Alhamdulillah, we 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, it 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 is a lot of truth in that because fasting okay that we're fasting obligatory 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 Salli Sallim 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 Kureyat al-Salliheen the gardens of the righteous of Imannawi which includes so many great statements of our Prophet Sallim. 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 Sadaf 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 um 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 Ahi al-Lumideen it's book four and the Ahi al-Lumideen 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 Ahi al-Lumideen is such the thrust of it is what is called 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-Muazzadi as it was in his time just as it was relevant to the centuries before him because in Imam al-Muazzadi's articulation of what is known as the science of the path 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 Tehbein, those who came before, what was their reality. Imam al-Muazzadi 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 Ehlum 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-Muazzadi 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 advance 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 he can't pray let him go. And they mentioned that and there was other asked dimensions of the story but they mentioned as an 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 shortly after that returned 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 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 Imam Rosadi 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 then? First of all you have the heart which is translated as presence of heart. Secondly you have understanding. Thirdly you have exaltation. And then all hope and then life translated here as 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 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 Allah there are angels that aren't just bowing before Allah there are angels that are just prostrating before Allah and all of the different ways that the angels aren't glorifying Allah 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 Allah 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 tafahum this is simply translated as understanding although this form in the Arabic language the form of tafahum 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 tafahum is the process of forcing yourself challenging yourself struggling with yourself to have fahum to have understanding of what it is that you are doing in the moment and Imam Uzzati 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 are saying and he says is that we have the maqam yet tafahum 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 subhan Allah 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 subhan Allah 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 that when we say subhan Allah when we say the various invocations associated with the prayer is that we learn the meanings behind them and Imam Ghazali says here is that how many people in prayer 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 something 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 and 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 a little kind of thought now he didn't and it's a shy one more we heard us that I'm just quote the verse in the Quran and sort of ankle boots after Allah to add a commands us to establish the prayer what a key muscle I established the prayer in the salat it and then it's a shy one more the indeed that prayer deters it prevents which is all forms of indecency and which is wrong action and the remembrance of Allah is even greater indicating to us that yes you have the prayer but then it's the remembrance of Allah that we have inside the prayer in outside of the prayer Allah knows everything that it is that you do and so there's something about prayer is that 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 is 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 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 and a little bit in the evening 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 isha in congregation as if you've prayed half or then if you do both the entire night and then another narration is that you were under the protection of Allah to the extent that had judge 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 subhan Allah and that's like the story of the brigand who was robbing a caravan and I think it was saying about him and 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 him 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 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 kaaba and shut off and then he looks over and he sees the brigand making ta'a off he says it's at 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 991 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 to turn to Allah to barakah so we have which is presence of heart you're focusing on what you're saying and what you're doing throughout your prayer then you have 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'alim 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 remember was like he always gives us metaphors to understand things he says you could speak to someone but you might not have ta'alim 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 Allah is that we exalt what Allah has exalted so we have to differentiate here between ta'alim 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 kaba we don't worship it we exalt the masjid but we don't worship it we exalt say that Muhammad sallallahu alaihi 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 worshipped 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 kaba there's certain things that you don't do to your parents there's certain things you don't say to your parents there's 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 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 monaja of intimate conversation there's also ta'al deen is that we are exalting a lot of butter potata and when we're in the volume position of course we're saying subhan rabbir al deen 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 Ali Sayyidina Abideen the great grandson of our prophet Sayyidina 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 inwardly 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 purification does and our prophet told us about wudu is that when you perform wudu is that your sins leave your body until they come out of your fingernails and there are some of the priests they actually mentioned this Imam Asha'arani 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 it 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 it being aware of that for others they could smell the stench the filthy stench of sin because we know through prophetic narration is that 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 it's that this is something that some people are afflicted with so taudin 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 taudin and then there's an additional meaning that is even beyond that and this is what he calls Heba Heba we've translated here as all but really Imam al-Azad he speaks of it here as closer to fear so really what it is is it is a hof manshahu