Neglecting the Salah (with British Sign Language) - Shaykh Mohammed Ali

Khutbah al-Ula — First Sermon

Opening — Praise and Testimony

All praise is due to Allah. We praise Him, we seek His help and we seek His forgiveness. And we seek refuge in Allah from the evil of our souls and from the evil of our deeds.

Whomsoever Allah guides, none can misguide him. And whosoever He leads astray, none can guide him. And I bear witness that there is no god but Allah, alone, no partner for Him. And I bear witness that Muhammad is His servant and Messenger. Peace be upon him and his family and his companions, and whoever follows them in good faith until the Day of Judgment.

Indeed, the truth of the hadith is the word of Allah. And the best guidance is the guidance of Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him. And the worst of things are its innovations. And every innovation is a misguidance. May Allah protect us from it.

O you who have believed, fear Allah as He should be feared. And do not die except as Muslims.

O you people, fear your Lord Who created you from one soul. And He created from it a wife, and He spread among them many men and women. And fear Allah with whom you ask for mercy. Indeed, Allah is watching over you.

O you who have believed, fear Allah and say the right words. He will correct your deeds and He will forgive your sins. And whosoever obeys Allah and His Messenger has won a great victory. O Allah, make us of the winners in this world and the Hereafter.

The Hadith of Qabeesah and Abu Hurairah

Narrated by al-Tirmidhi and al-Nasa'i, may Allah have mercy on them: Qabeesah said — I entered Madinah, I asked Allah to grant me a good seat. I sat with Abu Hurairah. I said to him, "O Abu Hurairah, I asked Allah to grant me a good seat. Teach me a hadith. I heard it from the Messenger of Allah. May Allah help me with it."

My dear brothers and sisters in Islam, Qabeesah has said: I came to the city of Madinah, and I have asked Allah to bless me with a righteous person that I can sit with. And then I sat with Abu Hurairah. And I have told him that I have asked Allah to bless me with a righteous person to sit with. And I have asked him, "Teach me one hadith that you have heard from the Prophet — maybe Allah is going to benefit me through this hadith."

As you can see, this traveler who came to the city of Madinah — Qabeesah — he asked Allah this favor, and Allah answered his call. And Allah made him sit down with Abu Hurairah. And he asked Abu Hurairah this very important question: "Teach me one hadith that you have heard from the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him."

And as we know, Abu Hurairah is the companion who has narrated the most hadith from the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him. I want you to pause for a moment, ikhwani and akhawati. Pause for a second. And ask yourself this question: Which hadith do you think that Abu Hurairah is going to pick from his mind, and teach this particular person who has asked him this important question? What do you think the topic of the hadith is going to be?

Abu Hurairah chose the following hadith. And the topic of the hadith — what is it? It is about the salah.

(Sunan al-Tirmidhi, Hadith 413; Sunan al-Nasa'i, Book 6, Hadith 465)

The first thing that we will be held responsible for — what will be judged when it comes to our actions, the good deeds that we do — is the salah. If our salah is sound, what is going to happen? You will be successful. And if your salah is not sound, what is going to happen? You become a loser.

The Prophets and the Salah

Allah told us the importance of salah in the Quran in different ways. Among the ways that Allah told us that the salah is important is this: He commanded all the prophets of Allah to pray the salah.

For example, Yunus, peace be upon him — what did Allah say about him?

Had he not been from those who remember Allah — meaning those who prayed — if Yunus was not from them, he would have remained inside the belly of the whale until the Day of Judgment.

Also look at Ibrahim, peace be upon him — what did he say?

"O Allah, I have left my family in a valley that is uncultivated, next to the sacred house." For what purpose? Ibrahim said: "O our Lord, so that they establish the prayer."

Prophet Isa, peace be upon him — when his mother came to her people and they accused her of committing zina. And they said to her, "How can you have a child who does not have a father?" She pointed towards the little baby, and they said: "How are we going to talk to someone like him?" And then what did he say?

He said, "I am the slave of Allah. And Allah chose me to be a prophet. He made me a blessed one wherever I am. And He commanded me" — what? — "the salah and also the zakah, as long as I live." You can see the importance of the salah. We can go on and on and on, but the time will not allow us to do that.

