Which Seven Body Parts in Sujud?

So here we are another Saturday and so tonight is Since last week we're doing our questions and answers. If anybody has any questions, we'll take them inshallah. however, I want to ask a question first. The prophet sallallah.aii wasallam tells us in a narration in Bkari Muslim. As a matter of fact, this narration is found in all six books of hadith. All six original references which are Bkari Muslimb that Abbas said that the prophet Sam said He said, "I have been commanded by Allah to make sujud on seven parts of my body." So that when a person is in sujud, only these seven parts are touching the ground. And when a person is in sujud, provided their sujud is proper. What this narration means is that Allah commanded him that when he is in sujud only seven parts of his body should be touching the ground and at least these seven parts of his body must be touching the ground in order for the sujud to be considered valid in order for it to be considered whole and complete. What are those seven places on the body? Who remembers this? We did a whole spiel on this a few nights ago.

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More. Such a big guy and such a Ya. Come on, man. Raise your voice. Yes, let's hear it.

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Very important point because we mentioned that a lot of people have the habit of making sujud only on the head. The head up here. But the prophet sallall.aii wasallam tells us that He says a person's not valid in which his nose does not touch the ground equally as his forehead does. This narration is in who remembers where this narration is in? That's too much, right?

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Good try. It was he gave it the old college try. No, it's in sunny it's rather obscure for most people. So yes, it's the forehead with the nose. So we understand from this that the sujud is on the face. It's not on the head. Right? Who remembers the dua of the prophet Sam? My face has made sujud face face right not the So when a person is to make sujud the face is what is making sujud not the top of the head here not the it is the face that is making sujud and the sunnah is that he would he would place his weight on his face and on his nose. You know people sometimes ask questions when we say these things they'll ask questions like what if a person is unable right that question can go for everything we are speaking about the most optimum most complete way in the most favorable of circumstances this is how it should be right however except ceptions occur when we we narrow it down to specific people. That's a different story. Okay. So, we've got the first one which is the forehead and the nose. We have six more to go.

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Well, is there a difference? There is a difference. But the prophet sallall.aii wasallam said, Al keen. So alphane are the two palms with the fingers. All right. This is the kef here. These are the this is the kef. And so the word palm is very important here when we say kef. Why? What if a person makes sujud with their hands this on the ground, the back of their hand on the ground? What about if they make sujud with their fists on the ground you know some kind of tough guy or something? Or what if they make sujud with the tips of their fingers, right? And you'd think that I'm making this up. I've seen all of this actually in real life. however, this is all incorrect. It is supposed to be the palms and the the inside of the the the the hand and the fingers should be pointing which direction.

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Everything faces towards the by default take that as a principle why because Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said in a very general command.

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Any direction you direct yourself, Allah says to him belongs the the the east and the west. Any direction you face there you will find the face of Allah. Is that what it means? Does this mean that Allah is everywhere? He's in every direction simultaneously. Is he omniresent? Is that what that means? foram.