taudin 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 adha 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 taudin 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 an executive community who are running it but anything that has become a waqf belongs to Allah and it has a special misbah and a special affiliation as a result once it is turned into a masjid so it requires taudin 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 joining near to Allah so Heba 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 in he uses regularly the example of a king but 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 taudin it's beyond exaltation and then we have two other meanings presence of heart understanding exaltation awe then we have hope or a jab 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 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 about what we have taudin 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 manager what a manager there is no refuge and there is no safety from you except to you subhan Allah that we seek refuge in his riddle from his suck up in his contentment from his displeasure and in his mu'afa from his aquba and from the in his granting us hoping from him punishing us we're with the bikka minka we seek refuge in you from you subhan Allah and so Allah we turn to him subhan Allah and there's no greater manifestation of that meaning than on the yawm al qiyamah when everybody will be standing before Allah and this is the day of justice this is the day we're all wrongs are righted and the only one that can speak is Rasulullah no one else can speak on that day except Sayyidina Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wa ad-dhu sallam and then because of the way he addresses Allah and how it is that he yes start him he knows how to speak so that a lot 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 us each fact we show from intercede and you'll be granted intercession these are the type of clue that you and I need these are type of hearts that we need especially in a time where look at how much facade 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 yes that know how to be there 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 that they're reciting but they have taught lean for Allah to work with Allah they have Hiba of Allah to Anna but despite all of that they have hope they have hope because Allah wants a servant to have hope and he wants to serve and 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 outwardly think that we've almost given up on or that on the verge of despair will completely change instantaneously could I am who if he shan subhanahu wa ta'ala he does whatever he wants to do he raises and he lowers he's the nafah and the law is the one who benefits and he's the one who harms and everything is totally 100% in his control even if people don't you 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 and he might let them do a little bit and 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 Obama of our Prophet Sallalli alayhi 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 be 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 and the end this is Allah's affair and all of this could shift in any given moment 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 subhan Allah's mercy to His creation this is how you and I need to be and part of this relates to hope having hope in Allah to barak wa ta'ala and then the last meaning 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 con that's not what we're talking about 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 to barak 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 in kisar brokenness before Allah subhan Allah 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 Rooha 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 weighs 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 and 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-Zari 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 inner state of presence of heart and Imam al-Zari is very precise he says the cause that will lead us to have presence of heart and prayer is our him 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 him which is essentially translated as our spiritual aspiration because he says in the call back tabi only 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 doctors 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 gonna be worried about what you're wearing they're gonna be worried about the air conditioning are gonna 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 right if your boss sends you an email about something needs to be done ASAP are you gonna 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 well called either let me have enough of the sorrow and let me come up to a lot 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 Belgium see how female him matu the muscle over to an elem in a more than yeah 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 this 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 means 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 except to direct your aspiration towards prayer which is obvious prayer has to be your him man 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 soon 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 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 the flight to catch in a rare circumstance 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 daylight savings now oh so I get lower in you know for I still got a whole hour until I'm good right no we should be like I'm not gonna relax and feel comfortable until I pray per time soon 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 we'll himma to laa tansarifu liya maa lam yattabayin annaal agharatum atarum manootin biha is that 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 well that you go what iman or what tasdeek in that requires that we have iman belief bein al-akhirata khirun wa abba is that the hereafter is better and more everlasting and everlasting one a salata walasirutun ilayha and that the prayer is the greatest means to attain that 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-mahumad al-sulla is our prayer and that's what we need for the hereafter we all know that ailmen knowledge wise but is that our state and this is sometimes the disconnect is between what is that we know in our state and this is precisely why imam al-sari wrote the helumadin 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 indelicate after 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 than 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 yeah 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 him our aspiration what it is that we deemed to be important then the t'fahum 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 ourselves 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 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 of the shawata the shahilah is that you repel your inner speech that is trying to preoccupy you the hawata literally our 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 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 fixate 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 birth 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 it 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 giving you eyelids and