Quality of Salah

Quality of Salah

In the name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful. All praise is due to Allah, and sufficient is the prayer, and peace be upon the Messenger of Allah. Allah, the Exalted, said in the Glorious Qur'an, after I seek refuge with Allah from the accursed Satan, In the name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful.

One thing we must ensure that we are always improving on is the quality of our prayer. And not simply performing it, but rather making it worthy of quality. Like we always speak about the quality of life, the quality of the food that we eat, improving the quality of every single thing.

Quality control — that's part of the system here. It's not sufficient to just get it done, but we have to ensure that it fulfills the basic requirements and not just that, but goes beyond that to a higher notch. Constantly and consistently we are trying various methods to improve all sorts of aspects of our work.

And the same can be said and must be said about our salah. That as we have been performing this for years and years, alhamdulillah, since childhood — what is the quality of our salah? And where does it stand today?

The Hadith on Wudu and Two Rak'ahs

The Prophet ﷺ mentioned in a hadith which I just recited at the beginning: that any Muslim who performs wudu and he does a good job — he performs his wudu also beautifully, ensuring that the etiquettes are kept in mind, water is not being wasted, sunnah is being followed — ensuring that the entire limbs, the elbows, the ankles (and these are very common spots where we leave it dry), are washed. Of course, taking care means rubbing his hands, rubbing his feet, putting his fingers between the toes, making sure we're doing khilal, and making sure that between the fingers as well of the hands, that if there's any possibility of water not going through, that we are ensuring that water is reaching by rubbing our fingers together, and ensuring that the masah is done over the head properly, and so on.

Doing so properly, and then comes to perform salah. Two rak'ahs — just two rak'ahs. He does a proper wudu and prays two rak'ahs of salah.

But this two rak'ah salah is such that a person is putting his heart into it. مُقْبِلًا — a person is focused with his heart. وَوَجْهِهِ — as well as his face, meaning he's not looking around. Not only is his heart devoted to this two rak'ah, but his mind and his face is also — and all his limbs are also focused.

Except — إِلَّا وَجَبَتْ لَهُ الْجَنَّةُ. What do we get for two rak'ah salah? إِلَّا وَجَبَتْ لَهُ الْجَنَّةُ — paradise becomes obligatory for him. Simply by performing two rak'ah salah with quality. Allah Azza wa Jal is willing to make us from the people of Jannah.

Because in order to do that, a person really has to feel that they're in the presence of Allah. Consistently throughout the prayer, from wudu towards the time we say salam, Shaytan will be attacking us. And for us to resist all of that, and to be focused in our wudu and salah, requires us to have love of Allah, to have fear of Allah, to have the belief that we are in His presence. And that of course, insha'Allah, will become a means of a person gaining paradise.

Khushu' — The Heart of Prayer

Allah Azza wa Jal says in the Qur'an: indeed the believers have gained ultimate success. And Allah Azza wa Jal then further explains the quality of the believers whereby they become worthy of this success. And the first quality is:

They are the ones who are performing their prayers with concentration, with humility.

Allah Azza wa Jal says in Surah Al-Baqarah:

Stand up for Allah in the state of humility and humbleness with utmost concentration. So the qunoot, part of qunoot — وَقُومُوا لِلَّهِ قَانِتِينَ — when Allah says stand up as a qanit, it means that a person follows through all the aspects of prayer properly.

When a person is performing the ruku, when a person is performing the sujood, a person is keeping their gaze cast down. We speak about the etiquettes with parents, the etiquettes with elders, the etiquettes with people of authority. One of those things is that we don't look them in the eye when we speak to them. We look down and if we are feeling the presence of this individual, of this mighty leader, or our parent, grandparent — a person feels ashamed at times and feels shy and looks down.

So this is part of the etiquette with Allah Azza wa Jal when you and I stand up in front of Him every single day — that we are not looking left and right. We are not looking in front of us. Instead, we keep our eyes focused on the ground as humble servants. And think about just the posture of putting our hands — the different methods of course, but the method of putting the hands below the belly is again one of humility. When a person simply looks down, imagine you are sitting here and someone comes and stands in front of you with the eyes cast down and the hands held down low below the navel. What is that? That's a posture of humility, isn't it? And that's exactly what we are trained to do in front of Allah Azza wa Jal every single day when we pray — to keep the heart and the mind as well as the limbs humble in front of Allah.

