Prayer Will Fix You

Opening

We begin by praising Allah and bearing witness that none has the right to be worshipped or unconditionally obeyed except for Him. We bear witness that Muhammad ﷺ is His final messenger. We ask Allah to send His peace and blessings upon Him, the prophets and messengers that came before Him, His family and companions that served alongside Him, and those that follow in His blessed footsteps until the Day of Judgment. And we ask Allah to make us amongst them, Allahumma ameen.

The Search for a Special Connection to Allah

Dear brothers and sisters, oftentimes we are looking for something special to provoke in us a connection to Allah that we feel like we have seen in others and that we envy. And so you'll have people that ask for this very special equation.

"Shaykh, what's one du'a I can make so that I can quit this sin? Can you give me a wird? Can you give me something to read on a daily basis? And that way I can finally connect to Allah. What's something that can finally make me feel like I'm connected to Allah throughout the day? What is this amazing script? Find me the story that's buried in a book. Find me anything that can get me out of the situation that I am in."

And subhanAllah, I want you to think about a person who would go to the doctor and who would receive a very specific prescription. And that prescription seems almost too easy and too good to be true. There's no mystery to it. And there's no shortage of its treatments. And it is 100% in its likelihood to cure you. And I want you to think about the thing that you do on a daily basis, but maybe don't appreciate so much.

The Most Beloved of Deeds: Prayer on Time

As-salah — the five daily prayers — the most beloved of deeds to Allah. And you know, maybe you don't appreciate it if you've been doing it your entire life, or especially if you've been doing it your entire life. But someone looks at you from the outside and says, "You really have to pray five times a day no matter what, and pull away and find this corner." And to that person that's walking in the airport and that sees you next to a gate, or that person at school that sees you on time praying and in the corner doing your ruku and your sujood, you look like a monk to that person. But to you, this is just another thing you've got to get done throughout the day.

And I want you to think about how special these five prayers are for a moment. That the Prophet ﷺ said that they are ahabbul a'mali ilallah — the most beloved of deeds to Allah — as-salatu 'ala waqtiha. To pray on time is the most beloved of deeds to Allah.

"No one of My slaves will come closer to Me with anything more beloved than that which I have prescribed upon them."

Before qiyamul layl, before this special du'a, before this amazing story — it's these five prayers that you have. When you talk about muhasaba and muraqaba, when you talk about self-accounting and observing the sight of Allah upon you, there is no deed more powerful than the one that you have been instructed to do five times a day. If you pray — if you establish the prayer.

The Quranic Command: Prayer Forbids Evil

So I want to sit with this ayah for a bit, where Allah says in Surah al-'Ankabut:

Recite that which has been revealed to you of the Book and establish the prayer. Verily, the prayer forbids — it stops you, it forbids you from falling into al-fahsha'a wal-munkar. Two categories of sins. The ulama have long, beautiful, powerful reflections on these two categories.

If you read the English translation, it would say the major and the minor sins — the extremely foul sins, and the sins that might be considered more consistent or more regular or amongst the overlooked sins. But the point is all sins fall under these two categories. And al-fahsha'a tends to represent in the sharia that which has a level of disgust, that which is qabeeh, that which is flagrant, that which represents a different stage in your distance from Allah. That's why Allah refers to zina — adultery, fornication, and all types of sexual deviance — with this term of fahisha. Because it's foul, it takes you so far away from Allah. Wal-munkar, as the most subtle or most specific way — kullu ma ankarahu ash-shar'u, everything that Allah has forbidden in His legislation falls under munkar in some way.

Does Sinning While Praying Mean Your Prayer Doesn't Count?

The point is: prayer is a guard against these things. And a person might say, "Well, how come I pray but I still commit these sins? Does that mean I'm not praying at all?"

There is a hadith narrated in al-Tabarani that is extremely weak, but that gets quoted frequently, that seems to indicate that much — where the Prophet ﷺ in this report is said to have said:

(Reported in al-Tabarani — extremely weak narration)

Whoever is not stopped from these sins — the major ones, the minor ones, the flagrant ones, the regular ones — by their salah, then it is as if they have no salah. Their prayer is not recorded for them. Now this hadith is problematic, not just in its sanad, not just in its chain, but in what it might indicate.

There is a report from Ibn Mas'ud رضي الله تعالى عنه and Abdullah ibn Abbas رضي الله عنهما, in their words:

(Reported from Ibn Mas'ud and Ibn Abbas, as an athar of the companions)

It is a scary one. That whoever does not find that their prayer takes them away from evil, obscene deeds, from sinning, then they did not get from their prayer except for distance. Salah is qurb — it is a silah, it's a connection to Allah that is meant to bear closeness, closeness. And here, if you are treating your prayer like a chore, or maybe even doing it just to get by, then it may actually be distancing you further from Allah.

