Assalamu alaikum warahmatullahi ta'ala barakatuh everyone and good morning MashaAllah Thank you all for Taking time to seek knowledge and waking up on a early on a weekend To seek sacred knowledge as the messenger Allah sallallahu alaihi wa alihi wa sahbihi as-salam informed us That whoever goes out on a path seeking sacred knowledge Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala facilitates for them the path to paradise And that this religion is Built upon knowledge That without knowledge we don't have guidance and without guidance We're not able to Be successful and truly live In the way that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has commanded us to and that the messenger of Allah sallallahu alaihi wa sallam Has taught us to live so in order to accomplish that we need sacred knowledge so these gatherings and This time that we spend together inshallah ta'ala Is of the best time The best way that we can spend our time in this life InshaAllah in today's abridged seminar We're going to be looking at this really beautiful And profound book by Imam al-Ghazali From his Ihiya ulum ad-Din The revival of the religious sciences And this is book four Of the 40 books that Imam al-Ghazali authored as part of this collection The revival of the religious sciences And in this book he goes into An explanation and a description of the as-salah of the prayer teaching us And kind of giving us an overview in the book of the outward dimension of the asada As it relates to the validity of the asada and making sure that it's sound according to the outward Aspects and dimension But he focuses primarily And really gives us deeper insights into the meaning of the asada And the state that a person should have when praying So inshaAllah in today's seminar we'll have four sessions To Beginning with this session the merit of prayer And then the next session inshaAllah was sheikh yahya rodas will be on the inner states of prayer Imam al-Ghazali tells us that we should have these internal states Within the asada in order for us to truly be experiencing and benefiting from the prayer And then in session three inshaAllah ta'ala We're going to talk about reverence khushour Having this khushour and reverential awe And presence of heart in the asada And then finally with sheikh yahya in session four He will cover the inner meanings of prayer And that's going to be inshaAllah very valuable Imam al-Ghazali's His treatment of that This the the the state of heart that we should have when we hear the azaan When we're engaging in wudu When we begin the prayer and all of the movements of the prayer in the fatihah All of the Inner meanings that should be present in our heart through all of those various aspects of the asada So inshaAllah we ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala for tofiq And we ask Allah that he blesses our time together And that he really allows each and every one of us to walk away With greater presence of heart and a deeper appreciation and realization Of the asada which is the the pillar of this religion And the greatest means by which we draw closer to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala So inshaAllah we'll begin with the first session the merit Of the asada and we'll look at the merit of The azaan We'll look at the merit of the obligatory prayers And the congregational prayer And we'll look at the merit of prayer in the mosque And then finally the merit of sujud of prostration in this session ta'ala inshaAllah ta'ala So Imam al-Ghazali he begins his book with this really beautiful introduction Beginning in the name of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala Bismillah ar-Rahman ar-Rahim All praise belongs to Allah who has immersed his servants in his gentleness And who cultivated their hearts with the lights of this religion and the rituals of worship Who has in his generosity and mercy Come down from the throne of majesty To the lowest heaven In order to make himself To call out to his servants So he mentions here this hadith of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa alihi wa sahbiyasalam That at the end of every night and the last third of every night Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala He descends in his mercy and in giving people the opportunity to draw closer to him And he calls out every night Is there anyone making dua that I may answer them? Is there anyone seeking forgiveness so that I may forgive them? And that Imam al-Ghazali he has this beautiful description. He says look at how the kings of the world You have to sometimes pay a bribe just to get an opportunity to meet with them That there is all of this red tape It is extremely difficult to be in the presence and have access To the kings of the world But Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has opened the door and lifted the veil So that we can be close to him and call upon him and enter into his presence at any time So this is a really beautiful Imam al-Ghazali has this way of Showing us the the depth and the beauty of this opportunity And this is one of the first things that we have to take into consideration when we're learning about the Sada Is that it's not a burden We cannot look at the Sada like it's a burden Sometimes people say oh you have to get up very early and it seems like a lot praying five times a day But in reality, it's the dunya. That's quite heavy It's the world that we want to always have Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala's support And as the messenger of Allah sallallahu alaihi wa sallam He taught us that when he would ask Sayyidina Bilal radi Allahu anhu to make the adhan he would say Give us our comfort Through the adhan bring what brings us comfort by calling For the prayer So here Imam al-Ghazali is saying that this is from Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala's mercy and gentleness with us So he has made the prayers A way that they can draw close to him and be in his presence whether in congregation or whether a person is alone And not only that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala gave us that opportunity to be with him And then he also in his merciness in his mercy and gentleness He has actually made it He has encouraged us and invited us In addition, it's an obligation But Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala in addition to that he has invited us in a very gentle way And has called us to be with him So how exalted and glorified is he and how gentle and and beneficent Is he towards us subhanahu wa ta'ala? So then he begins the book with that That this is a great opportunity and a gift from Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala Then he has a breakdown of the book because this is an abridged seminar We're just going to focus on the topics That I had mentioned inshallah and Maybe in a in another opportunity will be able to go into more depth in the book But inshallah this will still be Very useful and beneficial So the first chapter is on the merit Of the various aspects of the prayer the prayer itself Prostration praying in congregation the adhan and so forth So he starts off with the adhan That anything whether it is the jinn or any human being or anything even inanimate objects in creation Whenever they hear someone call the adhan They will testify and bear witness to that on the day of resurrection So this is a really beautiful thing that whenever you call the adhan The trees the animals other people other jinn will testify on behalf of that individual and say I heard this person call the adhan So Imam al-Ghazali is telling us that the adhan Will be a proof for us when we meet Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala Allah ta'ala says in the noble Quran Who is better in speech in other words there is none better in speech Than the one who calls and invites to Allah And does righteous actions That some of the scholars of dafseed regarding that verse Some say that it's in relation to da'wah calling people and inviting people to Allah Other Mufassirin said this is specifically in regards to the mu'addin All right. This is the one who invites to Allah is the one who calls to the prayer Right. So this is the one who calls people to the salah That's one of the meanings of this aya the messenger of Allah sallallahu alayhi wa alayhi wa sallam also said If you hear the call to prayer then repeat what the mu'addin says This is a really beautiful and important sunnah That when we hear the adhan We should You know bring to a conclusion any conversations or pause the conversation that we're having and listen to the adhan and respond And when the mu'addin says, you know, we also say And we'll talk about the inner meanings of that what should come to our heart when we hear the adhan in session four And then when the mu'addin says Come to the prayer Our response there should be There's no power or ability saved by Allah Come to success Once again, we say That there is no power or ability saved by Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala And then after the mu'addin is done and we repeat all of the things that he says We should say this Oh lord, oh, wow, lord of this comprehensive Supplication And this prayer that is about to be established Give Sayyidina Muhammad the wasila and This specific rank that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala will grant him And an exalted and lofty rank And grant him the praise worthy station that you have promised him You do not you always fulfill your promise And this is the messenger of Allah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. He said who hears the adhan and responds and says this dua I will intercede for them So one of the ways that we seek the intercession of the prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam Is by responding to the adhan and also once it is completed to supplicate with this dua Qala Sayyid ibn al-musayyid. So this is not a a hadith, but it's related to something that was passed down in tradition He said man salla bi ardin phala whoever prays in kind of a barren or uninhabited area salla an yaminihi And when a person is traveling or out in the woods or in the middle of nowhere or camping or something of that nature And they pray even if they're alone There will be an angel praying to his right and to the left So then the the the statement continues So if a person's alone and they just pray There's two angels on either side praying with them But if the person calls the adhan and then calls the iqama There will be A multitude of angels like the mountains that will pray with that individual person If they call the adhan an iqama So this is once again an indication of the merit of the adhan It's not something to be taken like lightly. Now. I remember Habib Husayn al-saqaf May Allah preserve him who actually you know One of the beautiful memories in this message is actually being here with with him InshaAllah he comes back to america time and time again fi khayru afya He was saying that one of the indications of how quickly a person Will traverse over the slirat on the day of resurrection that they will go over the traverse over hellfire Is according to how quickly they respond to the adhan And he said another indication is how quickly they reject evil insinuations And and the insinuations of the nafs or wassawis Is the speed with which they reject those things that are displeasing to Allah is another indication of the speed Of how quickly they traverse over the slirat So when we hear the adhan, it's extremely important. We'll have questions inshaAllah at the end So This is one of the things that the adhan and then it's also Preparing for the salat That in order to have presence of heart and really Be in a state where you are Internalizing the meanings and the states of the prayer. It's not something that just when the Imam says allahu akbar and you enter into the prayer you're there But it's actually this gradual process that begins with the adhan that begins with making wudu And as we mentioned yesterday at lighthouse masjid that Sayyidina Ali Zayn and abidina radi allahu anhu When he would actually be making wudu his color would change And he would be turn yellow And they would say what is what's going on you look different you look pale Your color has changed and he would say to them after making wudu. He says do you know before whom I am about to stand So he would be present even in his wudu So all of these things help facilitate our presence in the salat Then imam al ghazali takes us to the merit of the obligatory prayers And allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says in the noble Quran That the prayer is at prescribed times for the believers And this is related to the obligatory prayers because those are the prescribed times The messenger of allah sallallahu alayhi wa alihi wa sallam teaching us The centrality after the shahada After the testimony of faith. There is nothing greater Than the salawat It is one of the it is central after the shahada It is the central pillar that holds everything up in our deen So he tells us There are five prayers that allah has made obligatory For the servants So whoever Establishes them The five prayers And does not lose any of or does not Leave aside any of its rights out of thinking little of the prayer Then that person has an oath with allah that he will enter him or her into paradise The person establishes the salat And does not you know, I'll pray it later or does not think that they're unimportant and they literally give their lives and That they construct their lives around the salawat That's what we have to do is not something that we fit into our day But really that the salawat are the pillars of our day and everything else is fit in around them And that we establish them properly and that we give time To learning the reality and the inner states and meanings of the salat This is this is the purpose of our life And whoever does that the prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam says that they have an oath with allah that he will Enter them into paradise. In other words, it's a guarantee from allah subhanahu wa ta'ala The hadith continues. So that's the case of the one who establishes them properly Wa man lam yati bihin And whoever does not pray these five prayers Faleesalahu aindallahi ahad He has no oath with allah. He has no covenant with allah subhanahu wa ta'ala Inasha'a adhabahu wa inasha'a adkhalahu al jannah If allah wills he will punish that person and if allah wills he can enter them into paradise This is an indication that they're muslim, but we don't even want to be in the situation of of danger We don't even want to risk it And as imam al ghazali is going to teach us inshallah ta'ala not only do we not want to risk it The prophet sallallahu alayhi wa aalihi wa sahbihi wa sallam, he said The most beloved thing that allah gave me and placed in my heart in the life of this world is the salah So that's an indication of All of the various degrees of nearness and the gifts and the blessings and the mercy And the openings that a person can receive through the salah And this is something the messenger of allah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam He established and you see that it saturated the souls of the sahaba You know, one of the things I always think about is that they didn't have alarm clocks So it's like, how do you get up for you know, not for them? It wasn't even a fajr. Fajr wasn't even an issue It was like liyamin laid Now they were getting up in the the middle of the night on a regular basis And they were praying and it's something that was instilled in their hearts of the reality of the salah Now that is the sahaba, but When we seek this type of knowledge and whoever is sincere with allah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam And puts forth an effort Those same treasures are open to us as well That's why even to this day you find people the the greatest thing in their life is the salah And as Sayyidina Umar ibn al-Khattab, radi allahu alayhi wa sallam Or it might even be attributed to others That if the the people of the world Sayyidina Umar radi allayhi wa sallam said one of the the reasons that I One of the only reasons that I love