Khushu' and Khudhu'

As the commentators have explained: الخشوع محله القلب. Two words have been mentioned — khushu' and khudhu' in prayer. Khushu' resides in the heart, and it manifests itself on the limbs. So when the khushu' gets ruined and a person doesn't have khushu', then it creates heedlessness — ghaflah — within a person. It creates wasawis, whisperings within a person. And then:

The limbs are no longer able to manifest true servitude and slavery to Allah Azza wa Jal. Because:

The heart is like the king, and the limbs are like the subordinate foot soldiers of this king. They follow the orders of the king. When the heart loses focus, it is as though the king has been dethroned. And when the king has been dethroned, what's going to happen to the foot soldiers? They're obviously not going to be able to do anything. They're going to run for their lives. And that's what happens — the fear and the humility and humbleness from the limbs disappear.

As the Prophet ﷺ saw a person playing with his beard during prayer. And he mentioned on that occasion or a similar type of incident:

If there was khushu' in this person's heart, then it would have definitely been manifested in the limbs. The fact that we have the heedlessness to straighten out the beard, to straighten out the clothes, to remove something from the carpet — it means the heart is disconnected. The king has been dethroned. And that's why the limbs aren't listening. The eyes are not listening. The hands and the feet are not listening. They're all over the place. Because the connection with the central power is gone.

So the focus is on the heart first, and then the limbs will follow suit.

The First Blessing to Be Lifted

The Prophet ﷺ has mentioned in a hadith:

The very first blessing that will be lifted up from this ummah, that will be snatched away from this nation, is concentration in salah. And the time will come when you will go and visit a community or a masjid — a group of people — and you will not find even a single person performing their prayer properly. Everyone will be praying, but how many of their prayers are going to get accepted? Everyone is praying, but how many of them know what was being recited? Everyone is praying, but how many of them actually feel that they're in the presence of Allah Azza wa Jal?

How the Companions Prayed

Regarding some of the companions of the Prophet ﷺ — how was their performance of prayer? It is mentioned about Abdullah ibn Zubayr:

Abdullah ibn Zubayr, when he would stand in front of Allah Azza wa Jal for salah, it was as though he had become a pillar of humility, a pillar of humbleness. And many of them, when they would come back from salah, when they would walk away from the masjid, you would see that the color of their faces had changed — because they had just walked away from standing in front of Allah Azza wa Jal.

Like someone who comes out after an interview — and a very hard interview, an interview where they were standing in the presence of some powerful person who can with a pen decide where their future lies. What would happen to that person even after the interview is over? The heart rate is high, the blood pressure is possibly high, they might be sweating. So the sahabah who would feel the presence of Allah — they would turn back from their salah feeling that they had just come back from the presence of Allah Azza wa Jal.

And some of them — their faces would change color when they would be performing wudu. Someone mentioned to one of them: "Why do we see that when you are performing wudu, the color of your face is changing?" He said: "The reason is that I know in whose presence I'm about to stand. Maybe you don't know, but I know in whose presence I'm about to stand — and the effect of that is obviously expressed in my face."

Ali ibn Abi Talib, may Allah be pleased with him, in anticipation and preparation for salah, would shiver and his face would change color. Someone said to him, "What is the matter with you?" He would say: "I swear by Allah, the time has come for me to present that trust which Allah Azza wa Jal had offered to the heavens and the earth and the mountains — they refused to accept it — and I had accepted it."

He is referring to an ayah of the Qur'an, the last verses of Surah Al-Ahzab, where Allah Azza wa Jal says:

"Would you like to become a representative?" — offered to the heavens and the earth and the mountains. They refused. They said, "This is too much for us." And the human being said, "I'm ready for it." So Ali says: "I accepted that which the mountains and the heavens and the earth refused to do — and now it is the time for check-in. You're checking in. How well did you fulfill that responsibility? How would my color not change?"

How to Attain Concentration in Salah

So how can one attain this level of concentration, devotion, and salah so that when we walk away, we don't feel like, "Why did I come here in the first place? What was the purpose of this whole activity?" People nowadays are speaking about — they have this discussion — "What do I get out of prayer? Why should I pray?" I'm sure we've all heard this type of conversation going on. "What does it give me?" And you're right. If we don't give anything to salah, salah is not going to give us much. If you put something in it, you will get something out. But if we don't put much in it, if we don't put much preparation into it, we're definitely not going to get much out of it either.

Performing Wudu Properly

One of the things is performing our wudu properly — including our siwak, the tooth stick that was the sunnah of the Prophet ﷺ. That's one of the first things that we can do. When we do our wudu, start off from there. Let me realize — it's not a quick in and out thing. Yes, it can take one or two minutes; don't waste the water. But realize why am I doing wudu? I'm doing wudu to stand in front of Allah Azza wa Jal. As I wash my limbs, insha'Allah, my sins are falling off from every portion of my body. Focus on that. As I am making siwak, and I'm beautifying myself, cleansing myself, putting on itr, etc. — why am I doing it? Because I'm going to the presence of the Lord, and standing in front of Him. And I want to be in my best presentation.

