Allah
Then
there is intermediate
sitting position, which is known as the Qada.
Right? So once you're finished with your prostration,
you're gonna get up,
while saying Allahu Akbar
and you're gonna sit, actually.
So now while you're sitting, you're gonna do
a number of things. First, you're gonna take
your palms
and you're gonna put them
on your thighs near your knees.
So imagine if this is your leg. Okay?
You're gonna put your hand, like, right here.
It's not over the knee. You're not grabbing
the knee. Just over the knee like this.
It's not all the way up here or
something. This is your leg, this will be
your hand. And you rest both hands right
there. If this is your knees, you can
rest it right there. Okay. And your fingers
are kinda facing a little bit forward.
Then,
you keep your fingers together
in this position, because you're not grabbing anything
again.
Your eyes should actually be directed around where
your knees are, this area. So you're not
you're not looking all the way forward, you're
looking around where you're kinda where your hands
are.
If you're able to do this, you're supposed
to sit in a certain way, which the
prophet actually taught us, and that is you
sit on your left foot,
actually. So what you're doing is, you actually
take your left foot, imagine this is your
foot. You kind of this is the top
of your foot, where you wipe your socks.
Right? It's top of your foot. You basically
put this part of the foot, your left
foot, on the ground like this,
and you take your left buttock,
and you actually sit on this part of
your foot. Okay. And most of your weight
is gonna be here. Okay. That's with your
left foot. And then you take your right
foot,
and you keep it elevated like you had
when you were in prostration.
You keep the toes on the ground. Alright.
Slightly outside, not underneath your your right buttock.
Slightly outside to the right, little bit sticking
out to the right, and you keep your
toes facing forward, the rest of the foot
is off the ground.
Okay? And if you look, there's, like, a
detailed zoomed in picture in the book,
of exactly how this is supposed to look.
Right? From the from the rear it's a
rear position of the camera. Got it recorded.
K?
And that's how it's, gonna look. So that's
what you're doing, and this is supposed to
be a very comfortable position. Now I'm gonna
tell you honestly,
it's all about balance. Right? If you've never
sat like this before,
it's gonna feel like your toe's gonna break
off the first time if you don't know
how to balance it. It took me 6
months because I didn't have a training. I
didn't have a teacher or something. You you
gotta figure it out. So it literally feels
like your toe is gonna break. You're not
supposed to break your toes. K? That's not
the point. If you're in pain and you're
struggling,
it just means it's not it's not about
flexibility of your toes. It's not gonna get
all of a sudden better where your toes
are now flexible and all of a sudden
the pain goes away. It's all about balance.
So you're not balancing yourself correctly, it's gonna
be painful. So what can you do initially?
Just don't stand like that. Just put your
foot flat like this and stay on the
left buttock position for a while, right, until
you start learning how to balance yourself properly
in that position. Just watch other people who
can do it and you kind of watch
how the they're not gonna be able to
explain it to you, but you just kinda
watch them. You get a point of how
this is actually done. Alright. So it's actually
it's actually a very comfortable position. You could
sit like that you should be able to
sit like that for a very long time.
The point is not to pain you. And
I know many people, they feel like pain
when they're in this position. It's not supposed
to be a painful position. It's supposed to
be a very relaxing,
calm, comfortable position. So if you know how
to do it, it's comfortable. If you don't
know how to do it, this can be
very painful. You learn how to do it.
Otherwise, in the meantime, you just sit in
a position any way which is gonna be
comfortable so that you're actually you can focus
on your prayer. Okay?
What is this designed to do in the
first place, this intermediate sitting position? It's designed
to give you a little bit of a
break
before you go into the second,
prostration again. Before you go into the second
Sajdna.
So you're just kind of,
putting a step in between the 2 Sajdas
so that you can go and start focusing
on the 2nd Sajdna now. Okay.
Okay.
Then once you're done with this, and there's
a supplication you could actually make in this
one as well. We won't learn it in
this class but you can search something you
can add in this class as well, in
this section as well. And then you're gonna
go into prostration again for the second time.
You say, Allahu Akbar, you go into the
second prostration,
you say exactly what you said before.
Same thing, same procedure, same form, same everything.
Okay?
Once you're done with that
and you're finished with the second sajdah,
you're gonna stand up
all the way for the second unit of
prayer
by saying, Allahu Akbar, and you're gonna stand
up and get back into standing position with
your right arm over your left, hands folded,
and you're back up to standing position.
You just completed one unit of prayer.