to remain in this world is And one of the reasons that he mentioned was the night prayer liyamin laid And other sallallahu alayhi wa sallam they said if the kings of the world the people who love luxury and they Vi with one another and compete with one another about the things of the dunya And they want to have all of these different experiences and In the the they think that they're joy They're trying to acquire as much of it as they can in the life of this world If they knew the joy that we experienced in liyamin laid They would try to take our lives in order to steal it from us if they could but they can't You know, this has a very special door that you have to go through and that door is abudiya Servitude to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and recognizing that this is far better than you know very superficial and fleeting worldly things The messenger of Allah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam the ahadith continue. This is one of my Favorite and it's it's often Uh, it's often referred to with regards to the salawat that he said sallallahu alayhi wa alayhi wa sallam Mather sallawat al-khamsi ka mathali nahrin Adbun ghamrin Beba be a hadikum yaktaahimu feehe kulla yoman khamsa marat The likeness of the prayer if you really want to understand the sada and what it does and some of the spiritual benefits within the sada It is like a sweet and uh, uh deep Uh river or stream that flows right at the door of one of your houses Imagine right before you walk out of your house and there's this beautiful clear Sweet cool stream That uh is right in front of your house and that that person He then swims or immerses himself in that river or that stream Five times every day Fema tarawna dhalika yubqii min darane Would you then see that that person has any Uh, any filth or anything that's unclean that remains on him if he's swimming in this river this very You know life giving and vibrant and beautiful river and he swims in it and immerses himself in it five times a day Would that person have any dirt? And obviously the answer is no So the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa alaihi wa sallam he said He says the five prayers they remove Sins the way that that water removes Filth and things that are unclean But one second this goes back to why we're studying this book and the importance of understanding this dean In the fullest sense and really seeking sacred knowledge that is uh comprehensive Of the outer and inner dimensions of these acts of ibadah Because allah subhanahu wa ta'ala he says in the quran So someone might say i know someone who prays regularly and so forth But why is it that uh, they they are not refraining from wrongdoing? and from vile actions And and oftentimes, you know, especially young people They'll notice that that there might be something that's not fully aligned That a person's actions and a person's state Do not really seem to be indicating the same thing And the ulema of the inner science of the heart they say that that's because allah subhanahu wa ta'ala in this verse is referring to the reality of the sallah It's not just standing up and going through the motions But the reality of the sallah is meant to be transformative That if someone enters into the presence of the king of kings subhanahu wa ta'ala Someone's heart is before allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and they are knocking at his door And they are witnessing him as one is meant to The sallah is transformative It's a it's a powerful experience. So it's not something that Is just meant to be outward And there were people even in the time of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa alaihi wa sallam And he said that they from these people you'll see in the future that you will find people who their sallah Will make you embarrassed about the state of your own prayer. They're outward sallah Their slyam will make you feel like you're falling short in your own slyam But it's Merely an outward reality because those people then start just like iblis may Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala protect us They start to think that they're better than others They start to think that they're better than other look at my sallah. Look at my slyam, but it's just an outward form If you had the reality of the sallah, you would it would humble you You would not look down on others You would realize and begin to witness Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala's blessings upon you and his mercy and you would desire good for others So it's not the outward form once again. It's a balance. It is both It is both It is both that the sharia. I remember hearing this from from sheikh. Yeah, I wrote it down that the sharia is like the outer shell And in order to get to the pearl inside you have to have the sharia You have to have the outward dimension of this need, but then the spiritual reality is the pearl inside So you need the shell to protect the pearl But we also we we want to get to the pearl We want the the the fruit the essence Of of that act of ibadah Of that act of ibadah now So here the prophet sallah is saying that these prayers they remove sins Just like if a person immerses himself in this River this flowing river and that they will be cleansed of all dirt and impurities And this is also further Further emphasized or supported by another hadith of the prophet sallallahu alayhi wa alayhi wa sallam Also narrated by imam muslim In the salawat al khams kafara kafaratun lima baynahun majtunibat al kabahir That the five daily prayers are expiation. They expiate they remove the sins that occur in between them As long as a person avoids major sins So this is an indication that this refers to the minor sins Right that the salawat They remove and they cleanse us of those sins The prophet sallallahu alayhi wa alayhi wa sallam He also said He said the difference between us and hypocrites Once again, it's really interesting And it's undeniable how the prophet sallallahu alayhi wa alayhi wa sallam He made the prayer and congregation and praying on time The the indication of the soundness of a person's imam And the lack of that in an indication of hypocrisy So he says that the difference between us and the hypocrites is Being present for the isha and subah prayer So atama is isha and subah is also referred to oftentimes as fajr But that those two prayers especially The that the hypocrites are not able to pray them So if we have a deficiency And especially those two prayers we have to make an effort To rectify that And the prophet sallallahu alayhi wa alayhi wa sallam also said in another hadith That That the most the heaviest the weightiest that weighs them down Prayers for the hypocrites is And then what did he say sallallahu alayhi wa sallam If they knew what Allah gives in those two prayers They would come to them even if they had to crawl Imagine someone can't even walk and all they can do is crawl if they knew what Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala Gives in those prayers if they had to crawl from their home to attend they would do so Of the the mercy and the blessings and the gifts and the veils that are removed from the hearts And many of the great sallalliheen we're going to get to the masajid shortly, but it's all interconnected They said that just they they received certain openings from Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala a presence of heart A greater degree of witnessing Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and his attributes and his blessings kind of you know Attaining higher levels of certitude They said we attained certain gifts from Allah related to that in the masajid That even if we were somewhere else and we strived very hard in ibadah We wouldn't have received the same portion that we got in the masjid Because there's something about the mercy that a person receives You know, particularly in those places that are dedicated to the worship of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala Or gatherings where people come together collectively to worship Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala Here the messenger of Allah sallallahu alaihi wa sallam imam al-ghazali is now Warning us of the danger of falling short So he says that the messenger of Allah sallallahu alaihi wa sallam says Whoever meets Allah and that person has lost the prayer That they have not established it that they have been totally neglectful of the prayer Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala cares not for any of his other good deeds The person meets Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala And they might have a lot of other good deeds, but if they have been neglectful Of the salah Allah cares not for those other hassanat He also said sallallahu alaihi wa alaihi wa sallam The prayer is the pillar of the religion Holds everything else up Whoever leaves it or is neglectful of it has destroyed his religion Everything else is going to fall apart. It's on a very very weak foundation without the salah One of the companions he asked the messenger of Allah sallallahu alaihi wa sallam What is the most beloved and meritorious action? What is the best action that's most beloved to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and he said The prayers in their prescribed times praying on time Some of the salihin the way that they And and this might sound like an oversimplification, but actually it's really beautiful if you think about it This really helps us prioritize what it's all about Some of the salihin they said our lives consist of Praying the five prayers and waiting to die and meet Allah It shows us what it's really about and everything else is secondary There are many other About that No We'll end with this one and then we'll move on to the next point inshallah ta'ala Sallallahu alaihi wa sallam whoever Neglects the prayer on purpose purposefully intentionally That person has absolved themselves from the protection of muhammad sallallahu alaihi wa sallam And from his community So this shows us this it's really Not something that we can Take lightly at all But after the shahadatain, this is the most important thing that we have to Establish and we have to Properly give Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala his due with what relates to this act of ibadah The next section is the merit of praying in jama'a and we touched on that a little bit But here imam al-ghazali gives us some a hadith related to that that the messenger of Allah sallallahu alaihi wa sallam He said salat al-jama'ati Tafdulu salat al-faddi That praying in congregation Is more is more superior to praying individually by 27 degrees Which can be understood as 27 times better than praying alone So if a person prayed for example Shall we pray salat al-duhur together if a person prays in jama'a salat al-duhur And they went and prayed it by themselves 27 times Then if they did it 27 times it might equal the salat al-duhur in jama'a So it shows that it is multiplied many many times over and that it's not something that we want to miss auran Or you know think lightly of oh, and i'll just pray by myself You know and even in our homes as families it should be a culture that we Cultivate in our homes that we pray together as a family You know that we we have these times and these Points where we come together and then praying together in the masjid, you know Especially for men is something that is Even an even greater emphasis and even greater reward There are many ahadith related to that One of the ahadith the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam. He said Man shahid al-ishaa faka anna maqama nasf al-dayi whoever is present for the isha prayer in congregation It is as if that person has prayed half of the night That's a beautiful gift from Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala That the person has prayed half the night and then if the person Shehidah and man shahidah subha faka anna maqama laylatan or qama layla kullu So and then whoever follows that up with praying salat al-fajr or salat al-subah In congregation that makes up the second half of the night and it's as if the person has prayed the entire night So a person can come pray salat al-ishaa go home and sleep all night And get up for salat al-fajr and pray salat al-fajr in jama'a and it's as if they prayed the entire night It's that uh meritorious and important You know There are many other ahadith related to that but even the ones that we covered before in the previous section related to the state of the muna fiqeen the hypocrites that's something that is Significant enough to inform us of the weightiness of salat al-ishaa and salat al-fajr, but also praying in jama'a And that the more we strive to pray in congregation and we commit ourselves to that and and Really are determined the the further away from hypocrisy We are insha'Allah and the more it's a testimony to the soundness and the trueness of a person's iman The last section that we'll look at is fa'ile to sujood the merit of sujood And this is a really beautiful section and there are many ahadith About this particular position in the salat So we looked at the adhan. We looked at the obligatory prayers We looked at praying in jama'a And then it's as if imam al-lazali is taking us deeper and deeper and highlighting the most important Aspects of the salat and within the salat there is something very distinct and unique about sujood And it also is the position that is the greatest representation of ubudiyya complete servitude And humbling oneself entirely Before one's lord and creator The messenger of Allah sallallahu alayhi wa alayhi wa sallam He said That a servant draws closer to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala Allah mighty and masjistic with nothing more meritorious. In other words, there's nothing Better in drawing closer to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala than A sujood a prostration that is hidden That's in private That you just maybe at home you have a particular area where you pray Maybe in your room or maybe in your if you have a musalla at home or a room that's dedicated for prayer Or even a small area that you dedicate for prayer and no one else is around And you engage in salat and you go into sujood Nobody else sees you that is the thing that brings you Closest to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and as imam al-junayt one of the greatest imams in islamic history That the the sayidul al-ta'ifa the imam of especially in in preserving The sciences of islamic spirituality and tasawwuf imam al-junayt after he passed away Someone saw him in a dream and they say what has Allah given you? What have you received? What did you find? After passing from this world and entering into the barzakh And he said all of the various Terminologies and different sort of Things that people kind of might compete with each other about or think that is so important and so significant He said all of that kind of dissipated and what I found that benefited me the most Is two rakhats that I would pray in the middle of the night That's what I found with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala It's one of the greatest imams. It doesn't mean that those other things aren't important But it goes to show if that's really what he's highlighting what he found with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala Then it's it's very valuable and weighty The prophet sallallahu alayhi wa alayhi wa sahbihi wa sallam was once asked and this is another one of these really kind of Central and foundational a hadith that one of the sahaba sayidna kaab Sayidna Rabi'a ibn kaab al-aslami radiallahu anhu He was serving the prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam and he brought him his wudu water And the messenger of Allah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam he asked him he said said he gave him the option He said ask for whatever you want And he said oh messenger of Allah I ask you for your companionship for your muraafa to be in your company and paradise And the prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam he said do you have any other request Sometimes the lover is tested Anything