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And so this verse is not a verse of the attributes of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. Allah's face, the face of Allah. It is one of the attributes of Allah, but it is in other verses. This verse is to be translated as in the correct opinion that any direction you face then that is the direction of salah for the acceptance of your prayer of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. So this statement point yourself to the center of alas haram or point yourself direct yourself to the direction of al masjid alam. Okay, from this verse we understand what the prophet sallallah.aii alaihi wasallam understood and that is every part of my body which is possible to face towards the I face towards the so when he would stand in salah his feet would be facing towards the his chest would be facing towards the when he would raise his hands to make he wouldn't do this he wouldn't do this or you know people do all kinds of stuff He he wouldn't do this, right? He would raise his hands this with his palms facing towards the either the height of his shoulders or the height of his ears. Allahbar, right? His face would be towards the all parts of his body would be for towards the injur his hands would be towards the His fingers would be pointed towards the Okay, so we have three. What are the next two? We have three. The knees, right? And a person might think well you know how how could you mess that up right the two niece but it is possible and that is as alkari mentions that in his prophet sallaiam in the Arabic language is to make distance between two things. meaning that his thighs would not touch his stomach and the backs of his thighs where the hamstrings are would not touch the back the backs of his calves. He wouldn't be together this. He would be open. It would be shaped this when he was in sujud sallallahu alaihi wasallam. So the thighs are distant from the stomach. The feet or the legs are distant from each other. The backs the calves are separated from the backs of the thighs. This is how he would make sujud sallallam. His arms would be separated from the sides from his sides. Now we again are speaking about the most optimum prayer. This is how his prayer was described because he would always pray in front by himself. He wouldn't pray in a row. If a person is in the row, it's not possible to do this without you know in infringing on other people's space. So when a person is in in the row, he is to make himself as malleable as possible in order to not you know infringe on the other person's space to his right or to his left. For instance, the prophet sallallah.aii wasallam says in Abdah He said that the best of you in are those who have the softest shoulders in the row or the most malleable shoulders in the row. And what's meant by this is that when they're standing, they don't stand in a way that is going to disturb the people beside them. Sometimes people they come to make salah Allahbar and then they want to stand this right what is going on here with this everybody has to deal now with this person sticking their elbows in their chest and stick this is inappropriate it's disturbing it's it's not the sunnah in any way in this way the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam would command the companions to be malleable with one another to fit into each each other. Likewise, the meaning of this narration is meaning when the im is straightening the row and he tells someone to come forward or to step back a bit to make the row straight that the person listens and takes instruction from the imam. Both of these meanings the scholars mention in explaining this narration because sometimes you'll tell someone come forward a little bit and they'll look at you like you know who are you to tell me what to do I'm perfect everything is perfect right now right this is and they'll become a little bit stubborn when the imam is to say come forward come back as a matter of fact this is A this is a responsibility of the imam to straighten the row and if the row is not straight because of his negligence he is held to account. So, let me tell you something that maybe we've heard of before. The word, right? Straighten your rows. Become straight with one another. It's not just a it's not just a you know just something you say when you go to lead salah because we hear in the haram when the imam goes to lead he says and then we go to pray I've seen a man stand next to another man there's only two of them there's a guy he's leading salah there's one guy next to him and when he goes to lead salah he says but who are is talking to it's just you and the guy next to you. This is just now become just something we say. It has no meaning,.