Now we're gonna talk about the second unit
of prayer. This is the first unit of
prayer, and the first part is done.
So I think it's a good time to
take a break right now. Agreed?
So it's,
11:44.
Come back at
noon.
High noon or 12 noon?
12 noon. Insha'Allah. We'll be back insha'Allah. Make
sure to write down your questions as well.
Okay.
So we left off at,
2nd unit. Alright. So now that you're stood
up, you're in the 2nd unit of prayer,
hands are still folded,
What you're gonna do is you're gonna do
everything that you did previously
except 2 things. You're gonna skip the opening
supplication.
You're not gonna say,
you're not gonna start with that.
And you're gonna skip the seeking refuge. You're
not gonna say
on the regime because you already said it
once,
and you only need to say it once
when you're reciting Quran. So you're gonna reciting
Quran again, you don't need to say it
a second time. So you skip those first
two things and you do everything else. So
you say the Fatiha, you say the first
chapter of, the Quran. Then you say the
Amin. Then you recite the Quran. Then you
go into bowing. Then you come back up.
Then you go back into prostration.
Come back up, back into 2nd prostration.
Now that you're at the 2nd prostration,
in the 2nd unit of prayer,
you're gonna say, Allahu Akbar, and you're gonna
come and sit back up, and you're gonna
stay seated now. Just the same position
that you were when you were in between
the 2 sagesa, same sitting, same style, same
foot, same everything.
Hands still right there at the same place.
Now while you're sitting,
you're gonna say something else.
K? This is known as the sitting position,
the position.
You're gonna be saying, first of all, the
salutations, which is this,
this long phrase here, which is
which is greetings,
prayers,
and all pure things ultimately belong to Allah.
May the peace of Allah be with you,
oh prophet,
as well as Allah's mercy and blessings. May
the peace of Allah be with us and
with all of Allah's righteous servants.
So if you want analysis of this,
check the how to prayer book, the how
to pray book that I recommended for you.
It's a whole analysis of the meaning behind
this and what this is supposed to represent.
After you've said this,
you do the declaration of faith, which is
the
Tashahood
is what you do is when your hands
are on your,
your thighs, near the knees. Right? You're gonna
make a fist with your right hand and
you're gonna point forward with your index finger.
Alright? And while you're doing this, you're gonna
say the tashahud, which is
It was very similar to what you did
in we learned in the last chapter, when
do you say this?
After wudu. Exactly. After you perform your wudu.
So this is the declaration of faith, and
the translation,
is there. Right?
You point your finger. After you're done with
that, remember this is a 2 unit prayer.
So now you're gonna be concluding the prayer.
So what you're gonna do is you're gonna
say the blessings, the salawat,
on the prophet.
So you're gonna say
Muhammad Muhammad
Muhammad.
Oh, Allah bless Muhammad and his family just
as you have blessed Ibrahim and his family.
You are praiseworthy and glorious. Oh, Allah favor
Muhammad and his family just as you have
favored Ibrahim and his family. You are the
praiseworthy and glorious.
So you say this entire thing at the
end. And now right before you finish your
prayer, it's optional, if you wanna put in
a supplication here, some type of dua or
something in Arabic, you can just throw this
in. It's if you wanna memorize some of
the supplications that the prophet used to say,
you can throw that in at this point
in time. And then you're gonna finish the
prayer by saying the salaam, the greetings. So
what you're gonna do is you're gonna move
your head to the right
and you're gonna say, Assalamu Alaikum Warahmatullah.
You're gonna move your head to the left,
say, Assalamu Alaikum Warahmatullah.
And what you're actually doing is you're praying
to the people, you're giving the piece of
the greetings of peace to the people around
you. Because you're, you know, you're moving your
head and you're saying it. All the people
this side, all the people the other side,
as well as the angels and whoever else
is there. So you're saying greetings basically to
everyone. Everyone who's around here, they receive the
greetings,
of peace and mercy.
So when you're praying a lot so this
is it. Prayer is finished. That's the conclusion
of how a 2 unit prayer is gonna
be prayed.
Now when you're praying alone,
it's recommended that you whisper everything
while moving your lips loud enough so that
you can at least hear yourself,
right, when you're in the prayer. So you're
gonna be saying even the prayer,
just so you can hear yourself,
as a recommended. Otherwise,
if you don't move your lips,
you're just saying it in your mind, you
can go ahead and that counts. That's gonna
be fine. But guess which one is gonna
be better?