anything else and then he was mashallah. He said who was that that's it That's everything And the prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam he gave him the the way the formula in order to be granted that he said Assist me With your nefs and assist me over your nefs or in order to do that with what? With abundant sujood Through abundant sujood It becomes more accessible To be in the company of the prophet sallallahu alayhi wa alayhi wa sallam in paradise So if that was the only hadith about sujood, it would be enough That that's the way to be with the messenger of Allah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam in paradise Now the messenger of Allah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam also said Inna aqraba ma yaqunul abdu min Allahi ta'ala an yaquna saajidan This is a hadith narrated by imam musnam The closest a servant is to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is when he is prostrating or when she is prostrating That is the closest that a person is to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala And remember what imam al ghazali said at the beginning of the book that You know Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala in his gentleness and in his mercy He has made himself Accessible In a way that the kings of this world can never never make themselves accessible to people And that through his gentleness and mercy he has opened that door and removed the veil so that people can Be close to him and seek from him at any time And this is also the meaning of the verse of the Qur'an when Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says Allah describes the sahaba in the Qur'an And he describes the nur the light that emanates from their faces and he ties it subhanahu wa ta'ala to the sujud So he Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala could have said anything that they're the light that emanates from their faces from their zikr The light that emanates from their faces from their slyam the light that emanates from their faces from all of the various acts of ibadah Definitely illuminate one's heart But Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said They can be recognized from the effect from the impact of their sujud That that nur emanates from them from the impact of the sujud The prophet sallallahu alaihi wa alihi wa sahmi wa sallam His great-grandson His great-grandson the son of imam al-Hussain radiallahu anhu wa arda Sayyidina Ali Zayn al-Abedin ibn al-Hussain That he would That he would make sujud a thousand times a day That he would pray so abundantly that he would perform a thousand sujud a day Which is why he's known as zayn al-Abedin the ornament the beauty of the worshipers Because he because of his sujud And he's the the great-grandson of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa alihi wa sahmi wa sallam And they are the greatest exemplars and inheritors of the way of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa alihi wa sahmi wa sallam And then there are many stories that imam al-Ghazali then mentions Of the saliheen and we'll end with a few of them that kana yusuf ibn asbatin yakoon that yusuf ibn asbat He would say to Some of the the young people Yusuf ya ma'shar al-shabab Oh young people Badiroob al-sahati qabla al-maradi Fama baqia ahadun ahsuduhu illa rajulun yutimmu ruku'ahu wa sujuda He says, you know take advantage of your health Before your sickness because there is no one on the face of the earth that i envy and this is not a haram envy And this is zibt That i envy in this way that what the opportunity that they have that i wish that i had Except a person who is able to perform the ruku'u and sujud completely and perfectly That one of the ways that you show gratitude to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala for the the health and the ability to do so Is actually using that Health and that ability in ibadah in the ruku'u and in the sujud There might be some people for a health reason or if they get elderly that becomes more difficult So he would say to young people take advantage because the sweetness of sujuda is the only thing that I envy anyone in this world over that they're able to do that Wa qala iqbat ibn muslim another one of the pious predecessors He said maa min khaslatin fil abdi ahabbu ilallahi min rajulin yuhibbu liqaa Allah That the most beloved trait or characteristic that a servant has that is the most beloved to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is that that person Loves to meet Allah That is the most beloved thing and we ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala That he seals our lives that when we leave this world that he seals it with hussnul khatima a good end And that he gives us at that moment the greatest love and yearning to meet him Because the prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said whoever loves to meet Allah Allah loves to meet them So this is what he's referring to so that's the first part That the the moment the time the trait that's most beloved to Allah is loving to meet him And the time that the person is closest to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is when they prostrate into sujud And then finally that the closest a person is to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is when they are in sujud So abundantly supplicate when you are in sujud Ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala when you are in sujud to fulfill your needs and to give you what you are seeking Because that is the moment that you are closest to him We'll finish here Maybe we'll just take five minutes for questions and then we'll take a brief break And transition to session two inshallah ta'ala Ah, that's a very good question So if you're praying at home, it is always better to call the adhan yourself And even though, you know a recording or youtube, that's very nice According to what I understand from my teachers. That's not an actual replacement for the adhan So to actually call the adhan oneself is better Even if you're at home, even if you're alone Yes Yeah, please Mashallah, that's a very good question. So in the salah There are some slight Differences of opinion among the ulama Some ulama really emphasized that in the sujud you only say the du'as from the quran and the sunnah or that that's most highly emphasized Another thing is that because we're in the salah And the supplications and that that we should make those du'as in arabic So generally when we're in the salah We should stick to the du'as from the quran and from the sunnah and the du'as that we memorize That are in arabic and then outside of the salah and we're making general du'a That can be in any language and so forth but to preserve the validity of the salah That that that is a the better approach just to keep it from the quran and from the sunnah What one knows in arabic That's also the case for enough of the prayers as well About du'a in arabic in sujud Yeah, that's that's the case for You can make it in another language in your heart, but whatever you verbally say in al-sala it should be in arabic. Yes Masha'Allah Masha'Allah beautiful two very good questions So al-salaatul lima wa al-qitihah that hadith indicates the prescribed times There's another hadith that talks about the merit of praying in the earlier time Over the end of the prescribed time. So there's obviously a window But the that praying at the beginning of the time Is superior to praying at the end of the time So generally speaking in addition to praying in those times That there is an added fadal an added merit Of bringing the sada and praying it in the earlier times. So then his second question was You know praying in jama'a should I pray at home with my wife? For example, there's no one else for her to pray with or should I pray in jama'a at the masjid I actually thought about that for a while and then I heard one of our teachers say something beautiful He said that many of the slaniheen out of their concern and their Their commitment to praying in jama'a in the masjid Is that they would pray at home with their families and then pray in jama'a at the masjid as well So that's a way where you can You know also pray in jama'a with with your your wife and your family And then in addition to that the higher road is also to pray in jama'a at the masjid to repeat it with with the jama'a In the masjid So, uh, I thought that was the only the most comprehensive answer that that I came across I wanted to share with you anything from the sisters will take one question. Yes No, no, no Yeah Yeah, masha'Allah. So sisters calling the adhan That's that's not the case for sisters. So thank you for asking that. It's it's for it's encouraged for men to do so And then for sisters praying in congregation I know that among the the great imams of the madahab there are differences of opinion Regarding, you know, if a sister can lead other sisters in jama'a And I would just tell people encourage them to study according to One of the the four schools and follow Whatever, you know, they're that that school the position of that school And there's flexibility with regards to that. Ah, masha'Allah masha'Allah Now so so once again, so this is something where a person has to try to Really do the best that they can according with their particular Circumstances and their own kind of state. So the question is, you know If it applies to sisters to also pray in congregation and at the masjid and so forth the prophecy said didn't prevent that But he also encouraged and said that it's better for women to pray at home if they so wish so it is better But if they would like to pray, let's say for example, sometimes I have no one at home I'm feeling when I'm in the masjid. I'm with the community that really helps me stay motivated And if I'm at home, maybe I'm going to be affected by laziness or other things So then a person can really choose based on their own circumstances Um, but we recognize that the messenger of Allah, so I said I'm said it's better to pray at home But there were sahabiya to prayed in the masjid. So there's room. There's flexibility there Jazakum Allahu khayran Alhamdulillah, thank Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala for bringing us together To study meanings of our religion that are of the utmost importance And no matter how much it is that we study about the salah about the prayer It is of the utmost utmost importance that we review regularly And that we always remind ourselves because essentially as we've been hearing In the first session is that prayer is the single most important thing of all of the religious life And it is the touchstone Of our relationship with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala It is that standard is that measure whereby which we know Whether or not we are close to Allah We know our relationship to Allah through the prayer And not only in terms of how serious that we take it outwardly And the degree to which that we make it a priority but also internally How we are in our prayer This is the touchstone Whereby which we can determine our relationship with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala And the other aspect of this is prayer is life Prayer is life And as Amjad mentioned the narration of one of the Sadaf that life essentially is praying five times a day and waiting to die There's a lot of truth in that Because fasting okay that we're fasting obligatorily only once a year for the month of Ramadan And whatever super-arbitrary fast that we do Hajj and Umrah we might make that once in our life or maybe a couple other times Zakat that we give that once a year if we are above the Nisab or Zakatable amount but prayer we're doing every single day Every single day and one of the great benefits Of hearing the various ayat Verses from the Quran and the ahadith Statements of our Prophet s.a.w. in the reports of the Sadaf the righteous forebears Is that it encourages us To do what it is that we hear We hear about the merit of a particular act of worship and it motivates us as believers And again, we might have heard those same ahadith many times But we need to hear those regularly And for this reason a book like Ure Al-Sadiheen the gardens of the righteous of Imannawi Which includes so many great Statements of our Prophet s.a.w. Of course, he begins almost every chapter with verses from the Quran Of the various types of acts of worship that we have in our religious life This is a book that we should begin and read and start again And read and start again and read and start again and read And this is one of the very best books of all that we can read with our families on a regular basis And you might want to have a copy of it right where the place that you pray as a family at home And what was said that mentioned as said that mentioned is very important Is that we should dedicate a place for prayer in our home And all of us know especially if you have kids How there might be for any given prayer three or four or five jamaahs And kids are praying quickly want to get back outside Or kids say that they have homework or they have work to do or whatever else and We want to have one congregational prayer And have a set time for it And if you can what I would do is to try to mirror the times with your local masjid So if prayer is at 130 at mcc try to pray at 130 at home if possible And if you know for some reason that you have to push it back a little bit for various reasons Have it be calculated. Don't just be like, okay, I'll pray in some time But if you know in your mind, okay, I can't pray right at 130 because whatever something ends at 130 But I'm going to pray at 145 You're cooking your household chores everything else You want to revolve around that make that a priority And you will find immense immense blessings in your life So we're all in need of these reminders and this book Of the ahia al-lumidin it's book four And the ahia al-lumidin of course Is a incredibly important work that's encyclopedic in nature There's 40 volumes 40 books This is book four and it's one of the longest But in these sessions, we're going to be focusing On the inner dimension And how to attain excellence in prayer And the nature of the ahia al-lumidin is such The thrust of it is what is called el tarif al-akhirah The science of the way to the hereafter And this is something that every muslim needs This is just as relevant right now in this moment 900 plus years after imam al-zadi as it was in his time Just as it was relevant to the centuries before him because in imam al-zadi's articulation of what is known as el tarif al-akhirah The science of the path of the hereafter He coined this term To indicate what was the reality of the salaf what was the reality of those early generations What was the reality of the life of the sahaba what was the reality of the life of the tadbi'in those who came before what was their reality imam al-zadi coined this term to point to that And it's a very that far-reaching term that essentially Indicates everything that someone needs to prepare for the meeting with Allah Everything that someone needs to prepare for the meeting with Allah And so you have the idea of el which is knowledge but here I like to translate that as science Because here science indicates that something is systematic and this is imam al-zadi is an incredibly systematic thinker And then you have tariq which is the idea of traveling a path So there's an internal motion of the heart where you can't just stand still You have to struggle you have to strive you have to do your best to draw near to Allah And then they ask you to ultimately this is about the hereafter Ultimately, this is about the hereafter And subhanAllah when we give prayer It's the importance that we should in our life When we return to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala There will be nothing greater in our scales Than the time that we spent praying for his sake subhanahu wa ta'ala And the more we give preference to prayer the more that We will then prepare ourselves to meet Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala in a good state and when Ostef Mj was concluding his session And this is a story to encourage us all People that preserve