Prophetic Ahadith on the Salah

If we look at the hadith of the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, look at what he has said:

(Sunan al-Tirmidhi, Hadith 2621; Sunan al-Nasa'i, Book 1, Hadith 463; Musnad Ahmad, Hadith 22987)

The Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, has said: the covenant between us and them is the salah. If anyone abandons the salah, that person has left the religion of Islam.

(Sahih Muslim, Book 1, Hadith 134)

Also in another hadith, the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, has said: between the man and the act of polytheism and disbelief is what? The abandonment of the salah.

(Sahih al-Bukhari, Hadith 391)

The Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, has said: anyone who prays the form of the salah that we pray, and he faces towards our qibla, and he eats what we slaughter — that person is the Muslim who has the protection of Allah and the protection of His Messenger. Do not betray the protection of Allah.

Light, Proof, and Salvation — or Loss

Dear brothers, the hadith of the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, narrated by Imam Ahmad on the authority of Abdullah ibn Amr ibn al-As: the concept of salah was mentioned in the presence of the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, and let us see what he said:

(Musnad Ahmad, Hadith 6576)

The Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, said regarding the salah: anyone who takes care of his salah — it will be for him light, and also a burhan — an argument for him — and also salvation. In which day? In the Hereafter.

And then the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, continued and said: anyone who abandons the salah — if you don't look after your salah and you are on and off — some of us, unfortunately, only pray maybe once a day, maybe once a week. Some people just pray Salatul Jumu'ah. Probably in our masjid right now, or in any other masjid, we will find people who just pray the Salatul Jumu'ah. What about the rest of the week?

The Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, said: if you don't look after your salah — you will have no light in the next life, you will have no argument on your behalf, and you will have no salvation. And not only that — you will be resurrected with who? You will be resurrected with Qarun, Fir'aun, Haman, and Ubayy ibn Khalaf. Do you want to be resurrected next to those people? Do you want to be from those people in the next life and be resurrected with them, and be made present in front of Allah with that crowd? Ask yourself.

The People of Hellfire and Their First Confession

And look at what Allah has said in the Quran, when the people of Hellfire are asked the following question:

When the people of Saqar — the people of Hellfire — are asked: "What brought you here?" What is the first answer they are going to give? "We didn't used to pray. That was our problem." We didn't used to feed the poor people. And we used to indulge with those who indulge, saying negative things about the believers. There are so many people in this world today who are busy saying bad things about Islam and the Muslims. And we used to disbelieve in the next life — this very day — until death came to us. Too little, too late.

Dear brothers and sisters in Islam, you can see the severity of missing the salah. SubhanAllah. The severity of missing the salah.

In the next part of our khutbah, insha'Allah, we are going to talk about — as a parent — I can see many fathers sitting in front of me right now. Many parents. Hundreds, if not thousands, of parents are sitting in front of me right now, especially fathers. What is your duty when it comes to this matter? The matter of the salah. We will hear it, insha'Allah, in the second part of our khutbah.

Khutbah al-Thaniyah — Second Sermon

The Duty of Fathers Regarding the Salah

Dear brothers, let us listen to what Umar ibn al-Khattab, may Allah be pleased with him, has said regarding the person who abandons the salah. Umar, may Allah be pleased with him, and other companions such as Ibn Mas'ud, Abd al-Rahman ibn Awf, and others — look at what they said:

(Attributed to Umar ibn al-Khattab, Ibn Mas'ud, and Abd al-Rahman ibn Awf, may Allah be pleased with them all)

You have no share in this religion if you don't pray salah. Basic. Simple equation. You have no share in this religion when it comes to someone who abandons the salah.

Umar ibn al-Khattab, may Allah be pleased with him — and we know who Umar is — what did he used to do? Umar, imagine: being the Ameer al-Mu'mineen, the leader of the believers, with so many duties and so busy — what did he used to do at night time? He used to pray at night however much Allah had written for him. And when he reached the end of the night, what did he used to do? He used to wake up his family and he used to say to them: "Al-Salah! Al-Salah! Al-Salah!" — Wake up for salah! Wake up for the salah! And what else did he used to recite?

Imagine Umar ibn al-Khattab at that time — 1,400 years ago — and he is the most powerful man probably on earth at that time, needing to wake up his family.