And a lot can be said about this: if the most potent form of connection that you have to Allah does absolutely nothing for you, then at the very least there's a hardening of the heart that's taking place. Someone that comes into the religion for the first time and learns the salah for the first time might taste its sweetness quicker than someone that's been praying for so many years. And insha'Allah, the salah is documented for them, but the heart has not been softened in any way and the closeness to Allah is not being established.

The Prophet's Response: Keep Praying, Even While Sinning

Now there are two instances with the Prophet ﷺ that are very important in regards to this ayah. There is a difference between a person who is praying and who is falling even in fahisha, even in deep sin, but who goes to their prayer and hopes that their prayer will cure them from that, and seeks a connection with Allah, but is at a particular point in their journey.

A lot of times you diagnose two people wrong, because you frame them based on the output in the exact same way. The munafiq could look indistinguishable from the struggling Muslim to the outward eye, but there's something of the heart.

And so we find in an authentic narration that the companions came to the Prophet ﷺ and they said:

Think about this lifestyle. This man prays during the day and steals at night. He lives between salah and sariqa — theft. And the Prophet ﷺ responded:

That his prayer will one day bring him back.

And in another authentic narration, from Anas رضي الله تعالى عنه, he said:

There was a young man from the Ansar. And realize — no one was Muslim that long with the Prophet ﷺ, because his entire mission on earth was two decades. And if you're an Ansari, that means it's less than a decade. And so this young man used to pray with the Prophet ﷺ, but look at his description by the companions: there wasn't a single one of the obscene deeds except that he was guilty of those deeds. He was spoken about to the Prophet ﷺ, described to him in this regard. And the Prophet ﷺ said:

One day his prayer is going to stop him. One day his prayer will bring him back.

Look — the man has shut a lot of doors between him and Allah. Don't shut the most important door that he has. And to all of the people in here that are struggling, even with a major sin — don't diminish the major sin — but don't let Shaytan get in your head and tell you, "What's the point of your salah if you're committing this sin?" And Anas goes on to say, subhanAllah, that this young man repented to Allah shortly after the Prophet ﷺ said that. And so don't let the Shaytan play you into thinking that at any point giving up the salah is necessary because you've distanced yourself that much from Allah.

The Flowing River: The Hadith of the Five Prayers

But then it brings us back to the ayah. Then what is the ayah saying? If it's not saying stop praying, if it's not getting you to stop these sins and not getting you to be more accountable with these sayyi'at, then what is the ayah actually saying?

And this is the beautiful hadith from Jabir ibn Abdullah رضي الله تعالى عنه, that the Prophet ﷺ said:

(Sahih Muslim, Book 4, Hadith 1411 / Hadith 667)

The Prophet ﷺ said the example of your five daily prayers is like a flowing, deep river — and in one narration, adhb, which means it's sweet. Imagine a sweet, flowing river right in front of your door.

Now I want you to just think about what's being suggested here. Number one, the ulama say you can take every word of the hadith and there's beauty. It's flowing — so it doesn't stay still, and it doesn't become corrupted at any point. It's like a flowing, pure river. The second thing — it is deep. There is plenty of water for everyone to immerse themselves in. The salah is there as a cure for every single person that wants it. There's no shortage of it. You don't need to go anywhere necessarily for it. Of course the masjid has its place — but saying in general, it's there for you. It is near to you. It is consistently available to you. And it is meant to immerse every single part of your body. And it is sweet. And it's right there — right in front of your door. You don't have to travel for it.

And the Prophet ﷺ said that the example is that a person bathes in that river five times a day. What type of filth would remain on a person, as al-Hasan rahimahullah comments on this, if he bathes five times a day? Think about a person who showers, shampoos, soaps up, conditions — five times a day. Perfumes, everything. Physically speaking, can you imagine a person like that? What are they gonna smell like? What are they going to look like? How fresh will they be? The Prophet ﷺ is saying: imagine yourself spiritually bathing five times a day.

And not all showers are the same. There's the sunnah. There are different brands of shampoo, different brands of soap, different fragrances, different ways in which you scrub yourself. Not every shower is the same. There is a two-minute shower and there is a twenty-minute shower. Not every one of them is the same.

But what the ulama say when they comment on this is that a true salah — if you immerse yourself five times a day — a person could achieve wilayah with Allah, a friendship with Allah, just through that alone. Why? Because just tasting the sweetness of that five times a day — how are you going to go from that to the rest of your day and continue thinking the same way, continue speaking the same way, continue looking at the same things?