their prayer in life are preserved by their prayer in the hereafter And someone had just told us a story yesterday about someone who many of these people in this community might know And that he had mentioned That as a part of his advanced directives when he was admitted into the hospital That if it reached a state where he could no longer pray Then let him go If you can't pray let him go And They mentioned that and there was Other asked dimensions of the story But they mentioned is that after that they That took him off the medication and that he was preparing To meet his lord one of the last things that he did And he wasn't fully conscious. It was that he took his hands like this and then folded them over And then shortly after that we're talking to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala This is someone in our time This is not someone who lived 1400 years ago 500 years ago 300 years ago And so that these stories are there Uh to remind us subhanallah There are people in our time too that are validated by Allah And one of the greatest ways to be validated by Allah to be accepted by Allah Is to take your prayer seriously And so this is why we wanted to review these meanings First and foremost for our own selves and with all of you To remind ourselves of how it is that we can attain excellence in prayer So in this session we are going to be focusing on the inner states of prayer And everyone should have the outline and they're listed there for you And Imam Rosadi that says Essentially Is that you will find many people speaking about the internal states of the prayer but In a very characteristically imama rizadi rizadi in type way He wants us to understand each one of them With the utmost clarity And so he lists them and then he'll explain each one of them briefly And then talk about how it is that we can attain that in our prayer So what are the six inner states of prayer that we want to be them? First of all, you have Which is translated as presence of heart Secondly you have Thirdly you have exaltation taalim and then all heiba Hope or rajah And then hayat translated here a shame And it could also equally be translated as modesty and so These six inner states of prayer Are what we want to be there throughout the prayer And so it's not that all six of these are in every single moment of the prayer We are going back and forth between each of these states And so he begins with hudur al qalb And he says what does it mean to have presence of heart? And he says Is that you free up the heart From anything other Than the position that it's in in the prayer and what it is That someone is saying So the essence of presence of heart Is that you are aware of what you are doing and what you are saying at every station in the prayer So in other words is that the bodily movements of prayer there's deep secrets in all of them The prayer itself is combining the worship of the melaika of the angels And there are angels who are just standing before a law There are angels that aren't just bowing before a law There are angels that are just prostrating before a law And all of the different ways that the angels aren't glorifying a law and all of the different supplications and invocations that we're saying in the prayer represent essentially the Worship of the angels collectively What a blessing And so that to understand that in each position there are Special etiquettes that we have There's a wisdom why we don't recite the Quran in the bowing position or in sujood Quran is for the standing position That in the bowing position there's a particular invocation that is befitting for that And likewise in prostration So being aware of the etiquettes of standing that we're standing before a law being aware when we're bowing Being aware when we're in prostration When we go back into the sitting position, which is known as either the iftarash or the towadruk position And there's difference of opinion about whether you put the left part of your rear on the ground or on the back part of your The inner part of your left foot Is that regardless it's a position of respect and we're putting our right foot like this with our toes This is a position of utmost respect And this is not a position that people normally sit in If we sit when we're sitting cross-legged or we might sit like on our two legs, but we don't put up our right foot like that So this is a position of adab and respect And when we honor those positions and we're aware of them Deeply in our hearts the prayer starts to change and come to life And then when we combine to that What it is that we are saying We all have to learn what it is what we're saying in our prayers Even if we've just converted fairly recently Even if we don't know very much arabic we have to learn through translation And we have to learn those meanings so at the various stages in our prayer We can be aware of both what we're doing in the moment as well as what it is that we are saying And so the essence of Presence of heart is that we're focusing on those two dimensions At the same time at every position in our prayer and we don't allow our figure our thoughts to Stray to think about other things So this is the first The second is what is called tathahum. This is simply translated as understanding although This form in the arabic language the form of tathahum Indicates is that one strives to understand what is that they're saying? Okay, and given that our mind does stray. It's very easy for our thoughts to start roaming So tathahum is the process of forcing yourself challenging yourself struggling with yourself to have fahma To have understanding of what it is that you are doing in the moment And imam al-zadi says is that this is clearly A separate meaning to presence of heart because someone's heart could be present But they might not actually be reflecting deeply upon what it is that they're saying And he says is that we have them a calm yet tathawa to nasfi People have various degrees when it comes to this And that understanding the meanings of what are being recited You could have two people saying the exact same thing but their understandings that are very different Someone understands it in a very basic way others in a much more in-depth way So if someone's saying subhanallah And at a very basic level they understand that you're glorifying Allah But someone is saying that with a higher degree of certitude with a higher degree of knowledge of Allah Both are saying subhanallah But one qualitatively speaking is much heavier in the scales Because of the degree of their certitude and what it is that they witness as a believer And so we start with the basic levels understand when we say Subhanallah when we say the various invocations associated with the prayer is that We learn the meanings behind them And Imam al-Muazzari says here Is it how many people in prayer And this is of course especially for people that are attempting to concentrate in their prayers Understand very subtle meanings They come to them in their prayers that they had never actually thought about before And so because that this is the greatest thing that one can do The very best of things you can possibly do is to pray in its time And especially in the preferred times in the preferred manner If possible in a message in congregation and so forth This is the very best of Ahmad And this is something throughout history and this is we some we have to understand all of this The greatest scholars that have ever walked the face of this earth that made the contributions that we are still benefiting from to this day And you could just start listing their names from the earliest period until now You could say very comfortably That almost all of them were praying All of their five daily prayers in congregation at the beginning of the time for their whole life That was a given And so still to this day you go into the Muslim world The true ulama do not delay their prayers They don't This is the way they are the prayer is the single most important thing in their life And it's essential for their academic and scholarly pursuits And it's very easy to think that when you that start reading that when you are studying when you that Okay, I'm just going to postpone the prayer a little bit This wasn't to understand the people before us who made the greatest scholarly contributions in human history Is that prayer was pivotal in their lives everything revolved around them And so they were all and of course they were in societies that facilitated this There were plenty of massaged and mosques for them to attend that were that close to them and so forth It was something that you do you stop Right and then you go and you have a shot on actually specifically mentions this He says that if you're reading a book and the adhan goes off And you think that you're going to attain more by continuing to read As opposed to respond to the adhan. He says that you haven't understood adab before Allah Nothing is more important in the moment that you're in In learning that and this is unfortunately why that if we neglect these etiquettes knowledge can become avail And this is one of the very dangerous things of all when knowledge becomes avail And this is the case with religious knowledge. So what about then? secular or worldly knowledge? even more so So we want to make this a priority And again, we have challenges in our time But with a little bit of thought and a little bit of commitment You'd be surprised the very small changes that you can make that will dramatically that change our relationship to the prayer So he's saying that prayer is this time that we spend Where if we're going to receive inspiration from Allah, this is one of the most likely times for us to receive it And he says women had it which Canada saw nahi it in an elf a shy one one car We heard us that I'm going to quote the verse in the Quran And sort of ankle boots after a lot to add a commands us to establish the prayer Well, I came a salad Establish the prayer in the salata turn and it's a shame or munkar that indeed that prayer deters It prevents fashion Which is all forms of indecency and munkar Which is wrong action. What I think we're all lawy Akbar and the remembrance of Allah is even greater Indicating to is it? Yes, you have the prayer But then it's the remembrance of Allah that we have inside the prayer in Outside of the prayer will law who you I don't want to snow And Allah knows everything that it is that you do And so there's something about prayer Is it by Spending time devoting yourself to Allah in those few moments You develop a resistance That carries over outside of the prayer that helps you live the religious life Just like in Ramadan when you devote yourself to Allah in that special month Is that there's a blessing That carries over after the month of Ramadan that gets you through the whole year And were you not to fast the month of Ramadan? And of course if someone has an excuse the father of Allah is was it Is bounty is immense and great were you to have fasted if you could have But the month of Ramadan Is extremely mubarak even if you're not fasting there are so many different things That you can draw near to Allah ta'ala through in that blessed month that month gets you through the year And you don't always feel it because it's not something that we perceive. It's so incredibly subtle But were someone not to have fasted the any out of choice You would have seen the difference in your life So Allah ta'ala has given us these opportunities And just as for instance that if you remember Allah ta'ala a little bit in the morning In a little bit in the evening Ya kfika ma bainuhumah He will suffice you for the times that are between them And we heard the hadith in the previous session about praying fajr and congregation and ishah in congregation As if you've prayed half or then if you do both the entire night And then another narration is that Asbaha fi dhimmetillah Baata fi dhimmetillah You were under the protection of Allah To the extent that hajj even though that he murdered a lot of people Is that he would ask Before that he took someone's life did he pray in congregation? And even though he was doing something wrong He didn't want to harm someone You think that it would Make more sense than that but this is his but they've mentioned he would ask if they had prayed fajr and congregation Because he didn't want to touch someone who was under the protection of Allah subhanAllah And that's like the story of the brigand who was robbing a caravan and I think it was in ibn haiman at him if i'm not mistaken one of the sadaheen That someone took some and there was some juice that in someone's saddle And they mentioned it to the head brigand that Uh, he asked and he says do you want some juice? He says i'm fasting And so this righteous man looks at him like you're robbing a caravan like you're fasting And he said that I wanted to leave a door Between me and Allah to open a little I wanted to leave at least one door Between Allah and I open he's robbing a caravan But he's fasting And the meaning here is really deep though Because there's a lot of people that just caught up in certain things They just find difficulty in Leaving certain things and sometimes we as a community Will not encourage them to do the good that they do they can still do Right And so years later this pious man is in front of the caravan and shut off And then he looks over and he sees the brigand Making towaf He says he says you and he said that I left the door open between Allah and he accepted me And he let me in And this is why I never make anyone despair And if someone's doing 99 one things wrong just encourage them to do one thing right Just encourage them to do the smallest little thing The tiniest little thing and you never know especially in our time Given how difficult things are is that that could be the door for them too Turn to Allah to barakah wa ta'ala So we have hadura qalb Which is presence of heart you're focusing on what you're saying and what you're doing Throughout your prayer then you have to fahm Which specifically is not only do you have presence of heart, but you are striving to understand the meaning About what it is that you are saying And then the third interstate Is what is called ta'alaim This is a very important word. I usually like to try to translate as exaltation It can also be translated as magnification There are different ways that you could translate this word, but I like exaltation And this is a meaning that is beyond both presence of heart and understanding He said because you could speak to someone he almost always gives us Metaphors to understand things he says you could speak to someone But you might not have ta'alaim in your heart for the person that you're speaking to You might not be honoring them or exalting them And it's important to say here is that one of the most fundamental principles of the religion Is to do what is called and to all the ma'allam Allah Is that we exalt what Allah has exalted? So we have to differentiate here between ta'alaim and ibadah. There's a difference When it comes to Allah, we exalt him and we worship him When it comes to his creation We exalt what he has told us to exalt, but we don't worship it So we exalt the Kaaba. We don't worship it. We exalt the masjid But we don't worship it. We exalt Sayyidina Muhammad sallallahu alayhi sallam, but of course we don't worship him So there's a difference between worship Which is in addition to exaltation that you are that worshiping the one worshiped But exaltation is that state of heart that relates to respect that relates to honoring And the meanings of exaltation is that there are certain things that you don't do because the sanctity of what it is that you're exalting There's certain things you don't do in front of the Kaaba There's certain things that you don't do to Your parents there's certain things you don't say to your parents or certain things you don't do a masjid is not a place for dunyui talk A masjid is not a place for buying and selling A masjid is not a place for that political discourse That the masjid is the place to connect you to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala And yes that in sermons and in classes if you want to to