Beautifying Oneself for Salah

I mentioned before that we had Mawlana Shaykh Hashim over here a couple of months ago and he spent a week here. He did programs at Darussalam. And one of the things that those around him were saying — and we noticed this as well — that we have times of the day or times of the week when we dress up. When do people, men and women both, dress up, comb their hair, put on whatever they need to put on? Usually before you go to work, before you go for a meeting. And for him, the time he would dress up the most, and he continues, masha'Allah, to do so — may Allah give him long life, health, and barakah in his ilm and his amal — is at 3 a.m. At 3 a.m. he is dressing up. Wearing his kurta, combing his beard, oiling it, putting his turban on nicely, making sure everything is set nicely. Because now it's the time for tahajjud. It's a time to stand in front of Allah Azza wa Jal. And he wants to be in his best form.

Allah Azza wa Jal says:

Ensure that you beautify yourself — خُذُوا, take; زِينَة, beauty. Take it on and beautify yourself عِندَ كُلِّ مَسْجِدٍ — every time you pray, every time you do sujood. It starts from there. If someone comes disheveled, sweaty, unprepared — straight off the court — Allahu Akbar, we're not putting anything into it. Yes, I know we have to pray whenever we get the opportunity every single time. But we have to prepare a few minutes before that. Would we go to an interview like that? Would we have a meeting like that — if our mouth is not smelling properly, if we have bad odor? Obviously not. So when a person doesn't even prepare very basically for salah, the salah is not going to be able to give you much, because we haven't invested enough in it.

Relieving Oneself Before Salah

The Prophet ﷺ also mentioned the fact that a person should relieve himself before performing salah. It's not like, "Let me quickly perform my salah and then use the restroom." The ulama have actually written that it is makruh — reprehensible — to perform the salah when a person has to use the restroom. Obviously when a person has to use the restroom, he's not going to be able to be focused. So you'd rather take your time. It means you may miss your jama'ah. Of course, it's not good to miss the jama'ah. But still, if a person really has to relieve himself or herself, they should complete that first. Because you don't want any impending need — as soon as my salam is finished, I have to run to the bathroom. That shouldn't be there.

The Prophet ﷺ said:

(Sunan Abi Dawud, Hadith 88; Sunan al-Tirmidhi, Hadith 142)

If anyone of you needs to go to the bathroom and salah has begun, ensure that you first go to the bathroom and relieve yourself.

You may have heard as well that when there is extreme hunger — not the hunger that you and I probably go through once in a while, because we're eating multiple meals, masha'Allah — but rather talking about the hunger when a person has not had food for a very long time, and then the food arrives. Even in that instance, a person is told: go ahead, eat first, then pray. This is not the normal circumstance. We're talking about people who are in extreme hunger and food has come. Let them eat first. Because if they were to start their prayer while the food is out there, they will be interested in quickly performing the salah to go eat.

Many times in our get-togethers, family gatherings and weddings, we'll say, "Come on, let's quickly pray so that we can sit down and relax and eat the meal together." And we quickly wrap up our salah so that we can eat. That's a completely opposite etiquette. A person should instead — at that time — say: "Alright, I understand people will start leaving towards the end of the gathering. People now have wudu. So we understand the benefit of performing salah first. But let's change the wording. Because what's in the heart comes out on the tongue."

So how about, alhamdulillah, we perform our salah nicely so that no one's in a rush? It's the beginning of the party. Everyone's fresh; it's still 7pm, 8pm. Let's perform our salah nicely and then, alhamdulillah, we go to our food and enjoy the rest of the evening as well. So ensure that even when speaking about our salah, we are careful about the words we use. We should not be saying, "Let's quickly pray, let's wrap up." Instead say: "Let's perform our salah nicely, insha'Allah, together, and then head over to our meals."

Wearing Appropriate Clothing

We talked about doing proper wudu. We talked about ensuring that we are rested and there's no specific need that we have. While speaking about beautification and wearing good clothing, one of the things is that a person should try to ensure that the clothing he wears is loose clothing — so that our physique is not exposed. Because when is a person exposing the sattar? One is when a person is not wearing clothing at all. And another is when a person is wearing such tight clothing — although the skin is not exposed — but the complete physique of the body is exposed. And that is most definitely against the etiquette of clothing generally speaking, and especially when standing in front of Allah.