you can look at something boom you immediately you lower your gaze yeah that's how we should be to all out on anything that is disliking dislike to Allah you lower your gaze completely from it and that actually might be physically lowering your gaze or sometimes it means whatever you have to do to turn away from it sometimes it's just closing your eyes but remember what I said I'm just saying 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 a lower stage your nafs might want to look at that thing it might want to engage in that thing but you're my 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 rely upon Allah and turn away and then the more you do that the easier it gets that is the essence of Dean 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 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 and so then he says here is that 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 nafs but the other the other water include also the demonic insinuations is that cut umawadiha in other words is that you uproot the sources of those various thoughts and what he says here what I mean by that is and no zoo until get us back at it and yet he would want to leave her is it 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 interstates that we have so he mentions here specifically my hubba what do we love for men a hubba she and a caradikra 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 aspiration is 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 taalim 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 aalim the name of allah el majeed all of these great names of allah and alhamdulillah we have translations of the asma allah khusna that we can learn about these great names of allah subhanahu wa ta'ala the great the glorious 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 alzali 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 ta'alim 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 orient you more than praying to the lord of the heavens and earth outwardly we orient ourselves towards the kaaba tamam but inwardly your orientation is towards allah what jahadu and in the shafi school we do the dua al-istiftaah the opening supplication is after saying allahu akbar then we go on to say i have directed my essence your wudj is your face but it's also your internal essence to the originator of the heavens and 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 ta'alim of allah but he says then also that you want to combine with that you learn about the vile nature and the lowly nature of creation but 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 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.e. 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 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 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 low ahlaka al awwaleen wa l'akhireen wa l'akhireen lam yann qusmin murqi dharah 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 imam 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 Subhanahu wa ta'ala 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 and 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 everything that's happening to the umma 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 do what is that you can this is the other side of the same point 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 Imam Ahasad says he has a book of aphorisms and the very first aphorism is is that all of creation is either in the da'ira or the da'ira 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 will receive the fatal of Allah is bounty in the next world those who are in the circle of wisdom in this world will receive his adal his justice in the next world so this reflecting upon these realities that helps us attain the state of Heba and then 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 Amim 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 in 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 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-Azadi's translation get the translation of Imam al-Azadi's book and and read the description of the name of Allah and then read Sotat Yusuf and try to understand it as a manifestation of the name of Allah Al-Latif and then look how Allah says towards the end of Sotat Allah Al-Latif and connect the meaning of Sotat Yusuf to the name of Allah Al-Latif and this will help you understand this particular meaning and then the final one is Al-Hayat and the way we do this is going through this thought exercise of realizing how we fall short in worship and how we're unable to fully uphold the Haqq, the right that Allah al-Latif has upon ourselves and we combine with that a 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 iman, faith, and yiqeen, certitude in other words is that the more that we strengthen our iman 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 that Sayyidah Aisha that she said cannot also to Allah SAW you had ditho now and had ditho the prophet SAW would speak to us and we would speak to him and the prophet 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 in the entire cosmos but this is how he was he was approachable he was very easy he would sweep the floor SAW and he would cut meat he would milk his sheep he would mend and tend to his affairs SAW 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 SAW 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 honey know when 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 SWT 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 haqq 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 in the abd yuhshur and al-Mu't min qabri al-A'i'atihi fi salata this is sufficient of proof in a motivating factor for us to take prayer seriously a servant will be raised after death from his grave according to his hei'a how he was in prayer to what degree were they present in their prayer and such that they had stillness and tranquillity in their prayer so imagine yawma qiyamah which is subjectively from two light rakaats to 50 000 years people experience it somewhere in that realm is that your raha your repose your repose on the day of judgments will be according to that your repose in prayer in other words that the more that we have tan'a'am 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 yawma qiyamah to how it is that we experience that day the more repose we have in prayer the more repose on yawma qiyamah is that the more that we enjoy prayers the less that we'll fear on yawma qiyamah it directly relates to how we are in prayer what are we in a ma'na halal alibi hurair this is a mokuf that meaning that is narrated by one of the sahabah by uh that abu hurairah anyone who says he says so he's told the truth and then he quotes the meaning of a hadith the hadith in sahib muslim abdan alamama taalay every server will be raised according to how it is that they died right their state 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 yawma qiyamah is going to be very different than 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 may Allah ta'ala 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 awliya and the saudiheen may 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 subhanahu wa ta'ala wa sallallahu alayhi wa sallam alhamdulillahi rabbil ad-dameen I apologize for going over and we will continue back as I understand after Salah at 145 correct