Day 18
Prayer is the secret to a happy and healthy life; in this world and the hereafter.
TL;DR:
The most important act of worship that we can do is as-salah, the prayer.
Studies have shown that prayer, if done properly, will lead to a healthier and happier life.
Prayer is a special audience with the Master of the Worlds. It is such a great honour to be invited to have a private time with the One who created us.
Our Quest today is to be present in our prayer.
The key to a good prayer starts with good wudhu’.
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Welcome to day 18 of Be Qur'anic where we take short passages from the Qur'an daily. We extract practical lessons from them, right into our daily lives, so that we can be more Qur'anic, Insha'Allah. Today, we continue our study of the third ayah of the longest Surah in the Qur'an,
Surat al-Baqarah. In this ayah, Allah explains the characteristics of the people of Taqwa. These are the people that are guided by the Qur'an as mentioned in ayah number two. Ayah number two is answering the dua'a that we made in Surat al-Fatiha: guide us through the straight path. And these straight paths are the paths of the people that Allah is pleased with. So now, these are the people, these are the characteristics of the people that Allah is pleased with. The first one that we explored yesterday: Yu'minunna Bil Ghaybi, faith in the unseen, which forms the foundation of everything that we do in this world. It shapes our worldview and motivates our actions. Now that we have this right worldview of believing in the unseen, believing in Allah, in Akhirah, in Jannah, in Jahannam, what do we do with this belief?
First and foremost, the most important action that we should take, step number one, is Yu'qimunna As-Salata, establishing our prayers. Allah did not say those people that pray, Allah specifically said they establish their prayers. Now, what's the difference between establishing prayers and simply praying?
Someone who establishes prayers means that prayer is central to his days, central to his life. His life and daily schedule revolve around prayer and not the other way around. A person of Taqwa organises his life around prayer times.
So, he doesn't take prayer lightly. Prayer is paramount in his life. The most important agenda in his calendar is his prayers. The word As-Salaam means connection. The idea of prayer is that this is our primary method of connecting to Allah.
The most important connection that we have with our Creator. The ultimate aim of prayer is the remembrance of Allah. This is the most powerful way to remember Allah. As Allah mentioned, Aqim-i-salaata li-dhikri, Allah commanded Prophet Musa A.S.
Establish your prayer to remember me. This remembrance of Allah through prayer is not just something that Muslims do. It is a practice of all the prophets. When the angels spoke to Prophet Zakaria to give him the glad tidings of the coming of Prophet Yahya, Fa nadaatul malaika, wa huwa yusallifil mihrab.
Angels found him in the state of prayer at his prayer niche. So, this praying, as-salah, is the foundation of our religious practice, of our spiritual practice. And for Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, prayer is his rest time.
When he is tired, he would call Bilal, ar-rihanayya Bilal, call the prayer, give us some rest, because he finds rest in prayer. Isn't that amazing? Now, how is prayer a rest? It's not a chore, because Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam realises that prayer is a time where you get a private audience with Allah, Rabbul-Alamin.
So, this is a private date between us and the Creator of heavens and earth. Imagine the honour of having the ability, the opportunity to meet the Creator of everything and talk to Him directly. And He responds to everything that we say.
He answers our prayer. What a beautiful gift from Allah. Something interesting that I read back in 2018, research done by psychologists from Harvard University. I always find it interesting, this intersection between science and religion.
Finally, when science catches up with what religion has been telling us, this is something about mental health and meditation. When you meditate for 20 minutes a day, you become happier and healthier. It caught my attention because what is meditation?
Meditation is to take a break from the hustle and bustle of worldly life and to centre yourself. And what is prayer? Prayer is to take a break from the hustle and bustle of your daily life and to centre yourself, but more powerful than that.
It's connecting to Allah, connecting to the Divine. And that 20 minutes, it caught my attention again. Because how many rak'ahs do we pray a day? We pray 17 rak'ahs a day. If you pray one minute and a bit per rak'ah, you easily fulfil that quota of 20 minutes a day.
We know that all acts of devotion, all our ibadah, we are doing it for our own benefit. We are not benefiting Allah. But it is interesting when we really see tangible evidence pointing to the benefits that we get from prayers.
If only we are focused in our prayers, if we have khushu' in our prayer. And then it dawned upon me the wisdom behind the arrangement of rak'ahs in prayer. Because I've always wondered why it is that we have to pray four rak'ahs in Dhuhur and Asar, the busiest time of our day.
And Allah tells us to pray the longest rak'ah, four and four. Fajr, in the morning, I've got all the time in the world, two rak'ah. What's the wisdom behind that? This is just my personal observation. Take it with a bottle of salt, but I think because Rasulullah SAW said that he finds rest in prayer.
And if we truly pray, we will find that rest. So we don't need that much rest in the morning, and we're still fresh. We do two rak'ah. As we start working, all the troubles at the office, all the mess that we have to sort out, come to the Dhuhr time.
It's already afternoon. We've already worked for many hours. Allah tells us, take a break, centre yourself, turn to Him, talk to Him. What are your problems? What are the challenges that you've been facing for this day?
Talk to Allah. You offload your problems to the Creator of Heavens and Earth. And then you continue working. And after that, Asar, time off, you clock out, you want to go home. Before you go home, you offload again to Allah.
You take some time so that you don't take the stress of work back home. Submit to Him all your problems. He is the only one that is able to solve all our problems. Allah also tells us, Inna Salatatanha anil fahshai wal-munkar, that Salat will stop you from doing evil things.
How can you do evil things if you truly pray? You start your day before anything, you pray two rak'ah. And after that, you've got a busy schedule, you start working, you don't have time to do haram things.
And then you take your Dhuhr break. Just before you think of doing something, you know that you're going to meet Allah at Dhuhr. You've got a date with Allah. So you're going to talk to Him. How can you do haram things in between that?
So you have that four rak'at date. And after that, you go back to work. How can you do something haram? Because you only have a few hours. You are going to meet Allah again. You talk to Him again. And after that, you've only got a short period.
You're going to meet Him again for Maghrib. And same with Isha. After that, you go to sleep. Our whole life revolves around prayer, talking to Allah. If we truly pray, we feel the presence of Allah in our prayers.
How can we do something haram in between those hours? It's just a short time. We don't have much time to sin. So Salah, if we practice it truly, not only will it make us happier, healthier, it will also protect us from doing haram things.
So our quest today, be present in our prayer. And the key to presence in prayers starts with wudu. Make sure that when we do our wudu, we do proper good wudu and we feel the presence when we are doing our wudu.
Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam says wudu cleanses us of our minor sins. So when we take our wudu, we wash our face, we ask that Allah would forgive all the sins that we've done with our eyes, with our mouth.
When every drop of water takes away our sins, the same when we wash our arms, we wipe our head. Make dua that Allah would forgive all the sins and every drop of water takes away the sins of our limbs and then we stand in prayer.
Feel the presence of the Divine that we are standing, having an audience with not the King of a country, not the King of the world, but the King of Kings, the Master, Rabbul-Alameen. When we sort our prayers, Allah will sort the rest of our lives.
This is the quest to be someone that establishes our prayers, not just in praying.