Reform

In this video Dr Sultan Abdulhameed discusses why the quality of of your prayer is important and foundational. Spend time learning the meaning of the words used in your prayer and becoming mindful during your Salat

Transcript

MRMO: I understand why you say that salat becomes mindless when people don’t know its meaning. But I know the meaning of the words but my mind does not stay with the meaning when I’m praying why is that?

Dr AbdulHameed: Well one of the reasons it happens is that people have been told and they believe that everybody should do many many rakat in their salat every day.

In some traditions they say you should pray 36 rakat throughout the day and some other tradition they say you should pray 44 rakat. This includes the Fard the Sunnah Muakkadah and other voluntary prayers. And since most people work and even if they don’t work they have many obligations during the day, they feel that they have to do so many rakat, so they rush through their prayer. Their mind is on getting through the prayer and not on what they are saying, not on the meaning of what they are saying. So that is the main reason that for even somebody knows the meaning of salat they are not connected with the meaning and so their prayer becomes empty.

MRMO: So what can we do about this problem?

Dr AbdulHameed: Well so there are two aspects to it.

One is to to realize that quality of salat is more important than quantity.

Prayer or salat is our conversation with Allah who is in charge of our life and of the
whole world. So it is important to pray and to speak with Allah in the best
possible manner. And so the practical way to approach this is to begin by learning to pray only two rakat in a day, and stay with two rakat think about the meanings of the words you are saying and stay not only with the literal meaning but think about what these words you are saying mean in terms of your own life.

And practice it, the two rakat, make it better speak each world separately as Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him used to do and perfect your prayer.

And only when you have done that then increase the quality the number of your prayers so the number of as time permits. So this is the practical advice I give.

Now the second point is about the background. I know that many imams and scholars will
object to this advice because it has been generally accepted in our tradition that what Prophet Muhammad used to do towards the the last part of his life, when he was in Medina, is what is obligatory on anyone. And so Prophet Muhammad used to pray many rakat in a day at that time. But he did not pray like this when he was a young man, He went through a process of growth in his prayer, gradually.

Therefore it is a mistake to ask a young person who is 14 or 15 years old to start with duplicating what Prophet Muhammad used to do when he was 60 or 61 years old because the young person is not capable of doing it. It is much better for this spiritual well-being of the young person to start at a small level and then do it well. Start with two rakat and make it good and then slowly increase if time permits

And this advice is applicable to not only young people but to the older people who have been praying without connecting with the meaning for many many years and it is not helping them.

MRMO: Thank you Dr. AbdulHameed