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Say when you go to lead salah. To the point that if you do not say it, if I were to just stand here in the front and just start salah, many people might think, wait, he didn't say anything, right? But that is the sunnah. The prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam would only say these things when he was teaching them and giving them instruction. After that he wouldn't say anything. He would just stand and say and begin salah. And so most of his time he never said these things. This was only when he instructed them asb mentioned. However, when he was teaching them to make their rose straight, he would walk through the rose. Imagine this. Every he would go through the rose himself one by one. All the men's rows and straighten the rose himself. Walk down the rows. Each one he was described as if he were making arrows. As if he were making them so straight that you could shoot an arrow straight down and not touch anyone with that arrow. This is how straight he would make it. This this process of straightening the row himself, how long do you think that took? Imagine every salah he would stand and go through the row and make it straight. How long do you think something like this would take? Maybe 10 minutes, maybe 15, 20 minutes before he would start the prayer. He was not permitted to start the prayer until the rows were perfectly straight. As a matter of fact, this was so important to Allah that one of his miracles that were given to him, aside from all the other miracles he had, is that he was able to simultaneously during prayer watch the companions while he was faced away from them to make sure their rows were straight throughout the prayer. Have any of us heard of this before? Maybe some of us have, some of us haven't. And one of the things that Allah gave him is that when he would stand to lead salah and the companions were behind him and he had straightened the rose while he was in salah, he was able to watch them at the same time. The whole salah. Why? just to make sure that there's not a problem with the way that the rows are straight throughout prayer saiam this is how important this issue is it is incredibly important as a matter of fact in the time of he had people that he designated for each prayer to go through the rows because of course the masid expanded there were a huge amount of people making every salah and they would go through the rows and straighten the rows and he would not begin until each of them would pass up word that the rows are straight now you can start now imagine if we started to do that here right we're not going to pray till the imam has made sure that our row and a half is straight how impatient would people get with something that, right? This is something that is unheard of. What are you doing? Just start the salah. Come on. We got stuff to do. We are busy people, right? We got a lot of important things to get to. And so these are some of the lost sun of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam. But what the point that we're making is that when a person is in the prayer in the row, they are to make themselves as malleable as possible with the people next to them. And they are always to take instruction from the imam because the imam is not only the leader in the salah. He's the leader in every aspect of the prayer. When it comes to how people stand, how they pray, who stands before the others. In the early days in Medina, the women would pray behind the men. The men were very, very poor. They were suffering from famine and war and illness and so they were in tatters and a lot of them were so poor they couldn't even cover themselves properly and so the women were not permitted to stand up from sujud until the men had completely stood up. Why? Because if they stood up before the men in front of them, they may see some part of their body that that you know comes out of their their they had so little clothing that you know if they just changed their position some of their may show. So these are all instructions that he would give to the companions. Salah was a big thing. It was not a little thing. Salah was a huge deal. Every salah, one of the things that is so sad about our time, the prophet sallall.aii wasallam said that the first thing we would lose as a nation when we go off of the path and stray from the path of Allah subhanahu wa'ta'ala. That's one of the first or last things we would lose is our prayer. What does that mean? We would lose our prayer. Meaning we it would just be hollow just something we do. Doesn't matter how it's done, right? Nobody's focused. Aan is just a formality. Whoever leads salah now the idea that we have for instance in America a lot of times is an imam is what the guy that is the community organizer he's the he's the social butterfly right he goes and gives talks in different places and he travels and he but the masid that he's actually the imam of he's hardly ever there and most of the prayers he's not there he's absent right Because the idea is anybody can lead salah. What's the big deal? We could have a 16-year-old kid come and lead salah. That's not a problem. Anybody can lead salah. It's not important. Just anybody just get it done. As a matter of fact, we'd rather have just anybody lead salah who has a really nice voice than have someone who has a lesser voice but is a a scholar or somebody that should lead us in salah. What is salah? What is J? The companions used to describe salah in Jama as.

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The prophet prayed for us. What does that mean? For us, for us, they're talking about let us in for us. Meaning, we all stand behind the im. And it's as if we're saying, "Oh Allah, here we are gathered in your house. We are desperate for your mercy. This is the best amongst us. Please accept from us." That is what leading salah is. That's the significance of it. This is the best amongst us. He knows the most of your words and he has embodied the most of your revelation from amongst us here. So please accept from us. Whatever he says it is on our behalf and we say that is what is. However the companions the prophet sallall.aii alaihi wasallam. They would never allow someone to lead salah whenever there was someone more knowledgeable present unless he was the fixed im. Right? for.

