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People ask me, "Why Tahajjud?
"Why are you always talking about this?
"It's such a
small part of life,
"such a small part of worship life.
"Why do you talk about this,
talk about other things.
"Talk about recitation of Quran,
"talk about charity,
talk about fasting."
And, of course, all of these other things
are very important,
but Tahajjud
has a unique
reflection,
or a unique
importance
that we understand
if we really carefully read the Quran
and carefully think about the words and lifestyle of
Rasullulah SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam
If we think about the concept of Nafila,
what is Nafila mean ?
Nafila is something extra.
We know we have to do the Fard
We know that the Faroud alaina is very important,
and many many people are struggling with the fard.
I know this
but when we ask ourselves what is Nafila ?
we can look to the Quran to understand
Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la says
Wamina allayli fatahajjad bihi nafilatanlaka
AAasa an yabAAathaka rabbuka maqaman mahmooda
So Nafilatan Lak means it's Nafila.
So this is something that is Nafila
this is of course is ikhtisas an Nabi
SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam.
This is something special for Rasulullah
SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam.
Something special for his Ummah
that we have this unique time at night,
That is Nafila.
What does Nafila do ?
Nafila
brings us to the love of God
and this ultimately is what we all need.
And so then we look around
what is the Nafila that we should be doing ?
And we discover
that Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la himself
has described
Nafila
as Tahajjud.
Ok? So now we need to get up.
And in other places in the Quran,
" Qoum al leel ila qalila"
get up at night, except for a little.
So we begin to understand this nighttime is for sleep
and for worship.
And when we begin to understand and think about that,
we begin to walk a different path.
The importance of Tahajjud
comes back to the importance of
really what it means to be a human.
Because we are created
to be Ibad Allah,
to be of the worshipers of God.
And we have a whole life
of busyness,
and running around,
and rushing,
and coming at night exhausted,
And we're looking for rests in a hundred places.
But the real rest
is in
is at night.
The real rest is standing before God at night,
the real rest is standing at the,
in the last third of the night,
standing before Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la
"Qoum al aleel"
stand up at night,
stand up at night
to be of the " Ibaad Al rahmaan
Wallatheena yabeetoonalirabbihim
sujjadan waqiyama
Let's think about that verse for a minute.
To be of the worshippers of the merciful.
And I want to talk a little bit about what that means,
to become of the worshippers of the merciful.
But to be that person we'll talk about that maybe later is
also
to define this
as the one you'll be doing
means to settle.
If you think about the word "bayt",
a
a house,
a place you settle,
"yabeetoon" to settle in,
settle into worship,
it becomes something that you're at home with,
something that's your,
you settle your heart in.
And it's very interesting the verse,
because it begins with "sujjadan"
So "yabeetoona"
in prostration
prostration to God in great humbleness to God.
And then qiyaman,
and think about that.
When we talk about the Fuqaha of prayer,
when we think about
what's the most important part of the prayer,
if you have bad knees, or if you have an injury,
you break your leg or something like that,
what do you have to do? We have to make sure about qiyaam,
We have to make sure about this standing up it at night,
right? Or excuse me,
the standing in prayer,
which is the standing at night,
the establishing of the prayer.
And sujood
is the thing that if we break our leg or something
we don't have to do yet,
in this verse "sujjadan waqiyama",
sujood comes first.
Why?
Because not only in action,
because
the nighttime prayer
is not only an action of the body,
it's not only an action of the forehead
kissing the ground,
it's also an action of the heart.
And
Tahajjud
is the place
where our heart wakes up
and where our heart rests.
And so
when we
begin to develop a habit
of Tahajjud,
"nafilatanlak"
"nafilatanlaka",
this nafila
this special
thing that's not a fard,
No
no, it's not obligation.
Think about your children.
When you ask your children to do something
that is an obligation
and they do it, you're happy
but what if they come into something extra,
maybe you ask your kids to unload the dishwasher
and you come upstairs,
you come into the kitchen and you find out
they unloaded the dishwasher and they did the dishes.
Of course it in a way it's a silly comparison,
but as parents, we know how that feels.
You didn't have to nag
for the dishwasher to get an unloaded.
You didn't have to fuss about all of these things
about whatever it is to take the garbage out
or whatever the thing is,
and on top of that they did something extra.
Imagine
if you're a son or daughter,
after you told them to take the garbage out,
you discovered they washed the garbage tins
on like you might faint,
fall on the chair,
to what in the world was that?
But certainly you'll,
you'll look at that child with
the eye of
of appreciation of love.
Nafila
is the thing we do that is extra
for the one that we worship.
Nafila is not just the fard.
It's standing up to do that extra thing.
And tahajjud is the most important nafila
is the most important sunnah.
I mentioned
all of these other beautiful things that we have to do,
and all of these other things
we want to think about I should say.
Other things that help us on the path,
fasting,
sadaqah,
praying sunnah prayers around our fard prayers,
giving kind and good words to people.
All of this is important,
but Tahajjud
helps us to grow
individually
to become of those who Allah loves
And also as a community,
think about that verse
" becoming of those who have "maqaman mahmooda",
and an elevated status.
What is the status of our community today?
Not so great.
We have pretty bad
PR
but we can find good PR on our prayer carpet at night,
we can through the worship of God,
through deep worship of God and even quick,
even swift,
even a couple of minutes before Fajir
worship of Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la
we can elevate
not only our personal status with God,
not only our personal status with dunya
but the status of our ummah,
as was the promise to Rasulullah
SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam.
As his promise to us,
the importance of Tahajjud
is in walking the path of becoming of the beloved
of becoming of those who have a heart
that it's easier to love with this heart.
Stand up at night and follow in the path,
listening to the prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam
When he was asked
"what are the best of deeds" ?
"efshou salaam"
give greetings of peace,
feed people
"wa qoum al layll wannaas anniamh"
stand up at night while people are sleeping.
Let us all together
stand up at night
while people are sleeping,
and as we look out of our window,
pray for every single one of them
that everyone
might take advantage of these most beautiful moments
and grow love flowers in our hearts
that bring us near and close
and holding
to the path where I'm meant to be on.
WAlhamdu lillahi rabbi alAAalameen
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