And guess which guess guess why it's better
if you say it a little bit you
move your lips a little bit? Especially if
you're like Speedy Gonzales mode, if you're prayer,
you're going really really fast, try to do
the same speed while actually moving your lips.
You'll realize that your mind goes faster than
your lips could even possibly move. So you're
forced to slow yourself down when you start
moving your lips. So you're gonna slow down.
Okay?
And that's gonna help you as well. And
helps with the concentration as well.
So that's the 2 unit prayer. So how
do you do a 3 unit prayer? All
you're gonna do is you're gonna add 1
extra unit
after you do the declaration of faith. So
the same thing you did, you start with
the the the prayer, you do the recitation
of Quran, you do the bowing, you do
the prostration, you do the prostration, get back
up for the second unit, You do the
recitation. Do the bowing. Do everything. When you're
in sitting position,
you say the salawat. Right? You say the
first the you, say the salawat, and then
you say the, tashahood.
Not the salawat. Then
Then you say the declaration of faith. You
point with your fingers,
Once you're done with that,
now you're gonna get up for the 3rd
unit of prayer.
So instead of continuing on to saying Allahumma
sali Allah Muhammad, you're gonna say Allahu Akbar,
and you're gonna stand up again for the
3rd unit of prayer. Now the 3rd unit
of prayer is almost like the other 2
units that you prayed with the exception of
you're standing up, you're gonna do the same
thing, you're gonna skip the opening supplication,
you're gonna skip what else are you gonna
skip?
Seeking refuge in Allah, you're gonna skip
You're gonna say the Fatiha,
but this time you're not gonna recite any
other verses of Quran
after the Fatiha. You're gonna say Amin,
and you're done.
Now you're gonna go into bowing position. So
you're gonna say, Allahu Akbar, you go into
bowing position like normal, get back up from
bowing, go into prostration, get back up, go
into prostration,
get back up, and this time you sit
and you conclude your final unit, your final
sitting is exactly the same way as the
second unit's final sitting was.
You say everything again from the beginning.
Finish that.
Finish that. Finish
that, and then you do your you do
your salams, complete your prayer.
A 4 unit prayer
is very very similar to that, except
in in the it's you take a 2
unit prayer, and you add 2 of those
intermediary units first. So what you do is,
after you finish 2, you stand up, you
do just like you did in the 3rd
one, but when you come up, you don't
sit.
You stand up all the way, and you
do exactly what you did for the 3rd
unit. So in the 3rd unit, you recited
fatiha,
you said Amin,
and then what did you say after you
said Amin?
Allahu Akbar. You're done and you go into
bowing position. So the 4th unit. You do
that, you do exactly the same thing until
you're sitting,
and then you you go ahead and you
you conclude the prayer. So remember the what
you the way to understand it is basically,
the first two units of prayer
have and
more verses of Quran being recited.
The second two units of prayer, the the
the the third and the fourth units of
prayer have only Fatiha and Amin, no other,
recitation of Quran. That's a very simple way
to remember it. And the other thing to
remember is that
when you're praying a 2 unit prayer,
the final sitting is in the 2nd unit.
Right? The final sitting has 3 components,
a tahiyat,
the shahada, and
the Allahu Muhammad,
the salawat.
Three components in the final sitting.
If you're praying a 3 unit prayer,
the first time you sit after the second
unit, it's not a final sitting. It's
a intermediate sitting kind of. So what you're
gonna do is you're gonna cut out the
last part. You're gonna cut out the Allah
Muhammad.
In a 4 unit prayer, there's gonna be
2 sittings as well. The first one is
after the 2 units
and the final one is after all 4
units. You're gonna sit down, you're gonna conclude
your prayer like that. So that's pretty much
the way, it's gonna be. And when you
go back and you look at it, you
try and practice it and everything, it's it's
gonna be, very clear for you.
So that's the,
4 unit,
prayer.
And that's where we stop for today, actually.
So
so that's it.
Any questions?
Yes.
East of Northeast? No. It's north of Northeast.
In here in Southern California, it's north of
Northeast.
Yeah. You can check the compass again. If
you go to,
if you go to my book, Welcome to
Islam, and you find whatever website I put
in there, I can't remember what it is
now. You got it on you? Yeah. Yeah.
Just check it. Check the website
that tells you,
find the find the website if you can.
Go on that thing. It's like qibla locator.com
or something like that. It shows you the
exact line based upon the location you type
in there. And it shows you the line,
and the line is like this, which shows
you it's closer to north.