Many times we have our t-shirts and jeans — it's a very common problem all over — because of this, when a person goes into sujood, not only does skin become exposed, but the sattar becomes exposed. That part which is mandatory to be covered — after which if it is exposed, it is haram for anyone to see it and haram for us to expose it. And most definitely our salah breaks as well. How many times we see that happening? Because we're not thinking. We have these tight t-shirts or low-riding jeans, and a person performs salah without realizing that his salah is actually not being accepted and he is ruining the salah of the people behind him as well. So we need to ensure that when we come to the masjid or perform salah at home or wherever we are, the clothing completely covers our whole body.

The Thief of Salah

A person would never like to be called a thief. If any of us were to be accused by our co-workers of being a thief at work — a thief at work is bad, a thief in the masjid is worse. But imagine being called a thief in salah. That is the worst possible thing that could happen. That is why it is mentioned on the authority of Abu Sa'id al-Khudri:

The worst person when it comes to stealing is the one who steals from his salah. The companions said, "O Prophet of Allah, how does a person steal from his prayer?" He said: "It is the person who does not perform the postures of ruku and sajdah properly." He does a very quick ruku and very quick sajdah. It's as though he's stealing from his prayer.

So we have been warned here that if we are in a rush, then pray fewer: you can't pray eight, pray four, pray two. But pray slowly. These are the habits we learn from a young age. So those of us who have younger children — I advise myself and advise you — don't say, "Okay, please just pray." I'd rather a five-year-old pray once a day. I'd rather a seven-year-old pray once a day. But slowly. So he learns that if he is going to pray, he has to pray with this etiquette.

Timed — your two rak'ah salah cannot take less than two minutes. Because if we as parents, fathers and mothers, ensure that that happens at a young age, they will learn that salah is something which takes a while. I can't do it quickly.

I always mention this story. I had a classmate — I still remember him. When we were studying and he would say, "Hey, we've got to catch the bus" or "We've got to go on this trip. Let's pray our salah quickly." And he would get enraged. He would shout back and say, "I can't pray salah fast, so don't ask me to do that. I can't pray salah fast — that's just something I don't do. Tell me not to pray. But don't tell me to pray fast." Up and down, kiss the ground — that type of thing is not good training for our kids. It starts from a very young age. Just slow it down and bring those postures nicely.

The Example of the Hungry Person

The Prophet ﷺ explained in another hadith:

What an example he gave to the Arabs of that time, who could connect with this. He said: "The example of the one who doesn't perform his ruku and sajdah properly" — he's doing the ruku, he's doing the sajdah, سُبْحَانَ رَبِّيَ الْعَظِيمِ — you can say it five times, seven times, nine times, three times, but just hold it: one one-thousand, two one-thousand, three one-thousand — at least three seconds. He said: "The example of the one who performs his ruku and sajdah but doesn't do it properly is like a hungry person, suffering the pangs of hunger, who takes one or two dates and eats them. Is that going to help him overcome his hunger? No." Similarly is the person who performs his ruku and sajdah quickly. Yes, he's done it for the sake of doing it, but it's not really going to give him any benefit — no spiritual benefit, no worldly benefit.

Pray Every Salah as if It Is Your Last

And lastly, we'll end with the hadith of the Prophet ﷺ. A person came to the Prophet ﷺ and said:

(Sunan Ibn Majah, Hadith 4171; Musnad Ahmad, Hadith 23498)

"O Prophet of Allah, I want you to teach me something, but make it short." This is one of the companions — he's saying, "I can't retain too many long things. Give me something simple and sweet that I can hold on to." The Prophet ﷺ said: "Whenever you stand up to pray, ensure that you pray as though this is your last prayer."

مُوَدِّع is the one who is saying farewell — the one who is not going to pray after. He's about to depart. This is the last prayer of his life. And that's true. We don't know how many more salah we have after this. The majority of people who die in car accidents or other types of incidents — heart attacks or other common causes — do they really know that that was their last prayer? Most probably not. Very few people know that this is their last prayer.

So for all of us, it's the same thing. How do we know how many more salah we have? Every single time we stand up, let's make it as though it's our last. Pray it as though it's the last. And ensure that it's done in the proper etiquette.

Closing Du'a

I pray to Almighty Allah Azza wa Jal that He allows myself and all of us here — our children, our parents, our siblings, and the entire community — to work on improving the quality of our prayer. And that He allows us not to be content with the prayer that we learned in Sunday school, or that was taught to us by our grandparents 20, 25, 30, 35, 40 years ago. But instead, the way we have built on our vocabulary, the way we have built on so many of our skills — motor skills and all our other skills — that we continue to improve on the quality of our salah as we grow older. And that we can make our salah meaningful, so that not only can we get the needs of this world fulfilled, but we can also get the needs of the hereafter fulfilled.