- Let's pretend or let's say for the moment,
that yeah, I want to get up and pray tahajjud.
I wanna do this. You know what?
I really want to implement this in my life.
So how do you do it?
How do I?
What are some practical tips to make it happen,
and make it happen easily?
(gentle music)
Let's look at the day first.
We want to use the day to help the night,
and then we use the night to help the day.
How do we use our day to help our night?
First of all, we want to not overeat, especially at night.
So we don't want to have SubhanAllah,
the heavy, heavy dinners of nighttime
that are actually quite common in many different countries
that I've been in, are not helpful for praying tahajjud.
The habit of eating light, lightly at night
or not overeating at night is much better.
Going to sleep with an empty stomach is much.
It makes it much easier to wake up at night.
And we all know, those of you,
and I'm sure it's most of you
because this is the way of the world today,
most of us have been on a diet.
And one of the first things they tell you
when you're going on your diet, don't eat at night.
Don't eat at night. Don't eat at night.
It's not only something that isn't good for us physically,
also spiritually it can take away from our ability
to wake up at night.
So that's one thing.
Secondly, if you can take a nap in the day
especially if the nights are short,
try to take a nap in the day, a power nap,
like a 10 minute nap, a 20 minute nap.
This will also really help you to wake up at night.
In fact, that in itself was a piece of advice
from Rasulullah SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam himself
where he advises us to seek help in eating at night,
Suhoor, for fasting,
and to seek help with a little nap in the day for tahajjud.
So now we have two things.
We have eat less in the day, or at least eat less at night,
and we have to take a nap in the day.
Now, the prayer at night is something just like anything.
When you want to get it done,
when you want to start a new habit,
you need to be thinking a lot at first and less later.
So in the beginning,
start out by choosing where you're going to pray,
set it up before you go to sleep,
set out your prayer clothes.
So if you don't know where your prayer clothes are,
set them out, have them folded,
maybe iron them, lay them out nicely.
Have that prayer carpet laid out already,
maybe have the most half open
to the place you want to recite.
Have some lighting out, put a candle there with the thing.
Don't run around the house at three in the morning
looking for something to light the candle with.
You're not going to light it.
Have it there and ready. Have everything set up.
So when you get up in the morning,
all you're doing is making wudhu
and praying.
(breaths deeply)
And it's a comfortable, beautiful feeling and setting.
Now, there are a couple of things I want to,
I guess, warn you about.
To pay attention to because these are things
that will get in the way of developing this new habit.
One of them is bitterness.
A heart that is full of bitterness.
A heart that is full of grudges is a heavy heart,
and that heavy heart is very difficult
to pull out of the bed at night.
So try during the day to be aware
of what your heart is saying,
what your heart is feeling,
and avoid the bitter, angry, ugly heart
that is doing gheebah.
Gheebah of the heart
is when you're talking about people in your heart.
The gheebah of the heart
is when you're slandering people in your heart.
Bitterness of the heart is when you can't stop.
You keep on repeating it and repeating it, repeating.
Why did they do this? Why did they do this?
Why did (mumbles). Hold this up.
Try your best to become a person who's calm on the inside.
Who doesn't have all of this ugly talk about individuals
or groups of people on the inside.
Basically, become the person we're supposed to be.
Become a person who follows in the footsteps
of Rasulullah SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam.
Become one of our early community.
One of those who stood out
in front of the rest of the world
as people who were of the best
who called for what is good,
and push back against what is ugly.
Because we are the ummah to be this.
We are called to be the ummah
that brings forth beauty, that brings forth positivity,
pushes back on all that is ugly and harmful.
A heart full of bitterness is harmful.
And let me tell you something.
It doesn't harm the person you're bitter towards.
Sometimes we think if I'm, you know,
my inner anger, "Oh, they'll see."
They don't care.
It doesn't hurt them. It only hurts you.
And it does hurt in helping to wake up for tahajjud.
So that's one thing to work on in the day,
to make sure that the heart
is a heart that is clear of ugliness.
A second important tip of how to sort of,
a spiritual tip I'll say,
is to note the actions of the day.