Okay.
Yes.
We've not learned nothing yet.
So only things that we've learned so far.
We've not We only learned the 5 daily
prayers. The minimum ones.
The fart We've only learned the fart
I
I know. I'm I'm saying saying to leave
it for the next time after we cover
it. Yeah. After we cover it, then we'll
take those questions.
So yes.
But on the I'm sitting.
Yes.
Yes. Okay. Sitting position.
Is there
any other significance
behind
the posture itself?
But the posture is pretty much one of
comfort, and this is the way the prophet
did it. So this is this is the
reason behind it. I was just saying that
you have to have the toes pointed towards
the Yeah. So it could be that the
toes are being pointed towards the qiblah or
something. There could be some, you know, hidden
significance, but it's not clear cut. We can
try and figure out, extrapolate what it might
have meant, but it's not so clear to
figure out exactly what it is. Yeah.
We're gonna talk about the haram time afterwards.
We'll get it next week, inshallah. We'll cover
that. Yes.
So if you, only do fatihah, you don't
know the other recitation of the Quran, you
check the how to pray book, and it
tells you what to say as a substitute
for it.
And it's very very short. You could just
say just say and
it counts as a substitute for you, and
you don't it counts. So you don't need
to do anything else.
You should you shouldn't say it in English
in the prayer. It's no. It's bet no.
It's better not to say it in English.
Just try and memorize it with the English
meaning while you're going on. Whatever you can
even if you don't know the Fatiha, and
you haven't memorized the Fatiha yet. Right, you
can just say
Say it 3 times, which is very very
easy to memorize, very easy to understand the
meaning, and you do that until you've memorized
the Fatihah.
The which one?
The the Shahada?
No. No. No. At the moment, just the
same as before.
Oh, at the end. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Exactly. So what you do in in the
meantime, you do the same thing. So do
you have the How to Pray book? So
you don't have it?
I will get you a copy today. So
just see brother Shahab. He'll get you a
copy, and it it'll explain to you exactly
what you do in the meantime. You need
2? You need you have 1 or no?
You have 1? Yeah. She's got hers. So
so Yeah. Anyone else need it, who doesn't
have it, who's a new Muslim?
Okay. So just we'll get one for you,
Insham. Just make sure to see him before
you leave. Yeah. So it it explains to
you you can substitute. If you don't know
it right now and there's many Muslims also
who don't know it. Right? Who don't know
it, who haven't memorized it. If you don't
know it, you just say
3 times as a substitute. In the meantime,
while you're memorizing
it. And within, you know, within a week,
a month,
at least 6 months, you should have it
down. I think 6 months is a good
cutoff point where, you know, you could learn
it in 6 months. You do one letter
per day, and you'll get it in 6
months. Guarantee.
Okay?
Alright. Yeah.
Yeah. That's correct. It's recommended to do it
in the sunnah prayers rather than the 4th
prayers.
That's part of the reason.
Even if you're by you can go ahead
and make extra dua,
while you're in that position, but it should
not the the real difference is of as
long as it's in Arabic, that's gonna be
fine. It's not in Arabic, then it's another
issue. Right? So there's 2 there's 2 main
places there's one main place for dua that's
right before the salaam. Right? If you finish
your prayer and you go into sajdah, and
go into prostration, then making the dua in
that in supplications in that time is fine,
In any language, however you want. You're just
in that position.
After the if you wanna do it only
in such that position, the best time is
outside of prayer. Because you could do it
outside of prayer, and you if you wanna
do it in your own language, you could
do it in your own language, outside of
prayer. Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah. If that you're waiting for the imam?
Yeah. We'll cover it next week, inshallah. We'll
cover it next week.
Yes.
Okay.
Yeah. So how much time do you have
to start the prayer if you delayed until
the end of time?
It's
so that you get the entire prayer
in before the time goes. So you just
calculate how much time you'd probably take to
pray, 4 minutes, 5 minutes, whatever it is,
and you have to get in that spot.
Doesn't mean that if you're gonna miss it,
that you shouldn't pray.
But you're not gonna get the same your
prayer doesn't count as being in the proper
time. But you don't wanna look like your
own passport.
That's right.
That's right. That's right. That's that that's true.
So you shouldn't delay. Just just try not
to delay more than 5 minutes till the
end of time so that you get it
in there. Yeah. That's the
key.
We'll cover it next week in some
That's fine. But I mean, now you should
say it though. Because you're reciting Quran, you
should say it.