Many times, parents come to me — especially fathers — and they say to me: "Imam, I'm struggling with my kids, especially when they grow up. Now they are 16, 17, 18 or older. When I tell them to pray salah they don't wake up. Some of them argue back, talk back. Some of the fathers say even the wife doesn't want to wake up for salah. What should I do? I've been doing it for a long while. I've been telling them to wake up for salah. Shall I just stop telling them? It gives me so much of a headache."

You cannot give up. Because the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, himself was commanded: وَأْمُرْ أَهْلَكَ بِالصَّلَاةِ — the Prophet was told to command his family to pray. And that was the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him. And Umar ibn al-Khattab needed to say to his family: "Wake up for salah."

This is a God-given right to you as a father. You must never resign from it. Never give up. If your children, if your wife, for example, doesn't listen — you don't give up. This is your duty. Even if they talk back, if they are rude to you, say to them: "This is a God-given duty and I will continue to tell you to wake up for salah as long as I am alive. When I die, this is not my responsibility anymore. But as long as I live and I am in the house, I am going to wake you up for the salah — because Allah commanded me to do so."

And be patient upon it. Very important.

Ibn al-Qayyim's Warning to Fathers

My dear brothers — our fathers — we need to take this matter very seriously. Ibn al-Qayyim, rahimahullah — I'm going to close the khutbah today with this statement. This is a very scary statement, but it is very profound. It is going to wake us up from the deep sleep that we are in, especially some of our fathers.

What do you think Ibn al-Qayyim, rahimahullah, has said? Over 700 years ago, he said:

(Ibn al-Qayyim al-Jawziyyah, Tuhfat al-Mawdud bi Ahkam al-Mawlud)

He said: any man — any father — who abandons and does not teach his children what will benefit them, and leaves them to wander aimlessly — he has wronged them in the worst possible manner. And what else did he say? The majority of kids are corrupted because of the actions of their fathers.

This is a worrying statement — an important statement — a wake-up call. Imam Ibn al-Qayyim is saying: the majority of kids are corrupted because of what their fathers did or failed to do. Imagine when you are a father and you are sitting in the café, and you don't know what is going on at home. Who's praying, who's not praying. You're busy with social media, you're busy with work — this and that — and you don't care about who prays, who doesn't pray, who comes into the house, who leaves the house. You don't know who knows the Quran, who doesn't know the Quran.

And then what did he say after that? He said: these kids — when their parents have abandoned them at a young age — what is going to happen when the kids grow up and you become too old as a father? They will abandon you. Because if we do not teach our children Islamic values, the Quran, the deen, and the Sunnah of the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him — what is going to happen when they grow older? They will not be useful to themselves, neither will they be useful to their parents.

As we know, in the majority of the non-Muslim community, when parents get older, what do the kids do? They put them in old people's homes. They don't have time for them. Imagine — Muslim kids nowadays are planning this, and some have already started doing it. Because there was no tarbiyah, no Islamic education given to that child. No proper tarbiyah. The father was neglectful. Unfortunately, this is the majority of the time.

So you have to pay attention to this. Otherwise the kids will abandon you when you are too old. They will tell you they don't have time for you, because they don't understand the meaning of being good to their parents. They don't have that — because the salah would have taught them that. The deen of Allah would have taught them that. The right tarbiyah would have taught them that.

The Du'a of Ibrahim — A Lesson for Our Time

So dear brothers and sisters in Islam — we need to wake up. Especially fathers: I want you to go back home today, take this matter very seriously, and say: "There is no way I am going to abandon the kids. There is no way I am going to abandon the family — especially when it comes to the salah."

Imagine Prophet Ibrahim saying thousands of years ago:

Make that du'a as well: "O Allah, make me of those who establish the prayer, and also my offspring." Imagine — if Ibrahim, peace be upon him, needed to make that du'a thousands of years ago — what about our time? Very, very important.

So dear brothers and sisters in Islam, take the matter of salah very seriously and help each other as a family to take this salah very seriously. And young brothers who are here right now, or young sisters — when your parents wake you up for salah, do not talk back, argue back, or feel bad about this. Just remember: your parents — your father especially — he is doing his God-given duty. Which is what? To take care of the family and also to remind the family about the salah. Like Umar ibn al-Khattab was doing. Like the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, was commanded to do. And like all the other prophets. So we have to remember that.

Closing Du'a