have clarity on certain matters That yes that part of knowledge is to clarify But a masjid is a place to connect you to Allah primarily And there are certain things that shouldn't be done in the masjid. They have to be done outside the masjid And so forth and so on. So ta'al deen Is beyond presence of heart and understanding. It's where even though we are doing something in the position before Allah And we are saying various things. We're in a state of munajah and of intimate conversation. There's also ta'al deen Is that we are exalting Allah to barakatana and When we're in the bowing position, of course, we're saying subhanahu wa ta'ala That glory Be to my lord the al-deen The great And think about every time that we say Allahu akbar. Allahu akbar Is that ta'al deen? Who are we standing before? We remember that story that Osat Mjad told us about Sayyidina Adi Zayn and Abideen, the great grandson of our prophet Sayyidin He was preparing himself to stand before Allah And the more we prepare while we're making wudu The more that we'll be prepared when we say that initial taqabiyah We want to start preparing from the time of wudu Is that we are now washing ourselves And putting water on our body to cleanse ourselves and purify ourselves outwardly And then more importantly inrally to stand before Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala And ultimately it is only the purified who will be given access to the quran Is that outwardly you have to be in a state of wudu to hold the musaf But in order to access its meanings You have to have a pure heart And this is what pure this is what purification does And our prophet told us about wudu is that when you perform wudu Is that your sins leave your body Until that they come out of your fingernails And there are some of the priests and they actually mentioned this. Imam Shahrani mentions this about Imam Abu Hanifa Is that he used to have the ability to look at water that people made wudu from And he could see the traces of sin in the water Because it washes it off And that's that you don't want to see people sins And think about how hard it is to maintain a good opinion of someone if you see them do some form of abomination And so imagine that being aware of that for others they could smell the stench the filthy stench Of sin because we know through prophetic narration Is that uh that someone will say a ketab, a lie And that the angels will that move away from that person that a mile or some Large distance because of the foulness of the stench of that particular that sin that was committed something some lie that they said So the nature of disobedience is that it stinks There's a huge stench to it now. We always don't smell it But as we become more spiritually aware and in tune is that This is something that some people are afflicted with So ta'udin is to exalt So we have presence of heart We have a focusing on the understanding what it is that we're saying and as we're saying that we have ta'udin And then there's an additional meaning that is even beyond that And this is what he calls heibah Heiba we've translated here as all but really Imam al-Azadi speaks of it here as closer to fear So really what it is is It is a hof mensha'u wa ta'udin It is a type of fear that comes from our exaltation Of whatever it is that we are exalting And so naturally If we are if something is truly great There's a fear that someone might have There's a fear that someone might have And that fear is related to having bad adab bad etiquette In relation to the greatness of the sanctity of what it is that we are exalting So that in a sense that having ta'udin for a masjid and exalting it A masjid is a masjid even if this was previously a business park in some office space Is it now that it has become a waqf and ultimately then it belongs to Allah it doesn't belong to anyone in the community You have a board of trustees and executive community who are running it But anything that has become a waqf belongs to Allah And it has a special nisbah And a special affiliation as a result Once it is turned into a masjid so it requires ta'udin And then as a result there has to be hof there has to be a bit of fear Because if someone falls short in their adab and their etiquette in relation to that which must be exalted They could get themselves in trouble And that it could that prevent them from drawing near to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala So hayba is a type of awe that comes from fear and or you could call it reverential fear if you want And that just as you would and he uses regularly the example Of a king but he he juxtaposes for instance the type of fear that we would have From like an akhrab he mentions scorpion Right we fear scorpions because of the pain that it might inflict that if it stings us But we're not in awe of the scorpion We fear the scorpion But he mentions the example of the sultan a very powerful king You are in awe of them, but you also fear because you know that they could that do something to you So this awe is beyond ta'udin it's beyond exaltation And then we have two other meanings Presence of heart understanding exaltation awe then we have hope Raja And this is clearly something else And so he again goes back to the example of the king is that you have these people and again, we don't In our context, it's very different The only way we really know we still kind of understand these metaphors because we see movies And we see examples of people actually You know in movies going into the presence of a king and so forth So we understand the concept and the purpose here is a that a pedagogical tool to help us understand the meaning And that you might fear That's a king But at the same time You might or might not have hope that they're going to actually do something good for you or at least not harm you When it comes to a lot of water go to Allah We have ta'udin for him. We have heba of him But we also have hope And just think about the beauty of this meaning Is that everything else that we fear we run away from But our fear of Allah causes us to run towards him In no anthropomorphic way Everything else you fear you want to avoid But Allah, there's no escape. Allah, men ja, what happened? There is no refuge and there is no safety from you except to you SubhanAllah That we seek refuge in his ridah from his sahab In his contentment from his displeasure And in his mo'afah from his iquba And from the in his granting us well-being from him punishing us. Why would there be coming? We seek refuge in you from you SubhanAllah And so Allah we turn to him SubhanAllah and There's no greater manifestation of that meaning That on the yawm al qiyamah When everybody will be standing before Allah And this is the day of justice This is the day where all wrongs are righted And the only one that can speak Is Rasulullah No one else can speak on that day except Sayyidina Muhammad And then because of the way he addresses Allah And how it is that he He knows how to speak so that Allah to add his mercy will then unfold And he says these beautiful incredible ways of Muhammad of praising Allah And then that he's told Intercede and you'll be granted intercession These are the type of qulub that you and I need These are the types of hearts that we need Especially in a time where look at how much fa-sat How much that wrong there is in the world And what people are doing Look at the state of the world And look at the oppression that's happening in the world And look at it was happening to so many of our muslim countries And just you could start listing unfortunately country after country We need hearts that That know how to be that are means for the mercy of Allah to descend To come down These are the type of hearts that we need And these are the type of hearts that have these meanings The hearts of course present They understand what is at their reciting But they have taught lean for Allah to barak wa ta'ala They have haiba of Allah ta'ala But despite all of that they have hope They have hope Because Allah wants his servant to have hope And he wants his servant to have hope in him And our hope is in Allah Our hope is in Allah Not in our own abilities, in our own power or anything Our hope is in Allah And if he manifests that any of his names That of beauty Is that that situation that outwardly we think that we've almost given up on or That on the verge of despair will completely change Instantaneously Qulayyum Hu if he shat in subhanu wa ta'ala He does whatever he wants to do He raises and he lowers He's the nafah and the law He's the one who benefits and he's the one who harms And everything is totally 100% in his control Even if people of dunya think that they're in charge And think that they can manipulate the world through technology Allah is in charge They're not in charge Then he might let them do a little bit But in the end he's in charge And just look at all the stories of the prophets In the end all of them were granted victory by Allah Even that it seemed like it was grim And it seemed like the other side was going to win In the end the prophets always win Because Allah grants them victory And in the end this is the state of the umma of our prophet Sallallahu alaihi sallam Despite now the state of Muslims And even the wealthiest Muslim countries That like in the Khalid for instance Combined they don't have a GDP like a smaller country in Europe Just look at the state of poverty In Muslim countries all throughout the world And what seems to be our powerlessness We in front of these technologically advanced countries With very powerful militaries That seemingly can do whatever it is that they want to do with us In the end this is Allah's affair And all of this could shift in any given moment The most important thing is that you and I learn how to be We need hearts that know how to be means for To bring about Allah s.w.t. his mercy to his creation This is how you and I need to be And part of this relates to hope Having hope in Allah tabarak wa ta'ala And then the last meaning that he speaks about Is hayat And translated here as shame And of course shame is one of these words that we have to be very careful with There are certain meanings that is used in a modern psychological context That we don't connect to a religious meaning But here this idea of being embarrassed before Allah Because of what you've done And that's the meaning here of shame Is that where we've done things Where we realize we shouldn't have done them Forget about the cultural context And being shamed in a cultural context That's not what we're talking about here Just put all that aside This is shame before Allah Where you've done something shameful You've done something reprehensible You've done something blameworthy Before Allah tabarak wa ta'ala You've fallen short And that is a very powerful meaning that we all have to have And it relates very closely to another meaning of the heart Which is called inqisar Brokenness before Allah s.w.t And so when we combine these six meanings in prayer This is what's going to give life to the prayer These meanings are the ru'ah as-salah This is the spirit of the prayer This is the life of the prayer This is to the degree that we have these meanings Will be to the degree which our prayer Ways heavily in the scales The more we have the presence of these meanings in our prayer The heavier that single prayer will be in the scales And again you could have two people do all of the same things Same things outwardly But to the degree that one person or the other does or does not Connect to these meanings will be to the degree which their prayer is accepted And heavy in the scales So then what Imam al-Zadi does He talks about them in a little bit more detail About how it is that we can acquire these meanings And this is really really important So he starts of course with The interstate of presence of heart And Imam al-Zadi is very precise He says The cause that will lead us to have presence of heart and prayer Is our himma What is our aspiration? And here you could even almost Translate that as what is the direction of our heart What it is what is really important to us even All of that's included in this meaning here Of himma Which is essentially translated as our spiritual aspiration Because he says Your heart will follow what it deems to be important Your heart will follow what it gives preference to What it is focused on It's only going to be present with what you deem to be important If something is important to you Your heart's going to be present whether you want to or not So if you have someone sick and they're in the hospital And the doctor's coming out to you to give you the diagnosis Of what's the state of the person That's important to you Are you going to be thinking about anything else? Are you going to be worried about what you're wearing? Are you going to be worried about the air conditioning? Are you going to be worried about you might not have slept in two days You will be present with what the doctor says Because it's important to you If your boss sends you an email about something needs to be done ASAP Are you going to be thinking about No, you're going to be preoccupied with that Because that's what is important to you So in other words Whatever is important to us This is what will dictate Whether we are focusing on something or not It has to be important to us And he says here Is that don't think that if your heart is not present with the meanings of the prayer Is that your heart is just going to remain idle No It's going to just roam In relation to everything that it thinks is important from the affairs of this world So it's not like just you're just not present No, you're preoccupied with whatever is important to you Remember we said prayer is life This is one of the greatest meanings Prayer is life How it is that we live manifests in your prayer How it is that we live manifests in your prayer And so he says That there is no way ultimately There is no cure or remedy To make yourself present in prayer Accept to direct your aspiration towards prayer Which is obvious Prayer has to be your Himmah So just look at the opposite where you're just delaying your prayer And you don't think it's important You're not praying any of the sooner as you're praying by yourself You're not, you know, even making sure to fulfill all of the adab And just praying very quickly and getting back to whatever it is that you're doing Like how on earth do you ever expect to be present in your prayer? Now if you're obviously traveling in this type of thing And you're in a flight to catch in a rare circumstance HaLas that's a separate situation But that can't become the normal Prayer has to be at the number one degree of importance So when we hear that fudger clock go off Or we have it on our phones or whatever else How are we as people? Oh I have plenty of time, I can pray later Oh it's, they like savings now Oh, so I get lower in, you know, four I still got an whole hour until I ask for them, good Right? No, no, we should be like, I'm not I'm not going to relax and feel comfortable until I pray Prayer time is in HaLas This has to be the very first thing that I do And especially young people If you get used to that from now There's no greater gift you can keep with you your entire life than that Adhere to the prayer and I guarantee you If you make the prayer a priority Allah will facilitate you in a wondrous way Ways for you to pray Guaranteed, it's not my guarantee But this is that something that is mujarrab and tested If you live for Allah, Allah will facilitate everything for you And so there's no other solution Other than to direct your himma Your aspiration towards prayer But then he says You're never going to be able to direct your aspiration towards prayer Unless that you are convinced That this is something that you actually need That this is the in your own benefit Wadadika huwa imanu wa tasdik And that requires that we have iman Belief Is that the hereafter is better and more everlasting And everlasting And that the prayer is the greatest means to attain that And if you combine to that A knowledge of the lowliness of this world Then you will then be able to have presence of heart in your prayer And he then goes on to say Is that