Sure.
Yes. So so no. When you start the
second Surah oh, when you start the second
Surah, if you say or you don't say
there's a difference of opinion. So either way,
it's fine. It's fine.
We're gonna learn that next week in town.
Yes. Next week.
Any other questions from this week? Yeah.
Yes.
So if you have someone running around, in
the prayer and they're gonna be coming in
your prayer direction, which you've marked off,
if their kids, you know, stopping them, you
can stop them if they can understand what
you're doing. Otherwise, they're just gonna come in
your way again. If there's adults,
right, you can actually put your hand out
and stop them from coming in in front
of you. Right? Just do it in a
a gentle way. Yeah.
Some people go really hard.
Knock the guy out. Yeah. Yeah. Just don't
slap the other guy. Just stop him from
getting in your way.
Yeah.
Yeah. Some yeah. So so the reasoning is
someone's no one's supposed to walk in front
of you, and that's because, technically, you're praying
to Allah. Right? So this is your space.
If someone came and, like, you know, threw,
like,
some statue or something in front of you,
it it kinda gives you the representation. Someone's
in your way of you praying directly to
Allah, so no one should be in your
space.
Exactly.
Ex Exactly. That's why you can you can
stop them, and you should no one should
be walking in front of another person while
they're praying directly in front of their prayer
place.
How
do
you Yeah. So if you have to go
if you have to go and, there's no
space, there's no way to get around, there's
exception to the rule. So you don't do
it whenever you are able to
wait or something like that. But if it's
really crowded and you need to get out,
you get out. Is there a way to
get, like, a p line straight across the
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The military to get, you
know Yeah. In that case, you can do
that. Yes. In that case, you can do
it. And also when you're to answer your
question, when you're in, like, a crowded area,
it's like a mosque and people need to
get out, then you don't start stopping them.
Because if the guy's, like, you know, his
car is getting towed and you're, like, you
keep stopping him. Like, I need to get
to my car. So, yeah, you don't stop
him. Yeah. So we we talked about that
already. That's the beginning. When you start the
prayer, you mark your
you mark your spot. But if but if
there's no space,
sometimes you have no choice but to go
in front of someone. There's no other way
to get out, basically.
So what
the mosque should actually do is establish I'm
working on this. Establish these aisles.
Right? In the middle, so, like, you have,
like, 2 aisles in the prayer area. As
soon as the prayer is done, when people
are gonna do other prayers,
no one prays in the aisle. Everyone who
needs to get out, just get straight to
the aisle, and now you're clear. You can
get yourself out of there. So that's coming
soon.
Probably the 1st mosque to implement it in
the world. Right?
It's at Mecca. Mecca has it, obviously.
Yeah. How to pray?
How to pray is available for sale at
the office, but you can ask brother Shahab.
It's also available online for free. If you
go to my website, mustafaammar.com,
you can just read it online for free
as well. It's like one of those books
that's meant for everyone.
But the physical copy is always
better to have. It's just it's cleaner. It's
nicer to hold and everything. You know?
Great. Hamdul. Yes.
Praying on the road?
That's dangerous.
Or the side of the road. As long
as the place is clean
and safe,
it's perfectly fine.
Remember, what we define cleanliness as,
you don't see any visible signs of impurity
or anything. There's nothing wrong. It's perfectly fine
to pray anywhere. Where did the where did
the companions and the prophet pray when they
were traveling to the desert?
Prayed on the ground. Alright. So there's nothing
wrong with that.
Yeah.
We haven't covered that yet. So next week.
Asura?
No. We didn't cover it yet. We'll cover
it later.
So,
in, probably week 7 week 7 or 8
when we cover fasting. But if I can't
You can wait, inshallah.
Since we're not there right now, you you
you can wait, inshallah. If we were there,
I would tell you.
Yes. Yes, Insha'Allah.
Alright. Yes.
Okay.
No. No. No. No questions.
Oh, okay.
So if someone's knocking on your door and
you're inside praying or you need to alert
someone about something, you can actually
make a remembrance of Allah,
which is considered to be part of the
prayer to alert them. Hopefully they get the
point. You can't tell them, like,
be quiet.
Yeah. So you can actually say out loud.
You can say and they're supposed to get
the point. And if they don't know, because
they didn't take a CIS class, at least
if someone says to you, you know what
they're saying. So they're telling you to be
quiet. So, yeah, that's that's a lot. Yeah.
It's recommended to whisper.