The Remembrance of Allah Is Greater

And Allah continues and He says:

And the remembrance of Allah is greater. And the ulama say this is loaded with beauty as well. Is the remembrance of Allah greater in the salah, or greater as a deterrence — meaning, deterring you from these types of evils throughout the day? What is the extent to which this ayah is suggesting this? And the scholars say a few things and we can reconcile them.

Number one — can you imagine for a moment if in your prayer you were allowed to use your phone? And by the way, you're not allowed to use your phone in the prayer, or in Salatul Jumu'ah, by the way. Can you imagine if in salah you were able to scroll through your phone? Can you imagine if you were able to have conversations during salah? I mean, you don't have to look further than tawaf and umrah and hajj and the types of conversations that are ensuing there — between the selfies and the conversations, I don't know how much dhikr some people can get in a matter of just seven rounds.

Can you imagine if in your salah — the one time of the day, the five times of the day — that you come to the prayer where you have to at least, at the bare minimum, not talk about evil things, not say evil things, not listen to evil things, not look at evil things — can you imagine if that was compromised? What a mercy from Allah that we're not allowed any of that. That is a rahmah from Allah. That's a huge mercy from Allah. We're not allowed any of that. Alhamdulillah. Because Allah knows how distracted we'd be in salah. We're already distracted enough just by the thoughts for what came before and what comes after the salah.

But on top of that, Imam Ibn al-Qayyim rahimahullah says: what is it that's going to prohibit a person from the effect of sin inside of them? It's the dhikr inside the salah. When your whole body is in a state of dhikr five times a day, and you're remembering Allah, and as Ibn Abbas رضي الله تعالى عنهما says — and beyond that, if a person is in a state of remembering Allah throughout the day, then they don't even have to wait to be pulled to a full immersion of dhikr five times a day.

What greater way to protect yourself, to protect your eyes, to protect your ears, to protect your tongue, than being in a state of remembrance of Allah throughout the day? You can't guard yourself around the consistent signals of evil today unless you have a consistent spiritual habit of connection to Allah. It's the only way. The more extreme those signals get, the more committed you have to be to those things that Allah put right in front of you.

Not All Salahs Are Equal — Honor These Five Prayers

So what am I saying, dear brothers and sisters? Not all salahs are equal. But if you've been treating your five daily prayers as just an obligation you need to hurry up and get through and move on from — take a step back and remind yourself that Allah just gave you the greatest gift in these five prayers. Treat them right. Honor these five prayers.

SubhanAllah, there's a hadith and I'll end with this narration. It's a beautiful one — and it's also authentic. About two brothers. And it's narrated from Sa'd ibn Abi Waqqas رضي الله تعالى عنه, whose son narrates it from him, that there were two brothers in the time of the Prophet ﷺ.

(Sunan al-Nasa'i, Book 6, Hadith 3143; also recorded in Musnad Ahmad)

One of them died 40 days before the other — just a little over a month before the other, one brother died before the other. And they were speaking in front of the Prophet ﷺ, and they were talking about the one who died first. So the Prophet ﷺ is listening to them praise the first one that passed away. And then he says:

"Wasn't the second one a Muslim too? You're talking about the first one — wasn't the second one a Muslim as well?" And the Prophet ﷺ wants to make a point. They said, "Yes, O Messenger of Allah" — and he was all right, like he was okay. La ba'sa bihi. He wasn't as great as the first one. And the Prophet ﷺ said:

What do you know about what rank his prayer delivered him to? You don't know what rank his salah took him to. You don't know how much that extra month of just the five daily prayers alone actually elevated his rank. You have no idea.

What Would They Give for One More Prayer?

Dear brothers and sisters, when you go to the graveyard and you're seeing these people that are under the ground, and you ask yourself what it is they would want if they could have one more chance — it might just be that Salatul Asr and that Maghrib you just do on the side and do it as a sense of burden, like "I've got to get this out of the way." And for them it would be more precious than an entire lifetime to just come back and get one more Salatul Dhuhr, one more Jumu'ah, one more Asr. That's the gift that Allah has with you right now. If they could say, "Give me one more chance — let me get one more Dhuhr, one more Asr" — what are we doing with these precious prayers?

And so it's worth it to immerse ourselves, to learn the words that we're saying, to add on the sunnah.

Dhikr is driven by love. To add on the dhikr after the salah and beyond, to remember Allah between the two.

May Allah prohibit us from the evil things that taint our souls, that darken our hearts, that don't allow us to perceive His greatness or the magnitude of the gifts that He's given to us anymore. May Allah connect us to Him in every way. May Allah purify our deeds so that they are fully pleasing to Him. Allahumma ameen.

Closing Du'a