if that doesn't make our heart present Is that we should know is that we have weak iman So that in other words if we go through what he's saying here Is that we recognize the most important thing of all is the hereafter And we believe in the hereafter A belief so strong that we're motivated to prepare And we recognize that the most important thing of all after Testifying la ilaha al-mahumna rasoolallah is our prayer And that's what we need for the hereafter We all know that ilman knowledge-wise But is that our state And this is sometimes the disconnect Is between what it is that we know in our state And this is precisely why imam al-zari wrote the helum ad-din Was to close the gap between that disconnect Between the mind things that we know And our inability to put it into practice and become our reality This is what essentially with inshallah he's trying to remedy And there is no more important Place to do this than in prayer It all gets back to this And so if going through that thought exercise doesn't help us That means that we have weak iman And it doesn't mean that we panic and throw in the towel No, he says We have to then work our duty then is to work to strengthen our iman He said this is not the place for us to go integrate detail about how to do that He does that in different places and there's ways of course to do that But now we know the root cause that must be worked on So he says here then the next step here after we've remedied this first In relation to our himmah our aspiration and what it is that we deem to be important Then the tafahum How do we make ourselves that be present but then also understand what is it we're reciting And he doesn't mention the most outward in apparent aspect of this which is to familiarize Ourself with what we recite in prayer and to learn the Arabic of it to learn the Translation of it and to memorize it all of that I think he's assuming that people Have done or are actively doing So that's a step that we have to take familiarize yourself with what you say in prayer Learn the meanings of it in whatever language and of course you're saying in Arabic, but then You bring to heart the meaning of it even if it's in a different language And he says is that the remedy for understanding is similar To the remedy for making our hearts present, but you add to that to Focus what it is that you are reciting on and trying to understand it by the death Is that you repel Your inner speech that is trying to preoccupy you The hawata literally are thoughts and you have to be careful So you'll be in prayer and you'll be concentrating then all of a sudden You'll think about something else And Then if you're not careful It just takes you and it takes you and it takes you and it takes you and it takes you Right you're in prayer and all of a sudden be like I can't believe he said that Can't believe she did that All right, you're reciting but then all of a sudden and then it arouses an emotion Right where you get like angry or you get bothered right and you're in prayer The next thing you know Right or in the realm of sensory Is that we have to be careful about what we let into our senses And there's a difference between just jogging by and looking at a billboard and quickly That looking down as opposed to fixating our eyes on it when you fix your eyes on something from the sensory It's much more likely to you're much more likely to think about it And so you might be in prayer and then you just can't get that image I mean all of us have prayed after watching a sports game or watching a movie or something like that You're thinking about scenes in that movie You're thinking about scenes in a movie in your prayer We all know that Right, you know, if you try to pray at halftime for the NBA finals or the semifinals Right, you're thinking about what it is that you just saw It's almost impossible not to Even if you're focusing it comes to your thoughts So we have to be very careful with these types of things And so what you have to do is is that you have to deflect your inner speech You have to protect yourself from what it is that you allow in And most importantly, what is it you see and what is it you hear? Allah has given you eyes and he's given you eyelids And you could look at something boom Immediately you lower your gaze Yeah, that's how we should be to all haram anything that is disliking Disliked to Allah You lower your gaze completely from it And and that actually might be physically lowering your gaze or sometimes it means Uh, whatever you have to do to turn away from it. Sometimes it's just closing your eyes But remember what I said them just said is that those thoughts that come to your heart Is that the quickness that we traverse on the surat on the surat the traverse is to the degree which we turn away From things that are displaced into Allah And then when our nafs is in the lower stage your nafs might want to look at that thing It might want to engage in that thing But you're mind like no, I know it's bad for but your nafs is pulling you in that direction And in that moment, there's nothing else you can do other than just to be strong relying upon Allah and turn away And then the more you do that the easier it gets that is the essence of deen Right there is that's the essence of religiosity Is in those moments where you're being pulled in a direction just for Allah only to be strong and to resist And sometimes it's hard And sometimes you it's like swallowing bitter medicine that you don't want to take But there's nothing greater with Allah than that And if you do that time and time again, it gets easier and it gets easier and it gets easier And then you might slip and then a tribulation comes your way that you remind you Allah and then you get back on course Allah is merciful subhanahu wa ta'ala And so then he says here is that wa ilaaj daf al-khawata al-shaaqira the way that we Remedy the thoughts that we have which is really you could also see your inner speech although your thoughts Include what your inner speech doesn't include because your inner speech is really the thoughts of the ego your egotistical thoughts from the nuts but the other the Other hwata include also the demonic insinuations is that In other words is that you uproot The sources of those various thoughts And what he says here what I mean by that is Is that looking at all of the means that once you uproot your connection to those things Is that The sources of those thoughts are now gone so that they are significantly less and that gets down to the Meanings that we mentioned to you outwardly about being careful What we let in from the realm of the sensory but then he says at a deeper level as well Is that our traits of The inner states that we have so he mentions here specifically What do we love? If you love something you will mention it often It's all there is to it If you love something you will mention it often if you love california you'll talk about california all the time If you love spring you'll talk about spring all the time if you love a particular plant That you'll probably get it in your home and talk about it and have it in your backyard all the time You will speak often about what it is that you love So in addition to the outward dimension You also we also have to be careful about what it is that we let our heart Our hearts love And that's not always so easy That's a little bit ambiguous the way that our Aspirations ambiguous we have to work on that And to make sure that our heart loves what should be loved But this is getting down. This is why again prayer is life This is uncovering for us. And what a blessing This is uncovering for us these things that are so fundamental to the human experience of things that we absolutely need So then ta'alim And he says that this is a state of heart that comes from two different types of knowledge The first is the knowledge of the majesty of allah and his greatness So we have to learn about the majesty of allah We have to look at The explanation of the name of allah and a'alim the name of allah Al-Majid all of these great names of allah And alhamdulillah we even have translations of the esma'allah Khasnah that we can learn about these great names of allah subhanahu wa ta'ala the great the glorious The jelali and the quran the possessor of majesty and generosity And this is from the foundations of our faith And that we think about one of the great ways to do this and Imam al-Ghazali mentions this as a way to Make your heart present in prayer You think about everything that allah created and modern science actually helps us in that I mean you didn't need to be a scientist to reflect upon these matters ever because it's enough just to think about What it is that you see But now think about what it is that we know Not experientially, but some of it are through images through the microscope or through the telescope and thumbs it through mathematical equations because math is the language of science So we understand the vastness of allah's creation and the 200 billion galaxies that are in our known universe And the incredible intergalactic distances that are out there just this year distance from planet earth to the sun And how big earth is and that we are Rotating on our axis and orbiting the sun both of which is happening moving extremely fast But because earth is so large. We don't feel it. We don't feel like we're even moving. This is amazing And you start to think about all of these things And allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is creating that and recreating every single moment. He's fully in charge of everything That is amazing that should strengthen your faith and That should cause you to have taalim for allah The creator of the heavens and there is the one you're standing before in that moment And nothing centers you and nothing orients you more Than praying to the lord of the heavens and earth Outwardly we orient ourselves towards the kaaba Okay, but inwardly your orientation is towards allah What jahadu and in the shafi school we do the dua is tiftaa The opening supplication is after saying allahu akbar kabeer ala wa hamdi allah kathira Then we go on to say What jahadu wajshya lillili fattara sem wa akbarat I have directed my essence your wajsh is your face. It's also your internal essence to the originator of the heavens and the earth subhanallah That's what we're doing when we stand up to pray And so you go through these thought exercises to Help you to have taalim of allah, but he says then also that you want to combine with that abdan You learn about the vile nature Uh in the lowly nature of creation, but in specifically that the human being And this is again not to cause someone that we don't want to misunderstand these things Is that on one hand is that We have hope that we can attain something great, but when we talk about the nafs That in so far as it started as a drop of fluid And so far as is that it is totally insignificant And there was a time where it was never even known That it's something lowly And we know how we began and we know how it is that will end And so from that perspective is that we don't see anything as being special except in so far as allah has made it special So this is our that view of all of creation everything in creation And he says then What comes from then emerges from these two types of knowledge I the knowledge of the greatness of allah And the knowledge of that how his creation is in absolute need of him and everything is subservient to him including that human beings of course Is that then we have Well in kisar and khushour Is that we are broken before allah. We are lowly before allah. We are reverent before allah subhanahu wa ta'ala He said this is ta'alim That state of being is ta'alim But again is that we have to spend time with this and to reflect upon these things so that This becomes our state now So then he goes on to talk about elheba and khuf all in fear And when someone comes to understand The power of allah ta'ala And what he calls the nafood of mashia to he how he imposes his will As he wants subhanahu wa ta'ala And he says here and this is a hard pill to swallow But it needs to be said One of them He said that were he to completely destroy All people those who came before and those who will come at the end of time it would not diminish his dominion The slightest bit the weight of an atom Allah is Allah And that first Movement of the heart where we think that we actually deserve to exist Is one of is probably The source of all the problems We don't deserve to exist We do not deserve to exist If we feel entitled to our existence There's a long list of diseases of the heart that will arise from that Feeling of entitlement that's deep. This is very very deep And that when we start yes that when we talk about people who don't believe there's a way of Speaking to them rationally But oftentimes that we have to combine to that as well spiritual meanings as well To really help them understand and usually that there's very few people that just through rational discourse that Go from a particular belief to another Something else must touch them deeper And we start approaching this conversation and then essentially the essence of kovar and iman Of disbelief and belief Is built upon The willingness or the reluctance of the individual to submit to the lord of the heavens and the earth and embrace their servitude Before him or to him subhan-latata that is at the crux in the very heart of the whole matter And if someone's willing to accept that but most people have so many layers Of veils that are preventing them from accepting that That you have to chop away you have to chop away Where you start to finally get to This is where it really lies You have to deal with that And in the end this whole affair is built upon submission Allah says Will the human being have what it is that he wants This is not our affair This is an affair ultimately What Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala Wants to happen So by coming to understand this And we see and he actually mentions here is he says that He says then you see that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala Sins, tribulations and all different types of difficulties to the prophets and the awliya Even though he's all-powerful and he could prevent that all from happening subhanahu wa ta'ala This is the nature of the dunya And this is strengthens our iman now Because Allah is all-powerful And we see that This is strengthens our iman now Because Allah is all-powerful Everything that's happening to the ummah the unimaginable things that are happening to believers right now Allah is all-powerful he could prevent it from happening, but there's a wisdom There's a wisdom in it happening In addition to the sharia dimension of Disliking what Allah has Commanded us to dislike and doing what is that you can this is the other side of the same coin that must be there For us to maintain our sanity, but also to respond in a way that is pleasing to Allah Everything is from Allah He could repel it if he wanted to subhanahu wa ta'ala There's a wisdom behind it And as iman mahasad says he has a book of aphorisms and the very first aphorism is Is that all of creation is either in the da'irat al rahma or the da'irat al haqma in this world They're either in the circle of wisdom or in the circle in the circle of mercy or in the circle of wisdom And then he said those who are in the circle of mercy in this world We'll receive the fadl of Allah his bounty in the next world Those who are in the circle of wisdom in this world will receive his adal s.a his justice In the next world So this reflecting upon these realities That helps us attain the state of hayba And then The reason for this is that we come to understand the Lutf of Allah His benevolence That his subtle generosity That subhanahu wa ta'ala his gentleness and in his karam his generosity And his amin and ami his that wide reaching that giving of blessings And all of the subtleties of everything that is that he's created And knowing the promise that he's given for the people That who that do what they've been commanded to do to attain paradise and so forth And so that when we attain yaqeen certainty and relation to his promise And the knowledge