the first thing that rises to protect
you in the grave is your salah
and then the first thing you ask about
when you're sat up in your grave is your
salah and the first thing you're going
to be asked about on the day of judgment
is your salah so you want your salah to
be in the best state when you meet your
lord
prophet saws
when any one of you
is engaged in prayer you're holding an
intimate conversation with your lord and
if you pay attention to the salah
immediately after you praise allah for
his mercy
you affirm that he is what maliki
omadine master of the day of judgment
and there is no day that you're going to
need his mercy more than on the day of
judgment the salah is the time when you
are closest to allah and it's the time
when you're most frequent in remembering
the day of judgement even if it's just
by the mention of it in the beginning
with surat al-fatiha or in the end
when you're seeking refuge in allah
subhanahu ta'ala from the hardships of
the resurrection so the best salah is
the one in which your heart is most
present with allah and you're also
longing towards that meeting with him on
the last day and as if
the one who perfects their standing in
this life will certainly perfect their
standing in the next
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there is no way that you demonstrate
yourself to be a sabbath to be a
forerunner
more so than when you are diligent with
praying on time
praying on time is one of the most
beloved of deeds to allah and
subhanallah you'll rarely find
that someone is insistent on praying in
the early window of salah yet is
negligent with the other deeds and just
think about how it is in dunya when you
leave the gathering to go to prayer with
your lord
and now here you are on that day you're
being called from the gathering to meet
your lord like you always used to do
except now
it's the time of your accountability so
the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam
gives us the scene he says that after
allah sorts out the people on the day of
judgment he then calls his servants
forward as individuals and this is just
one example of those servants so think
of the scene of being called forward
from the crowd to be addressed directly
and individually by your lord
so he brings his servant forward and he
says o so-and-so
didn't i honor you didn't i make you a
leader didn't i give you a spouse didn't
i put at your disposal all sorts of
means of transportation i mean i gave
you all of these blessings do you
acknowledge them and he would say yes
and allah says to him
didn't you think that one day you were
going to have to meet me
and he would say no
so allah would respond to this
particular abd and say
so i shall forget you today as you
forgot me
now if you notice here allah reminded
him first of his blessings upon him and
then blamed him for his forgetfulness of
allah why because the grateful one
remembers allah most because every
single blessing
leads that person to remembrance and
worship
and this is deeply connected to the
prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam
saying
that the first thing that you're going
to be asked about from your deeds on the
day of judgment
is your prayer because the salah is
connected intimately to how you
remembered allah overall and how you
thanked him for his blessings in fact if
you pay attention to the context of
salah in the quran firstly allah says
establish the prayer for my remembrance
so this is the opposite of the one who
forgot allah and allah also says
so worship allah and be amongst his
grateful servants and how would the
prophet saw isaac respond when he was
asked why he prayed so much at night he
would say what effela
shall i not be a grateful servant to
allah
and that's why in one profound narration
prophesy said something very interesting
he said
whoever guards it meaning the s
it's going to be a light for him a proof
for him and certain salvation for that
person on the day of judgment but listen
to what he said on the other end he said
sallallahu alaihi wasallam
whoever does not guard his prayer will
not have light nor proof nor salvation
and then he went on to say
and on the day of resurrection he's
going to be with qaroon with firaoun
with haman and with obama
he's going to be with the tyrants but
why what about those that say you know
i pray in my heart i'm not one of those
tyrants i'm a good person
so we know in our deen that salah is the
distinguishing factor between the
believer and the disbeliever and it's
the ultimate decider of what your day of
judgment is going to be like
but what is the connection between those
horrible men and salah and the answer is
they forgot allah and when they forgot
allah they became arrogant so they
didn't recognize his blessings upon them
nor the truth that he sent to them so
they never prayed and they died in their
pride the first person called for hisab
in the hadith is similar in that they
didn't use their blessings to propel
them to worship and so allah forgot them
just as they forgot allah now it's not
that you can ever really repay allah
with your prayers right i mean you can
never repay allah period for his
blessings the prophet saws he mentioned
to us a man who prayed for 500 years and
it didn't equal just the blessing of his
eyesight
and on the day of judgment we would
recognize immediately that no matter how
much we prayed we could have done more
and we could have done better the
prophet saws he said an authentic
from the day he was born until the day
that he died all for the pleasure of
allah seeking allah's blessings he would
consider that deed insignificant on the
day of judgment but we could never repay
allah anyway and we would be fortunate
if allah just didn't punish us
for not praying or were having
deficiencies and distractions with our
prayer but we know our lord is merciful
instead what does allah do he forgives
us for our sins through the prayer he
rewards us with goodness that will
benefit us in the hereafter and that's
greater than any blessing that he could
have given us for our prayer in this
world so now let's revisit what the
prophet saws
the first thing you're going to be asked
from your deeds on the day of judgement
is your prayer but then look at allah's
mercy the prophet saws
if it's good he has succeeded and he has
security
and if it is bad then he would have
failed and lost
but don't we all sometimes feel like
some of our salah wasn't perfect so
after allah looks at your prayer allah
calls and says
does my servant have any voluntary
prayers imagine allah is the one who's
holding you accountable and he's making
excuses for you and finding ways out for
you already so allah says bring the
voluntary prayers and patch up whatever
deficiencies are left in that prayer and
the prophet saws
and that's how allah is going to deal
with
all of your deeds so when your ramadan
is brought forward allah subhanahu
ta'ala says is there any voluntary fast
and allah patches up your obligatory
fast with the voluntary fast
and then your zakat is brought forward
and allah says does he have any sadaqa
any voluntary charity and allah patches
up the zakat with the voluntary charity
and he does that with all of your deeds
now remember how those under the throne
of allah are all
those who are close to him
the prophet saws said that allah has
said uh
that my servant does not come close to
me with anything more beloved to me than
the obligatory deeds and then he
continues to come close to me with the
voluntary deeds until i love him so
which is closeness to allah that we all
hope would count us from the mukar boon
on the day of judgment and count us
amongst those who are under his shade
orb is attained by first doing the
obligatory deeds
then it's the voluntary ones and there
is no way you're going to be able to
claim closeness to allah if you're
ignoring the call to prayer
and if you're tasting the sweetness of
prayer here's the beauty of it you'll
start to pray more than five times a day
and the beauty of that is that every
single meaningful prayer inevitably
leads to the next prayer being less
deficient so less holes
and so your prayers are getting better
and you're doing more of them so
both the quality is increasing which
means less deficiency and because you're
enjoying your prayer now the quantity is
increasing more which means that there
is more to fill any remaining
deficiencies and on the day of judgment
every single one of them the five
prayers the sunnahs the withers the
taraweehs the tahajud they come forth as
a form of light as a proof for you as
beauty and as salvation
so in this world if you really
understood
come to the prayer you are now
witnessing the fruit of
come to true success because here is
that success
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