Otherwise, you could pray in your mind as
well.
Like, out loud?
Loud loud? No. You shouldn't be doing it
loud unless it's a loud prayer.
Yeah.
K.
Yeah. We'll cover. We'll cover. We haven't talked
about Audible yet.
So we'll we'll cover we'll cover? Here.
Anything else from today?
Direction, qiblah, compass,
calculations,
everything's well, here we go. Okay. There we
go. From right here. From one of these
four things.
Yes, auntie?
Okay. So when you're in bowing or frustration,
can you say it more than 3 times?
You can say it more than 3 times,
but it should be an odd number. So
you can do 3, 5, 7, 9, 11,
you can keep on going. It goes more
than 3 times. Yeah.
Okay.
Okay. So when you're praying home,
when you're not supposed to recite loud, which
we'll cover next week, should you can you
pray loudly? No. You shouldn't be praying loudly.
When you're not supposed to pray loudly in
a group, you're not supposed to pray loudly,
alone either.
The recitation part. Yeah. No. You shouldn't be
doing that.
I mean, they're saying the Allahu Akbar part
is fine. It's just not recommended. You shouldn't
you should not be doing that. So let's
see.
Yes.
We're gonna cover that as well. We'll cover
women women leading prayer.
So so the the brushing your teeth,
for the prayer and for the wudu
is recommended.
Now it's brushing your teeth with anything.
Okay. Using the miswak is probably one of
the best ways to brush your teeth, actually.
It's it's more purifying and has better for
the enamel on your teeth and all of
that. So there's a lot of benefits for
the
itself. But whatever you use
still fulfills the purpose of doing the brushing.
Not necessarily. There's a difference of some scholars
may say that because it kind of brings
you back to how the prophet used to
do things. But as long as it's achieving
the same thing with the the purpose is
cleaning.
The purpose is cleaning. So if you're using
a normal toothbrush, it still fulfills the purpose.
But it's probably good to try and use
it at least sometimes.
Alright. So you could get one of those
in the local places. You can go online
if you want one with the cover, because
usually a cover is a big problem. Right?
Because because it comes in a plastic cover.
And where do you keep it? It gets
in your pocket. It gets it gets dirty
and all of that. Right? So there's this
really cool company that actually made a cover
with the mizuak. It's called calikufis.com.
Sold out? Oh, you sold out? Okay. Never
mind. It's sold out. So they made it
once. It was a great idea. I guess
it's sold out. So Maybe they made the
millions of the dot com. Yes. Well, maybe
not millions, but
they're pretty good.
You had a question. Yes.
Yes.
So technically the Qibla should be the shortest
distance between you and Makkah.
Right?
If you were to take the longest distance,
you could actually turn around,
and you would actually have your back towards
the Qibla if you're going around the other
side of the world.
Right? So the around around the other side
of the Earth. So it's actually quite problematic
to take,
a direction which is longer.
Alright. Because technically you could actually be
at the Kaaba,
and if you turn your back towards the
Kaaba, you say, well, technically I'm facing the
other side of the Kaaba. Just going around
the entire earth and I'm facing the other
side. That's not something that generally should be
acceptable. Alright? This should not be acceptable.
So there are some people who really insist
on this
traditional way of calculating the qiblah and all
of that.
We hope
that their prayers are also accepted, InshaAllah. If
they have the right intentions or they're confused,
they just don't understand
what's going on, they don't understand, you know,
that how, you know, how the earth is
is round and how the shortest distance and
all of that is. So the question is,
will their prayer be accepted? It depends on
2 things. It depends on 1, their knowledge,
and 2, their intention.
If they have proper knowledge yet they insist
on being on this direction,
then perhaps Allah knows best. They might be
held accountable for that. If someone is just
they don't know. Right? And it's they just
assume the best and they say, well, this
is what people are doing. It probably seems
like it must be the right qibla, otherwise
people wouldn't be doing it. If they have
a right intention, inshallah, Allah's not gonna hold
them accountable for that. If you're in a
congregation with them and you know that they're
facing this qibla and they're doing it intentionally
or something like
that, because it's pretty clear cut now, I
would recommend that you repeat your prayer.
I would recommend that you repeat it. It's
it's it's quite problematic,
unless there's some real strong basis. And I've
I've read, you know, quite a few books
on it. There's a really good book. You
can read on it. It's called Port in
a Storm
by Nuhamim Keller. He's written an entire book
on just this qibla issue.