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He said Muslim the person who leads in prayer is the one who has memorized and practices is the most of the Quran. Listen, he said, he didn't say the most memorized. He said the most recited amongst them, meaning the one who has memorized and understood and embodied the teachings of the Quran the most amongst them. This is not just root memorization. That's not what is intended here. Because in the language of the companions, in the language of hadith, they never they did not have someone amongst them who learned and memorized the Quran, who didn't understand what it meant and implemented. This didn't exist with them. Do we understand? So by default, if a person has memorized more of the Quran, he is by default more knowledgeable and more practicing because the way that the companions memorize the Quran is they would come learn 10 verses and stop. And they would not come back for 10 more until they had learned all that those verses intended and meant, implemented whatever there was to implement, asked whatever questions there were to ask, and embodied those 10 verses as much as possible. This is why it took Abdullahb Omar how many years to memorize Bakar? Who knows? 12 10 10 years in 10 years and then he slaughtered a cow after out of thanks to Allah subhanahu wa tala Ibar the great scholar and son of took 10 years to memorize bakar why because they didn't just memorize things he would learn 10 verses And now he has to go and sit with the companions to make sure that he investigates every corner of every verse till he has exhausted every question that he has with regards to the meanings of those 10 verses. That is a process. Sometimes it takes months. Right? And so the point here is that when the prophet tells us The one who is most recited of the Quran, it means memorization, it means implementation, it means knowledge, right? He says, "Sallam, and if they are all the same in the Quran, then the most knowledgeable amongst them in the Sunnah, in his sunnah. And if they are all the same in the sunnah, then the first of them to make hijra. And if they are all the same in hijra, then the oldest amongst them. The scholars the fuk say even though this is incredibly unlikely. I mean going through all of those is you know who are we dealing with you know identical twins for us to not find our imam out of that. But even past that, it would be the best of them in character. Those who have the best character that that is the rigor and that is the qualifications to lead salah even if it's just two people. So the companions when they would go to have someone lead them in salah, they're traveling or they're out or whatever it is, they would see who is of them most knowledgeable, most memorized of the Quran. They would have him lead salah. Have you ever seen that before? Have you ever seen people meet up in the masid and ask each other how much of the Quran do you know to identify their im? No. You know even when he would bury people sai wasallam he would ask who of them was most recited of the Quran and he would put him in his grave firstbas because we can bury pe you know more than one person in each grave right put two people three people four people in in one grave. The point is is that when he would go to put them in the grave, he would ask which of them had memorized more of the Quran. They would tell him this one and he would start with them. That is how he buried the martyrs of of saiam as jab tells us in these are things that we lost. Why did we lose these things? Why? because this doesn't mean much to us anymore. We have to make it mean something again. We have to make it that each prayer is memorable and it was never any prayer before it and it'll never be repeated again. It was a special moment that existed outside of space and time. I completely forgot myself. I lost myself in the abyss of this prayer. I lost track of time. Sorry, I was praying. That is what we're talking about. That is the kind of people that the companions were. When we read about our forefathers, that's where they started. Anyways, we have exhausted our time and nobody got to ask any questions. You guys just let me keep asking you questions. I'll end with this. Yes, we could take a one question. Huh? Go ahead. So.

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Kind of unrelated but you're standing like my understanding was always the requirement is being shouldertoshoulder.

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Just what's the requirement for filling the gaps part of Well, in andah alkari narrated that he would watch the companions how they would straighten their row. You have to remember the rows there were no lines in the carpets. Okay? There wasn't any carpet actually. It was just the the it was a dirt floor, right? And so how would they straighten their row? Ib said, "I would see the companions of the prophet.".

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He said, "When they would straighten their rows, I would see each of them would touch the ankle of the man next to him and the knee of the knee of the man next to him and the shoulder of the shoulder of the of the man next to him." Now, this doesn't mean that throughout the entirety of salah your ankles and your knees are touching each other. Some people have understood that and that is not necessarily correct. Allah mentions in when he explained this narration that this is to initially straighten the row because the foot the foot everybody has differentized feet. If I make it how long the foot is if I try to make my toe I'm going to be back a step if my feet are bigger right? If it is the heel, same thing. The ankle is the exact center of a person's skeleton of their of their center of gravity. If I straighten my ankle with the ankle of the person next to me, that is as straight as the row is going to be. Now, they wouldn't continue and maintain contact all the way through prayer. That would be almost impossible, incredibly distracting and uncomfortable at the least. However, they would begin like that and then the feet would would take their natural place. The the knees would take their natural place, but the shoulders will always stay touching in prayer. That's the answer to that question. What's the second one?

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You explained how to properly He also said that the prophet said all those things the C not etc. he would be praying alone on the front. So then and then you also said that difficult what do we do if we're all in a row and then you said might.

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Without transgressing into the space of the people next to you as much of that as possible. So what does that mean? for instance, my legs, my calves not touching the back of my thighs, my thighs not touching my stomach, my elbows, my forearms not touching the ground. I'm able to do all those things in in the row. I'm not able to open my arms up this when I'm in the row, right? I'm not able to maybe take as wide a birth with my knees as I as I naturally would. But you do as much of that as possible without you know transgressing into another person's space. Yes. Doctor Marwan our homegrown I don't know about homegrown but our doctor. Yes. Very very informative since we spoke about straightening the lines. I mean one practical issue we have sometimes with the brothers and I was one of them at some point who are sitting on chairs.

