Tamara Gray – Tahajjud Waking Soul & Society #04 How to Pray Tahajjud

So how do you pray tahajjud?

How is it different than any other prayer? Well, first of all, let's

talk about timing. We know that Qiyam Al and tahajjud are kind of

interchangeable words, usually if you pray it after Aisha. So right

now we're talking about the time between salatul Aisha and salatul

Fajr. This is the night time between the nighttime prayer and

the morning prayer. Now if you pray before you sleep, we usually

call this qiama le and if you sleep and then wake up, we usually

call this tahajjud. How do you pray it? You've prayed salatul

Aisha, you've prayed your Sunnah raisha. And now, what if you're

going to pray amele, you can stand up and make intention for two

extra Raka, and you just pray two rakats. And then you can sleep, or

you can sleep after Aisha, or do do the dishes, or whatever you do,

and then you go to bed, wake up before Fajr. Now simplest, you can

wake up even 15 minutes before fashion and just make wudu and

pray to the qazam teud, and then you wait for the fajr prayer and

you pray. That's the simplest, that's the basic to the Kazakh

tehut. Now here we have also Salat al WITR. Okay, so wizard is our

very strong sunnah, and it's meant to be prayed at night. So the next

step we can say is we're going to wake up just a tiny bit earlier,

pray two rakaza, Sunnat, tahajjud, and then pray with her. Depending

on if you're praying at which madhhab you're praying, you're

going to pray all three rakats together, or two and then one. Now

what else can we do at night? Of course, first of all, there is

what has the Prophet Sallam told us about the numbers of Rakas to

pray at night? We have interest many different narrations that

talk about the number of Rakas. Abdullah bin Ahmed Allahu Anhu

tells us that the Prophet Sallam would pray 11 rakat. So that's

eight plus three, which is the eight three plus three, of which

eight being 2222,

Now mind you, the prayer of the Prophet sallam was not the prayer

of your regular Ahmad or Tala. It was a prayer that was long and

extended. So I we don't need to hold ourselves to eight. Rakaz,

what we need to think about is the time at night that we want to

pray. And I really want to emphasize thinking about habit

growing. So think about I'm going to do two records, I'm going to

start with two, then I'm going to do four, and then I'm going to do

six, and I'm going to do eight. Now maybe I'm doing eight. Maybe

now I want to expand each of these Rakas and make each one longer.

Maybe I'll just do four, but I'll make them longer, or maybe I'll do

something else. Here are a few ideas of things to do at night our

community. One of the things that our community is struggling with

is missed prayers. Many, many, many Muslims today, unfortunately,

have a lot of followed prayers that we have missed. One really

beautiful way to use the night is to make up your followed prayers

so to say, well, you know what? When I was 14, I should have been

praying, but I wasn't. When I was 15, I should have been praying

what I when I wasn't. I'm just going to do what I can to make up

these prayers. Now, for some people, they get really serious

about it. They print out a paper and they start marking off the

prayers so that they can reach a point where all these prayers are

made up. And they do it at night. That's a time when things are

quiet. You're if you're praying anyway, it's just easier, really,

to pray a full day of qudah rather than to the cast. But either way,

whatever you want to do, it is beneficial to pray at night. Now,

what should these Rakas look like when you are reciting Quran at

night? You recite the Quran out loud, you benefit from listening

to it yourself. Your recitation improves, and maybe you'll be like

one where the angels are coming down and listening to your

recitation. Now, of course, I know that not everyone's Quran

memorization is good enough to be able to do this at night. So in

the Shah reimath, you can set the musthave in front of you on you

can get a music stand, a cheap music stand from anywhere, really,

go to your local shop, better than those big online stores and buy

one, put it in front of you. Then you can get a musthave that is

bound with the spiral bound, a spiral bound must have that will

lay flat, or anyone that you that's big enough even an even a

tablet on a stand like that, and then it's right in front of you.

So you can pray a longer prayer. You can pray a whole page, or two

pages in that where you're slowly meditating in.

Thinking about these verses, listening to the verses as they

enter into your heart, and spending time and remember what

hola Farid Allahu Anhu told us about, the prayer of the Prophet.

Saw them that the standing was equal in time to the ROK was equal

in time to the sujood, to the movements of the prayer. Think

about that, especially at tahajjud. I know that when we're

busy in the day, sometimes our the whole prayer might be really

quick, oh, gotta run off to that meeting. Or maybe as you have to

go and cook dinner. Or maybe at Maghreb, you have bedtime things

going on with the children, or a Zoom meeting or something that's

nagging at you. But at night, even WhatsApp stops working well for

the most part, here is a time to have a balanced prayer to recite,

to settle in your qur, settle in your sujood. And one other really

important part of tahajjud is Doha. So we talked now about

recaten to the Kazu tu, dekaz. Tu, dekaz or or you can do kada yom, a

day of Kada. Or you can do any sort of special prayer. So I'm

just going to list some special prayers that you might be able to

think about. And I this is something fun. Make tahajjud

interesting for yourself. If you're a person who's not in love

with routine, do something different every night. One night

you can do one night, you can do eight rakaz. One night, do two

Rakas, reciting Surat bakaro, for example. One night, maybe you can

do salata sabia. Maybe one night you can do Salat al Hajja. If you

don't know what these are, you can look them up. You can Google them,

Alhamdulillah,

or look them up in your book.

The prayer at night is a time to really develop that relationship

with Allah. Spant, Allah, so having new things to do is a good

idea, but also take take note of the environment. Set up your

prayer place. The other day in my own house. I was doing some spring

cleaning, is actually with summer cleaning, but some summer

cleaning, and I was moving things around. And my daughter wasn't

home. She came home and she kind of looked at me with a panic.

Look, Mama, where's your prayer place? Because it wasn't I didn't

have one out at the at that moment, I said, don't worry. Don't

worry, I'm moving things over here, but get our children used to

seeing that there's a place in the house where we settle in our

prayer and also for yourself, is something about knowing where

you're going to go. Light a candle, spray some perfume in the

area, or incense, whatever it is that you like to bring beautiful

smells, make some cookies in the middle of the night. Make bring

some cinnamon rolls, and open it up so that smell is filling the

air. And make it a place of cleanliness. Make sure your prayer

clothes are clean. Make sure the prayer carpet is something easy to

sit on. If you are not able to do sujood you have knee issues or a

broken leg or something, then have a chair that's comfortable. Pay

attention to these things. Get the place ready, so that when you wake

up, your appointment, your meeting with your Lord, is prepared.

You're just beautifying yourself with Urdu, and you're going to

that prayer carpet. You begin with two light ricas, and you have

that, you do these two ricas and you they're very lightweight. That

means they're not very long. That's how the Prophet said, I'm

gonna do it. And then the next ones are longer. You've you've

warmed up, just like exercise, exercise of the heart, exercise of

the spirit, you've warmed up. And then you extend that, and then you

sit and make dua. And if you're a person who can't think about what

to make dua for, make notes during the day, and set that next to you

so that you can look at it. And remember to make dua for me.

Remember to make dua for our ummah. Remember to make dua for

your children, your family, for all of the people that you know

and don't know, the Allah pant Allah will guide, support, help,

cure, send His mercy down, forgive all of those that we love, those

that are close to us and those who are far and make tahajjud pray for

ourselves, that we make tahajjud a habit for us, that that prayer

becomes the thing we long for and Hope for and enjoy deeply. Allahu.

Salua, Salama, barakats, alhamdulillahi,