And it's a very, very good book, actually,
and explains quite a bit.
Port in a storm.
Port in a storm. Yeah. Hard to find
now, but it used to be quite common.
Yes.
Repeat Surah Fatihah for for what reason?
Because you weren't concentrating or just just for
the heck of it?
Yeah. If you weren't concentrating
or something like that, you can always go
back and repeat what you were saying in
the prayer. If there's no reason for it
at all, then it's probably best not to
repeat the same thing.
Yeah.
Okay. Is it okay to read the same
verses or the same Surah in the first
and the second unit? Yes. It's okay. It's
okay. Shouldn't make it a practice, though, but
it's okay.
Yeah. Everyone's gonna start saying, okay, man. That's
it.
In in in all of them.
No. That should not be the the shortest
surahs. Yeah.
There are different opinions on the pointing of
the finger. Yes.
So the the most of them are acceptable.
So either way, if you point your finger
earlier, if you point it later, if you
move your finger, if you move it in
a direction or something like that, there's all
these different opinions on how you point your
finger. But is the clear cut thing is
you're pointing the index finger, you're not pointing
your middle finger, you're not pointing your pinky,
you're not pointing your left hand, you're not
pointing anything else. As long as you're kinda
clear that where you're what you're pointing and
where you're pointing and you're not pointing up,
you're not pointing sideways, the the difference of
opinion is actually very very small. What's you
know unanimous is it's the index finger, You're
pointing straightforward,
and whether there's some motion or not motion,
it's very very minor thing.
All the way up?
Perhaps maybe there's some opinion about a little
bit higher, but not too high.
So so yeah. There there are some there's
some difference of interpretation of understanding of how
you move your finger, but it's it's so
minor. It's so it's so tiny thing about
pointing your as long as you're pointing your
finger, that's what's important. Right? People make a
really,
a big, like, mountain out of this thing.
You know? So just be careful. Be cautious.
Don't grab anyone else's finger when you're in
the middle of prayer or something like that.
I've actually seen it. We were just talking
about it. I've actually seen it. Someone actually
goes and grabs another person's finger because they
think they're pointing the wrong way. Don't do
any of these things. Okay? There's acceptability.
If you see the guy, like, you know,
pointing his finger like this, then, yeah, you
can just put his hand back down. You
know? But, otherwise,
no. If he was pointing the left finger
or something, you can let him know it
should be the right fingers.
K.
Yeah.
So how are we supposed to know when
Zohar ends?
When Zohar ends,
you take well, for the easiest way is
to check check a calendar. Right? But if
you wanna do it manually,
take an object,
check the shadow of the object.
Right? And when the object shadow
actually equals the actual length of the object,
that's when you're hitting about Zara time, and
then you check the little shadow at noon,
which is very, very small. Very, very small.
So you this is for the ending of
Zohar prayer. So it's supposed to be
When a shadow when the when the object
shadow equals itself.
Yeah.
Two shadow lengths? Yeah. That's the Hanafi school.
That's that that's not really the Hanafi school.
It's Imam Abu Hanifa's opinion.
And his students,
almost all his students, differed with him, and
they went with the other opinion. Instead of
2 they say so some say 2 shadow
lengths, the other his students, and the majority
of scholars, they went with one shadow length.
Partner storm, new Keller.
Yeah.
The calendar that we use now,
I believe we recently changed to North American
calendar.
It's called ISNA calendar, but it's actually North
American calendar. ISNA had nothing to do with
it. And they disavowed themselves, so we had
nothing to do with it. So,
because all the other calendars use 18 degrees,
19 degrees, 19.5
degrees. Now that we check-in the summer, for
sure, for Ramadan, we use the 15 15
degree calendar. 15 degrees for Fajr, 15 degrees
for Asia, which is North American calculation. So
if you look on your app and you
go to settings, you see all these different
calculation methods.
One of them is North America. One of
them is Muslim World League. One of them
is University of Islamic Sciences, Karachi. One of
them is Egyptian Muslim General Authority, something like
that. And there's some other ones, Omar Khurram
in Mecca and all of that. So we
go with that one because that happens to
be in our region. But for the online
students, if there's any online students, you have
to check your own localities. If you're in
Canada, you might use a different degrees. Don't
use the exact same calendar. Check your your
own degrees for your area.
Yes.
Okay. So so once you're done with the
tashahood, when you're pointing your finger, do you
put your finger back down or you don't?
There's a difference of opinion. So if you
leave it up, it's fine. And if you
put it back down, it's also fine.