Note the actions of the day.
Do your best to have a day of goodness.
The more your day is full of goodness and kindness,
the easier it becomes to wake up at night.
The more good deeds you have in the day,
the more your intention is in a good place.
All of the more the day is filled with beautiful work,
actually like the work that we're doing to help others,
to care for others, caring for ourselves.
The more this is going to give us the strength and ability
to wake up at night.
Now, the prayer at night is a sensitive thing.
But in the beginning, when I say sensitive, what do I mean?
I mean the prayer at night is something that,
because it fills us with gas, fills us with fuel,
gives us the strength we need
to do the work that needs to be done,
it's sensitive to a day of ghaflah,
a day of heedlessness.
So, it's a beautiful thing
because it becomes not a vicious circle,
but a beautiful circle.
The sensitive nights of prayer
fills our day with the strength that we need
to do the deeds that we need to do,
and then doing those deeds
gives us the himmah,
the strength to get up at night and pray.
Now, if you miss it, what are you gonna do if you miss it?
If you miss it, just start again.
Just keep going. You missed it one day, no problem.
Keep going.
If you're sick and you can't get up for a few days,
just call that and Insha'Allah actually.
If you're sick and you can't get up for a few days
of SubhanAllah,
if you're praying before your illness,
it's as though you're praying during those days.
This is the generosity and the effect
of tahajjud on our spiritual lives.
So set up your space, create that habit,
make a day that helps your night,
and know for sure that your nights will help your day.
Becoming a person of tahajjud begins with you.
Begins with me individually.
But pretty soon, the family can become a family of tahajjud.
And all of a sudden now, we have this beautiful home
where in every corner there is recitation of Quran.
There are angels descending to listen
to one, two, three, four members of the family.
Five, six, however many members of the family there are.
And it becomes a home of beauty and worship.
If you are saying to yourself, "Oh, that will never happen."
Don't, don't get stuck there.
You're not praying tahajjud to make other people pray.
You're praying tahajjud
because this is the worship of the believer.
This is the worship of the nawafil.
This is the worship, the nafila.
This is the worship that makes us of those whom Allah loves.
This is the strength that we need.
But also look to the beauty of the possibility
of that spreading in the home.
What happens then?
Begins to spread to the community.
We as a community,
as an ummah, change.
We begin to grow in strength and beauty.
We begin to become as the people of the early generation.
It is time for us to shed.
To shed the shackles of this dunya.
To shed the shackles of what holds us back
in hardship and in difficulty,
and know that the cure for us is in tahajjud.
Seek it. Grab it.
Grab it as the most wonderful, amazing gift.
Make it a habit.
Make it the thing that gives you energy,
and know that as you do that,
it will be giving energy to people around us.
Our masaajid will grow because the boards of the masaajid,
and the people in the masjid
are going to grow.
Our nonprofits will grow in goodness and in health
because the people of the nonprofits,
the workers, everyone is growing.
Our communities will grow
because as we have spiritual strength,
we will begin to reach out to the places around us
with that spiritual strength, and bring goodness.
We will follow truly,
truly in the sunnah
of Rasulullah SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam.
We will truly walk in the footsteps
of the words of the Quran,
calling out to us to be of the Ebadur Rahman,
calling out to us to be of the worshipers,
calling out to us to be of those who pray tahajjud,
calling out for us to be of those
who Qoom Al Layl, who stand at nights.
May Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la make all of us
of those who stand at night,
of those who benefit from the nightly prayer,
of those who soak it in.
And in that soaking are able to spread it like glitter mercy
wherever we go.
Spread it like droplets of beauty wherever we go.
And let it be of that thing that grows us individually,
as families, as communities,
as an ummah,
to be at Maqam AL Mahmoudah,
at that praised and blessed state
that brings us personal joy, communal joy,
global joy, InshaAllahu Ta'aala.
InshaAllah
All of us will be of those who pray tahajjud,
and be thinking of one another at nights,
and praying for one another.
Wal Hamdullilahi Rabil Alameen
Allahuma Salli Wa Salim Wa Barik Ala Sayidina Wa Nabiyina
Muhammad
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