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Listening to their sermon but also during the prayer they have some knees and medical pain. So I always we have an issue you know how do we straighten the lines when some of us are also sitting you know are praying while sitting.

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That question. So, I'll turn that over to you guys. What do you think? Where should the chairs be positioned in the row? Imagine yourself in my place. Now, what would your answer be? If the if the chairs are to be put in the row, we have two options, right? We either have the feet in the same place and the person is back or we have the person is there but the feet are coming up into the front. Which one do we do? How do we straighten the road with the chairs?

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Something? Was it Jam? No.

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Hips. He is He's getting fancy. Yes. Abu Ali shoulders. Okay. Anybody else? A lot of times you find that people will straighten their feet. They'll put their feet right here and they're sitting behind the rope. This is categorically incorrect. This is exactly wrong. Okay. It is the chest, the shoulders that remain in the rope. Everything else that comes back or forth, that is not what has to be maintained in maintaining the role. That's inconsequential because people used to sit in the prophet's time in the row, didn't they? Weren't there sick people that were sitting down? They didn't have chairs. I mean, some of them did. How many of us have ever imagined the Prophet Muhammad speaking on a chair, sitting in the masid on a chair? No one. He had a chair that he used to sit on and teach in. However, the point here is that when they would sit, they would sit for instance, Muawia after he was someone attempted to kill him when when he was stabbed at the same time that Ali was attacked. He was stabbed in the hip. He's a he was a kind of a big guy, right? And so he was stabbed in the hip. After that he would pray with his foot forward. Okay, that foot forward would come way past the the row around him. That's inconsequential. That doesn't matter. The companions always prayed that. Even if I just sit down like I'm inhood, my knees are coming up in front of the rope. It's always was the chest. And the prophet sallallah.aii alaihi wasallam when he would go through the rows to straighten them he would straighten them with the chest and he would determine someone is out of place when their chest was out of place. So the chair is supposed to be placed in a way that the person's chest is in line with the chest of the people next to him. But here's the issue. What about if a person only uses the chair to sit to to make ru or sjud then but they're standing most of the time then what do we do? Anyone know?

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You.

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People just use the chair you know when they're prostrating.

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Be in the same line based on their chest. I mean just I guess.

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A person is using the chair only for rur or sjud. Okay but they're standing straight. The chair if they stand straight in the row is going to be coming out behind them. And the question people have is, well, what about the people that make the row behind them? We can't watch out for everything, right? We have to make a decision. It has to be one or the other. And so the road is to be straight with the chest always straight no matter what the situation in the standing position. If the row behind is impeded by the chair, they skip that place. They skip that spot as if there were a pillar there or as if there were some object there. That's not an issue. Or they would step back a row and complete the row without the chair being in their way if there's room in the masid. But if there's not room in the masid, they just skip that place, right? That's not a big deal. always in the standing position. Everyone is in the rope is in line with each other. It is the chest. It is the shoulders. So, I will end it there. The idea of this Saturday night question and answer is for us to have a discussion we are. And the idea is for it to go, I'm hoping between 20 and 30 minutes only because every other night we we try to go between 10 and 15 minutes for the right. That's just me speaking. But if you have questions throughout the week, you want to ask them, you want to prepare them. You want to ask your wives, your sisters, your daughters, whatever to write them down. They have any question. It's being livereamed as well. It's being recorded and documented. then you prepare for it Saturday night half an hour but don't feel compelled to sit the whole session if you have something to do by all means you know go about your business inshallah if you want to catch the rest of it on the live stream that's why we do this it's not for me to become a a celebrity I'm trying not to do that it is a it is a it's a service for our community here that's why it's going on on the internet, right? It's a service for us here that if a person can't be with us, they can catch it on the feed or they can go and and find the archives of everything. So, if after a half hour or 20 minutes or 10 minutes you have something to do, don't feel compelled to stay the entire time if you're unable. But if you just feel that whisper in the back of your head saying, "Hey, come on. Let's get out of here." That I want you to fight against. fight that. But if you have genuinely something to do, then Allah Alhamdulillah.