It's not that like, these are such little
minor differences. Whichever one you do, it's not
a big deal.
So when there's a, like, a 3 minute
difference in prayer schedules or something like that,
that's because when you go across a few
cities, the prayer time varies that many minutes.
So they're giving you a different timing.
So that's you follow the one in which
you are. So whichever whichever city you're living
in or whichever city you're praying in, you
follow those prayer times.
So the year round count are say the
same. So you you just make sure that
there were you make sure that your local
Masjid
was calculating
properly from their own location.
Some machines don't know how to calculate properly,
so they go on there and they put
in,
Los Angeles.
And they're actually in Southern Orange County. But
they just saw LA, so they clicked on
it, and they printed the calendar, and you're
quite a few minutes off. So they should
know kind of what they're doing. The reality
is not everyone necessarily knows what they're doing.
So if you know that they're doing it
wrong, you figure out what's right, put your
own calendar, and you follow that. If there's
some difference of opinion, you're gonna be praying
there. You let them know, and you go
ahead with, you know, what seems to be
okay.
There,
Sean. Ideally, there should be an app
which basically, when you open it, it tracks
your current location. And I'm sure there's one
of them. It it gives you automatic current
location and gives you your precise coordinates for
the prayer time. That's the best thing. So
there should be an app out there. I
haven't found it on on iPhone. But if
there's no app out there, here's a great
opportunity for a computer programmer
to do some service to the community.
It's exactly, it it relocates it every time
you open it?
Excellent.
Yeah. As an as an program. Okay. Then
I have the same thing then. Okay. Then
it works.
Fudger alarm. Yeah. It's awesome.
It will wake you up. That's yeah. That's
Fudger Alarm will wake.
My I scare my roommates.
Yeah. So machine syncing. Yeah. So for for
Fudger, especially people who have a problem waking
up, get one of those special alarms. There
are several types of alarms that if you're
a really deep sleeper, there are alarms where
it's like a little helicopter flies away and
you actually have to find it in the
room somewhere and put it back in the
alarm just to turn it off. There's another
one I I got online. It's like a
gun and a target comes up, and you
have to shoot the target 5 times, you
know, or turn the alarm off. That really
wakes you up.
That one really, really wakes you up. So
so yeah.
Okay.
Okay. There's an app called Never Miss Fudger.
Oh, nice. Before it turns off the alarm.
Nice. Nice. That's very that's that's very good.
Yeah. My friend actually implemented that, like, 10
years ago. Basically,
it gives you a phone call and it
keeps on calling you until you solve this
math math problem. So it says, like, 7
times 9+4
divided by 3. And you have to, like,
once you think about it, you're awake. Your
mind becomes awake, and now you're good to
go for the rest of the day.
So this is these these are all great
apps. So
you gotta be you gotta be careful because
some people outsmart the alarm. You know? So
this they know how to put a pillow
over it or they know how to, you
know, do something else with it, turn it
off, yeah, turn it off or do something
like that. So you gotta set up in
a way where you can't do anything else.
So
Any other,
questions?
Yeah. Yeah. Good question. So is there any
school actually which says while you're reciting Quran
and all of that, you actually leave your
hands folded down? And there actually is. So
there's, a group of Maliki scholars, among the
Maliki school of thought, which actually says you
keep your hands down. And there's difference within
their own school, but there is a legitimate
opinion like that. So you don't have to
worry too much about that. But there's no
one who says, you know, you put your
hands behind your back or on the side
or something like that.
Okay. So do you have the torso or
the
Yeah. I recommend you don't do that, because
it's a very minority opinion.
But, most say on the torso. But there's
a small group that actually does say hands
down, and it's it's pretty valid opinion.
Okay. So inshallah, make sure to do your
homework. How's the homework's going?
It's better. Getting better? How are the quizzes?
The exams?
Yeah?
Yes. Double me up. Okay. Good.
So it's getting better. And remember, go go
back now and,
check your answers.
Even though the correct answer is not given
to you anymore,
you can look at the wrong answer. Just
go back to the book and double check
and make sure, well, you know, why did
I get this wrong? Go back, double check,
read very carefully. And when you figure out
the right answer, it kinda sticks with you
because you put some effort into it. So
that's why we don't give you the right
answer. So just try and check it. And
if you if you absolutely cannot figure it
out, you've researched, you've checked, you've done everything,
and you're like, I just can't figure this
out, just ask the beginning of class, next
class, or you email me.