that we have of his lutf is that then we'll have to have hope in Allah We have to have hope in Allah And so again, we're combining between these different meanings but When we that think when we hear about his mercy when we see in his creation that all of these manifestations of his benevolence and If you want A practical way to help you understand that I would encourage you to Be very practical here Get imam al-qazadi's translation Get the translation of imam al-qazadi's book and moqsad at asna at the highest aim And read the description of the name of Allah al-laltaif And then Read surat yusuf And try to understand it as a manifestation of the name of Allah al-laltaif And then look how Allah says towards the end of Allah al-laltaif on the mayasha'u And connect the meaning of surat yusuf to the name of Allah al-laltaif And this will help you understand this particular meaning And then the final one is al-hayyar And the way we do this is going through this thought exercise of realizing how we call it short in worship And how we're unable to fully That uphold the hak the right that Allah Almighty has upon ourselves and we combine with that knowledge Of our faults and that all the things that we've done wrong and how we're inclined into the things of this world Is that when we reflect upon those things? Necessarily is that we will have a state of shame come before Allah That we will be that embarrassed before Allah and of course that have modesty before him subhanahu wa ta'ala So then he says These are the ways to attain these various inter-states of prayer And he says Is that if you want to attain any of these states you have to go about the causes that will then lead to them And that the various thought exercises that he mentioned And he says that The remedy is known through knowing the cause What links all these means is Eman faith and yiqeen certitude In other words is that the more That we strengthen our e-man the more certitude that we have the easier that it will be For us to attain all of these meanings because again Prayer is life And he quotes this beautiful narration They say to aisha that she said Cannot also lullai salullai salam you had ditho now and had ditho The provost I said him would speak to us and we would speak to him And the problem was very close to people. He was like anyone else in the house when he was at home Even though he's not like anyone else not only in the house and the entire cosmos But this is how he was he was approachable. He was very easy He would sweep the floor sallallahu alayhi sallam. He would cut meat. He would milk his sheep He would mend and tend to his affairs sallallahu alayhi sallam He would help around the house that he would mend his own sandals and so forth He was very approachable anyone could that speak to him sallallahu alayhi sallam He would speak to them And that if they would speak about worldly affairs, he would speak about worldly affairs He would remind them at the same time about the hereafter And they used to say From time to time he would admonish us Right because if you just tell someone day in and out you tell your kids seven eight times a day Ladies eventually let's go deaf to you what you're saying Right you have to any No wind to say what to what degree and so forth But But once it came time for prayer it was as if He did not know us and we did not know him This is a time to stand before Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala And to the degree that we reflect these meanings these six interstates Of prayer in the heart will be to the degree that we are giving the prayer that it's Haq And that in closing there's this beautiful statement. Imam al-Zal includes part of it But it's originally from Qutul Qulub They say This is sufficient Of proof in a motive any factor for us to take prayer seriously A servant will be raised after death from his grave According to his Ha'a How he was in prayer Minis-sukoon To what degree were they present in their prayer? And such that they had stillness and tranquility in their prayer So imagine Yomo Qiyam Which is subjectively from Two light records to 50,000 years people experience it somewhere in that realm Is that your Raha your repose Your repose on the day of judgment Will be according to That your repose in prayer In other words that the more that we have tan'a that we actually enjoy praying The more that we find pleasure in praying The more that we are comfortable praying the more that we that have presence of heart in our prayer That will directly translate on Yomo Qiyama To how it is that we experience that day The more repose we have in prayer the more repose on Yomo Qiyama Is that the more that we enjoy a prayer the less that we'll fear on Yomo Qiyama in ha'a It directly relates to how we are in prayer. What are we in a ma'ana halal? Alibi Hurair, this is a mokuf That meaning that is narrated by one of the sahaba by That Abu Hurairah Anyone who says Walaqad Sadaq So he's told the truth And then he quotes the meaning of a hadith The hadith in Sahi Musa Amiyyub As Kullur Abdan Alamama Ta'ala Every server will be raised according to how it is that they died Right their state up when they died will be how they're raised And so that if we Love prayer and enjoy prayer and start to find the halawa in the sweetness of prayer and find pleasure in the prayer The way we experience Yomo Qiyama is going to be very different Then the way we've experienced it where we to have been deficient in that so This is why we come together to study these meanings In hopes that we attain something of the reality by the power of Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala my Allah ta'ala to give us tawfeeq And to us to understand and to give us all of these Interstates of the prayer in ways that he gifts the elect of the Odian the son of Hing My Allah ta'ala have mercy upon all of us forgive us all our sins and to remove all of the veils and all the Obstacles between us in attaining degrees of closest to him subhanahu wa ta'ala Wasallallahu ala zeeb Muhammadin wa ala alu sari salam But alhamdulillahi rabbil alameen, I apologize for going over And we will continue back as I understand After salat 145 correct So inshallah in this session, we're going to look at reverence hushur And presence of heart in the salat And we're going to look at Imam al-Ghazali's section on The merit of reverence of having hushur And uh, it's important to understand a little bit of the context of the ihyaa lume din And that people did not really before imam al-Ghazali one of the amazing contributions that He gave this umma is that he was able to really merge people's understandings of the outward and the inward sciences And as sheikh Yahya said previously that really this is a science because of the systematic way that he actually details the spiritual path And explains it in a way where he's able to break down You know various elements and and sub points that are all interrelated So one of the things that's important is that people Were focused on the outward validity of the salat Is that if the salat is valid according to the fuqaha, which is important Then the salat is considered valid And imam al-Ghazali is highlighting for us that if the whole purpose of the salat Is to draw close to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala And uh, as we're going to see wa aqim al-salat ali vikri The first verse that he mentions is that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says in the Quran And established the prayer for my remembrance Is that the Prayer is not actually truly established if it does not contain the remembrance of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala So he says if someone is in the prayer and they don't know what they're saying and they're not They don't have this reverence. They don't have khushur and presence of heart and the various inner states that imam al-Ghazali Mentioned that sheikh he covered in session two Then really it's just movements and emptiness internally And that's not what Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala wants from us. So he's also Speaking to certain people Who might not consider khushur and presence of heart As a condition for the validity and acceptance of the salat So he's coming at it from this angle And I think for our purposes we already Understand the importance of that So he begins with the verse that I mentioned Establish the prayer for my remembrance Is to remember Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and the goal Of all acts of worship and the goal Of all that we do in order to seek nearness to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala Is to have presence of heart So if we are in salah You know we want to have presence of heart because that really is the indication of coming closer to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala And truly remembering him When we avoid what is haram We do so because we have presence of heart and we have an awareness of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala And that he sees us and has forbidden us from that thing. So we avoid it When we engage in charity Or we seek knowledge or we attend the gathering of zikr the goal in that is to have presence of heart Establish the prayer for my remembrance And Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says in another verse of the Quran And do not be of those who are heedless and neglectful Do not be of those who are heedless and neglectful So Imam al-Ghazali says if someone makes an oath that they're going to speak to the king or they're going to engage in a particular Verbal statement. I swear that I will say this particular thing And then while they're asleep they actually Talk in their sleep and they say what they swore that they were going to say He says they actually haven't fulfilled their oath because they were not conscious of it So even though they might have said unconsciously what they Swore that they would say because they were not conscious when they did it. It doesn't count So the same can be said about the salat And Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says in another verse of the Quran Do not approach the prayer while you are intoxicated until you know What it is that you are saying And Imam al-Ghazali he says how many a person who's engaging in the Sada has not Has not consumed alcohol or is not intoxicated, but Does not know what they are saying in the prayer So he says okay that part about while you are drunk or while you are intoxicated Does not apply to the generality of believers and people avoiding that act that is haram But then he says the condition that's associated with it still applies Until you know you're aware of what it is that you are saying So Imam al-Ghazali says if a person is praying and they're unaware of what they're saying now applies to presence of heart and understanding that shea fiya covered in the previous session Then You know, uh, then they they still fall within this category do not approach the prayer in that state So you have to be aware of that The prophet sallallahu alayhi wa alayhi wasallam he said in a hadith Man sallah rak'ataini And their nefs does not You know, you are not You are not listening or giving the opportunity to your nefs to speak to you about things of the world The reward for having that level of presence in nasada is that Allah forgives your previous sins So once again Imam al-Ghazali is saying this is critical For the prayer to be accepted to be of those people That Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala when they establish a true prayer, they're transformed And they avoid al-fahshat wal-munkar in decency and wrongdoing By being present in the sallah By not giving into the insinuations and the internal conversations of the nefs that take us into the dunya And what we're going to look at shortly is how to identify those outward and inward Distractions and how to deal with them. We'll get to that inshallah But if a person has that level of presence their previous sins are forgiven No The prophet sallallahu alaihi wa alihi was-sahmi was-sallam he also said in another hadith Inna ma furidat is salatu wa umira bil-hajji wa tawafi wa ashaaratil manasiku li iqamati zikrillahi ta'ala The prophet sallallahu alaihi wa alaihi was-sallam said in a hadith narrated by abu dawudan at-Tirmidhi That Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala made the prayer an obligation And commanded the hajj and the circumambulation And the various rights of worship associated with the hajj for what purpose? In order to establish the remembrance of Allah the exalted In order to establish the remembrance of Allah the exalted So that's an indication once again that the khushoor is the life of the prayer The khushoor is the life of the prayer No And imam al ghazali then gives us another Another very useful way of understanding How we get into that mindset The prophet sallallahu alaihi wa alihi was-sallam we might sometimes hear sometimes the imam When leading the prayer we'll say this pray a farewell prayer That the messenger of Allah sallallahu alaihi wa sallam he's the one who said If you pray then pray the prayer of someone who is bidding farewell And imam al ghazali says there are many layers of meaning to this farewell. What does it mean to bid farewell? Imam al ghazali then says this is not part of the hadith that a person is saying farewell to his own nafs Farewell to your insinuations and your desires and your love of the world farewell to the nafs Farewell to one's passions. They're not thinking about those things in the salah ideally And then he says farewell to one's life So they say that as if you're bidding farewell that this is the last prayer that you will pray before you Meet your lord If that was the case that would be a transformative prayer If someone knew let's say for example may Allah protect us that there was Someone oppressive who said, you know, I'm going to execute you and take your life You have one last prayer that you can pray. What would be the state of that prayer?  