Hadiths

Salah

A while back I read an article written by sister Yasmin Mogahed and published in the Muslim Woman Magazine. It is so profound and will really make you think. Set aside a few minutes to read this because it's invaluable. (I've edited it slightly)
In the Prophets mission on earth every instruction, every commandment was sent down through Jibraeel (Alayhis Salaam). But there was one commandment that was not.

There was one commandment so important that rather than sending Jibraeel (Alayhis Salaam) down with it, Allah brought the Prophet up to Himself.
That commandment was Salaah.

The Prophet was first given the command to pray, it was to be 50 times a day. It was eventually reduced to five times a day with the reward of fifty. Scholars have explained that the incident of going from 50 to five was a deliberate one, intended to teach us the true place of Salaah in our lives.

Imagine for a moment actually praying 50 times a day. Would you be able to do anything else but pray?
No.

And that's the point.

What greater way than that to illustrate our life's true purpose? As if to say, salaah is our real life, all the rest that we fill our day with...just motions.
And yet, we live as if it's exactly the opposite. Salaah is something we squeeze into our day when we find time. Our lives don't revolve around salaah. Salaah revolves around salaah.

If we're in class salaah is an afterthought. If we're at the mall, the sale is more urgent. Something is seriously wrong when we put aside the very purpose of our existence in order to watch a soccer game.
And that is for those who even pray at all. There are those who not only put aside their lifes purpose, they have abandoned it completely. What we don't often realize about the abandonment of salaah is this: No scholar has ever held the opinion that stealing drinking or even taking drugs makes you a disbeliever. No scholar has ever claimed that murder makes you a disbeliever.

But about salaah some scholars have said that he who abandons it is no longer Muslim.
"The covenant between us and them is prayer, so if anyone abandons it, he has become a disbeliever" (Ahmad).
Imagine an act so bad that the Prophet would speak about it this way.

Consider for a moment what satan did wrong. He didn't refuse to believe in Allah. He refused to make one sajdah. Just one. Imagine all the sajdah's we refuse to make. Consider the seriousness of such a refusal, and yet how lightly we take the matter of salaah.

Salaah is the first thing we will be asked about yet it's the last thing on our minds. The Prophet (Sallallahu Alayhi Wasallam) said: " The first things that will be judged among a mans deeds on the day of Resuurection is the prayer. If this is in good order then he will succeed and prosper but if it is defective then he will fail and will be a loser" (Tirmidhi).
On that day the people of paradise will ask those who have entered hell fire why they have entered it. And the Quraan tells us exactly what their first response will be: "What led you into hell fire? They will say: we were not of those who prayed" (Quraan, 74:42-43).

How many of us will be among those who say: "we were not of those who prayed" or "we were not of those who prayed on time" or "we were not of those who made prayer any priority in our lives"?
Why is it that if we're in class or at work or fast asleep at the time of fajr and we need to use the bathroom, we make time for that? In fact the question almost sounds absurd. We don't even consider it an option not to. And even if we are taking the most important exam of our lives, when we need to go we need to go. Why? Because the potentially mortifying consequences of not going, makes it a non-option.

There are many people who say they don't have time to pray at work or school or while they're out. But how many have ever said they don't have time to go to the bathroom? How many of us just don't feel like getting up to use the bathroom and wet the bed instead? The truth is we'll get out of bed, or leave class or stop work to use the bathroom but not to pray.

It sounds comical but we put the needs of the body above the needs of our soul. We feed our bodies because if we didn't we'd die. But so many of us starve our souls, forgetting that if we are not praying our soul is dead. And ironically the body that we tend to is only temporary while the soul that we neglect is eternal.

Forwarded as received