Allah says there is nothing What am I going to think about the world for when it's done? So the messenger of Allah is telling us that when you have that mindset that is the way you are supposed to pray That's how you truly access the khushu in the salah La ilaha inna Allah Now I'm one of the highest predecessors and this relates to what Imam al-Ghazali said previously He said Yabna Adam or son of Adam or human being If you want to enter into the presence of your lord without permission without a Formal invitation, you know the kings of the world special times special You have to talk to the right person. You have you might have to pay People some rites to you might owe some favors and all of that type of stuff in order to get to the people of the dunya If you want to get to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala he's saying if you want to enter his presence without even a formal Invitation or permission you can do so. He said how so? Said you make your will do and you enter into your mihrab And then you enter into the presence of your lord without any formal permission and you get to speak to him without any translator Like it's that level of nearness and intimacy You know someone will at least have a representative or someone who's going to keep the time You can only speak for this long in these formal settings of the people of the dunya Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has left the door open whenever you want And dua Insala and turning your heart to him the door is always open Sayyida aisha radi allahu anha She's telling us here about the state of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam and how this relates to khushor The complete focus and priority he would give the sallah That she said and you know, she's the wife of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam So she knows You know some of these private details and intimate details that maybe other people might not have been privy to Or might not have witnessed So he says the messenger of Allah sallallahu alaihi wasallam when he was at home He would speak with us and we would speak with him Now we would have these family conversations and he would listen to them and they would Say things about what was interesting to them or their day or what they were going through and the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam would listen And then he would also talk to them. And this is actually a beautiful sunnah that Not many people are really aware of is that the messenger of Allah sallallahu alaihi wasallam He would speak to the sahaba about whatever they wanted to talk about It's all messenger of Allah, you know, my camel is kind of not feeling well You know, oh really what how what's going on? And he would he would engage and entertain whatever was important to them sallallahu alaihi wasallam And his heart is with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala But look at the mercy You know, and and there are many many beautiful examples of that You know, and i'm reminding myself and all of us especially with you know, these devices and kind of being Having our attention always, you know scattered is that when you're with someone it's a sunnah to give them your full attention And even physically the messenger of Allah sallallahu alaihi wasallam when he would turn to someone He would turn to them with the Entity of his body to give them that full attention If that is the Consideration that he gave to other created beings out of his mercy and his noble character Imagine when it's time to stand in the mehrab Imagine when it's the time that he sallallahu alaihi wasallam yearns for the most To be with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala So Sayyid al-Ajj is saying that he would talk to us and we would talk to him So either hadara to sallam but when the time for the prayer entered the adhan goes off It's time for sallam It's as if he didn't know us and we didn't know him There was nothing else in the world except responding to the call of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala And just imagine that he would say You know give us bring the what brings us comfort Give us what brings us comfort oh be la and that was the adhan because it was The initiation or the beginning of entering into the salah The prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam said That Allah does not look at a prayer In which a person's heart is not present with their body And what does that mean it means that they're present in the salah When they say that you know your heart is present like where where are you someone might be here So where are you because their heart is somewhere else their mind their imagination is somewhere else You have to be here with Allah that your heart is present with the rest of your body It's not just the movements in the salah, which is once again an indication of acceptance. I'm Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala Imam al-Ghazali mentions that prophet ibrahim al-Khalil alaihi sallam He said when he would enter when he would stand up to pray They could hear the intensity of his heartbeat from two miles away That his heart would beat with such power And there was a reverberation from his heartbeats that people could hear from two miles away because of the the the Magnitude of standing before Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala La ilaha illa Allah the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa alaihi wasalam he saw a man He saw a man playing with his beard and the salah So i'm playing with his beard and the salah and he was praying Just kind of And the prophet sallallahu alaihi sallam said If this man's heart had reverence and it's all before Allah La khasha'at jawarihu His limbs would follow suit and be in awe of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala I remember hearing our teacher habib umar commenting on people sometimes they have like if you have like a Idaal or ashmar and he said every Couple of seconds a person's fixing was on their their headgear and they're moving things around He said, you know, how can someone do that while standing before Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala? And so you have to you have to be careful Even to the extent that they say if you're wearing for example, like it's a sunnah to wear a ridea To wear like a shawl for for the you know That when a person is praying if they feel that it's going to move around and fall around and flap around That they put it on the ground in front of them so that it doesn't distract them And so, you know if a person's heart has khusher the limbs will follow suit And it's not something that is kind of this You know this Synthetic like this manufactured fake way of having to where a person just goes like this And they kind of You know overdo it physically. No, but it's it's a balance Everything is a balance And it really is yes if your heart is present with Allah, maybe there might be an impact on the way that you Stand or the way that you move But the uslaid is to begin with the heart and to have just the sunnah Balanced way of standing and having moderation and all things and then if someone feels a particular verse I remember one of the most amazing things I ever experienced And I was young that was like 22 at the time When I first Was blessed to go study and in Hadhramot in Yemen at Dar al-Mustafa And it was Ramadan And there were just so many things that happened where it was like Wow, this deen is real Like you know, it's but then there's like things that happened with this deen is real You know, you see it lived at that level It's different So I remember it was Salat al-Tarawih and we're talking about prayer and this is really You know, this is just kind of a beautiful example Especially in today's world. There are people like that today Where I remember it's the first night of Ramadan if I'm not mistaken That happened multiple times on multiple nights But the Imam was was reciting the Quran and Salat al-Tarawih and it was it was very majestic The way he recited The first night of Ramadan It felt like you really we always we always feel it Alhamdulillah many people really notice that when Ramadan comes in there's like this shift in the cosmos Something has changed So it was intensified because being in the company of such people And then there was a man that I heard, you know, somewhere to the left or behind wherever he was standing And as the Quran was being recited and it was intense. He said And he passed out You know, and I'm praying and I'm just kind of like What what like I can't look back and see who I never I never saw who it was And uh, just subhanAllah and I was and I was like esteem is real like you hear about the Sahaba Being bedridden for days and weeks from the Quran You know, and and it's like the Quran here is not just some Somebody with a nice voice who recites it and there's inshallah good in that But it was like this is the Quran that you realize if it was revealed to the mountain the mountain would would crumble Underneath the the weightiness of the Quran Like there are people whose hearts You know are present with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. And once again, you can't fake that level of Presence. How was someone of a special state with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala? But it goes to show that there are still people experiencing these really Powerful realities of the salah Yeah MashaAllah And then imam al-ghazali tells us a few stories of people who had such a high level of khushoor in the sada That they were totally Unaffected by their surroundings All right, but that's a very high level and as imam al-ghazali is going to tell us shortly when he talks about The way to have presence of heart That is a very select few of people who attain that level where for example Sayyidina Ali Zayn al-Abelin was praying and one of the pillars in the masjid Broke and there was a large, you know sound and a crash that happened when it took place And after he was done with the sada they asked him what the juice you were in the masjid when the pillar broke and it And he didn't hear anything And there was a sahabi who had to have his leg amputated He said you know one of you guys is going to be intense. It's painful He said amputate my leg when i'm in the sada These are the realities that the sahabah had radi allahu anhu and they amputated it and he Became aware of it after he finished his prayer radi allahu anhu now these stories are not meant to make us feel like oh, i'm so terrible I can't even do one percent of that but it's a It's it shows us the potential and the possibility And when we hear about these great people it is meant to encourage us and inspire us Not the other way around. I thought i'm never going to be like that.  I can't do that. No, that's not what we want Say inshallah the one who gave to them can also give to me subhanahu wa ta'ala The one who chose those people to be of the people of nearness to him can choose me inshallah to be of those people Each and every one of us inshallah ta'ala And the fact that Allah has brought us together to study On how to pray properly is a sign that Allah has extended his mercy to us and we ask him for tawfiq. Ya Rabbi Al-Alamin Sayyidina Ali ibn Abi Tadeb may Allah be well pleased with him and ennobled his countenance When the time for prayer would enter he would start to shake and his face would change color They said So what's going on? Oh commander of the believers and he said the time The time for prayer to enter So what's going on? Oh commander of the believers and he said the time has come to fulfill The covenant the trust That Allah presented to the heavens and the earth and the mountains And they refused it and were in fear of it And we are the ones who took it on Indicating that that a man that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala mentions in the Quran is the sada So he the level of reverence the level of khushu and presence of heart of recognizing Once again the significance of what we're about to engage in and stand in And then we'll we'll end with this narration. It's a really beautiful narration MashaAllah On the that this is a statement of Hatim al-Asama one of the great pious predecessors Allah and someone once asked him about his prayer So he said when the time for prayer enters I performed the wudu well fully Covering all the limbs and doing it with presence of heart and intentionality and recognizing That this is the key into the prayer And I came and I come to the pray the place where I am going to pray And I actually sit there I'm going to talk about this shortly. I sit there until I am collected Then I become collected Then I stand to prayer So then I place the kaaba and this is a way of using Our imagination in a way that is useful and Beneficial especially spiritually is to use the faculty of imagination for things like this He says then I place the kaaba before my very eyes Imagining it says if I'm standing right in front of the kaaba And I place the siraat That goes over hellfire the truck the traverse that goes over hellfire. I place it at my feet So as if I can see it at my feet And I Imagine paradise to my right And I imagine the fire to my left And I imagine the angel of death standing behind me And I Think and ponder deeply that this will be my final prayer Then I stand and pray and I am between the state of hope and fear So I begin the prayer and I say allahu akbar And I recite the Quran with tertiil full Recitation giving each of the letters. It's right And reciting properly and with reverence And then when I go into ruku or the bowing position. I do so with humility And when I go into prostration I prostrate with reverential fear with this pushoor And uh, you know when I sit in the position I do so with sincerity and when I I try to have sincerity of heart And when I finish the prayer I do not know Has it been accepted from me or not? Even after all of that I still remain in a state between hope and fear. Is it accepted or not? And Sayyidina Abdullah ibn al-Abbas, radiallahu anhumah, he said Raka'atani, muqtaslidatani fi tafakkurin khairun min qiyami laylatin wal qalbusahin He says two rak'as That you perform with, you know, well That you're not rushed and hasty in completing that But even muqtaslidatani is that they're not very long and they're not rushed Just even two Moderate rak'as that are not very long That you pray while you are reflecting and pondering what you're reciting And thinking about your state with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and all of the things associated with the prayer Is better for you than standing up the entire night in prayer And your heart is heedless Just two brief moderate rak'as With reflection are better than an entire night Where your heart is heedless So we have to have now the great salihin they have quality and quantity But for us sometimes people think that quantity alone is sufficient No, but you want quality We want quality and when we have when we focus on that Then when we start to access the real fruits of the salah then we want more of it And quantity starts to become very naturally accessible and desirable to us So now moving on to the section on the distractions and how we have presence of heart in the face of These distractions the outward and inward distractions So Imam al-Ghazali he says Beautifully here he talks about the inner states of the prayer that sheikh Yahya covered That a believer Has to be in a state of reverence for Allah the mighty and majestic in fear of him Hope and having hope in him Having this hayat this shame before him for one's own shortcomings And that these states they are never totally separated from the believer According to the degree of his or her Certitude and faith That there are people who are at higher levels And people who might experience it from time to time, but it is never totally separated from a believer Come on. He says and that's their state outside of the salah so then It is only taken away from them or it is only absent in the salah Due to Al-waridah These passing thoughts that come that busy a person So if a person in the salah is not having these states that very naturally a believer should have and does have if they are You know not present as they should be in the salah. It's due to these passing thoughts So the So the treatment In order to have presence of heart is actually rejecting and repelling these passing thoughts This is where Imam al-Ghazali is very systematic. He says you cannot Repel something or deflect that thing or push it away except by finding its root cause You have to get to the root of it and deal with that in order to truly do so You have to come to know The reason behind them and the reason is that it could be either an outward cause Or it could be something within the person internally inwardly So then he breaks down both as for the outward As for the outward he says that these are the things that pass through the thoughts and what a person sees These are the things that a person might hear or see when they're in the middle of the salah You know, like you're in the middle of the prayer, you know, we all have this and there's like a loud sound or You know, your kids like start crying or they're hitting each other What's going on? It takes up your thoughts The khawat that are now coming the passing thoughts are not who hit who whose fault was it, you know, and you start to go through that Those various thoughts that are all interconnected and associated Or you see something You know, oh that person parked again in that parking spot Right, you know, and you start to be affected by those things So inna danika kad yakh tadiful ham hatta yatba'u huwa yatasarrafa fee That can then take a person's focus and Take them to a totally different place Okay, and that it just keeps going You know, it's like down the rabbit hole There's just another passing thought that leads to another passing thought that leads to another passing thought and before you know What you're like, how did I how was I even thinking about like where did this thought come from? Why am I thinking about this really random thing, especially in the middle of my salah, and I don't even know how I got there Come on Okay No, so then he says the treatment for that Is qat'u hadihil asbab b'an yaghd la basara So the way to treat that is that you cut off All of thes