How Did the Prophet Actually Pray?

Welcome everyone brothers and sisters assalamu alaikum respected guests thank you for joining us on our latest installment of zadil mahad fi hadi hair lay bad we now are going to transition into the way that the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam would pray and there are two introductions or two i will preface this with two two things number one as we kind of alluded to in our last lecture this is an issue which there is a lot of difference of opinion with regards to the details however the main principles and outline and structure of salah and all of the other warships and laws of islam for that matter are something which are an issue of consensus amongst the scholarship of islam alhamdulillah and that is part of the preservation of allah subhanahu wa'ta'ala of this great book of this great book the quran and the sunna of the messenger muhammad sallallahu alaihi wasallam at the hands of very very profound scholars the second thing i want to mention is that the information that you're about to hear some people may find that you know it's not as lively it's not as exciting it's not as engaging well we are learning about the prophet sallallahu we're learning how to stand up in front of allah and some of these things may be kind of kind of tedious to some it may come out as kind of tedious kind of uneventful but this is what knowledge is knowledge is something that a person has to be very patient with as a matter of fact the great scholar who has the compilation muslim he narrates in his introduction.

[Arabic recitation]

Was one of the scholars of the companions he said he says tell the seeker of knowledge to prepare himself with two shoes of iron why what he's trying to say is that the the road of knowledge is tedious and it doesn't really all fit together at the beginning you have to give it time this is how knowledge forms in the mind you we don't take in knowledge all at once it doesn't download into our minds and we suddenly know no that's not how the human mind works the human mind has been designed in a very profound way that the person's soul grows gradually with the knowledge that he or she learns right this is what knowledge is about but that path is is a tedious path and it takes discipline and a person has to have a passion to learn how do you learn this well you need to have a good intention and you need to feel in your heart of hearts by learning oh allah i need to learn i need to know how to stand in front of you i need to know how to prepare myself to meet you this is something that has to be learned the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam said he says knowledge is only achieved by seeking it and forbearance and patience is only achieved by practice this is how it works and so this this is real knowledge i mean we could speak all day about inspirational quotes and that has its place but that's not where our focus should always be our focus should always be on how do i learn to please allah that's what all this is about now goes into how did he pray he says when he wished to stand to pray.

[Arabic recitation]

Akbar he would not say anything prior to.

[Arabic recitation]

Before there is no introduction there is no preface nor would he ever pronounce audibly his intention nor did any of the taberine none of the earlier generations of islam ever pronounce audibly their intentions nor any of the four scholars of the form of so let's unpack that a little bit when a person wishes to pray he will stand face the qibla and say.

[Arabic recitation]

That's it there is no no there is no i intend to pray such and such you know when we were kids growing up the way we were taught to pray is something along the lines of no way so we would have this long spiel that we would we would give i have intended now to pray for for sale for instance facing the qibla with the intention of that this is an obligate obligatory prayer of and if there's imam we would say behind this imam and so on and so forth and we would give all these details everything except for our address and phone number and that is not correct there is no evidence of this that the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam ever did this not before not before salah not before fasting or zakah or any of the other worship there's only one instance and that is when a person begins his hajj or umrah and that's not really a pronunciation of one's it's not really a proclamation of one's intention as much as it is an initiation just we start our salah with allah we start our hajj with and so that is the first thing many people they feel kind of they don't want to differ with this they don't they want they don't want to leave it off they say okay i understand that the prophet salallahu didn't do it but what's the harm right what's the harm i will mention two things number one is i will prove to you that all that statement of pronouncing our intentions prior to prayer actually to us equals zero and i'll show you how let's say a person stands to make salah and in giving their pronouncing or proclaiming their intention they say no so they slip they misspeak instead of saying they say and then they start to pray they meant us but they said they misspoke is that prayer valid or invalid well definitely it is valid and that is an issue of consensus amongst the scholars of islam why because the time and intention in the heart meaning the circumstances the context under under which that was said and my intention in my heart that takes precedence over my misspeaking right if that is the case then what's the point of saying your nia what's what's the point of it if you say it right or wrong the salah is unaffected so why would we need to say this right second of all a person may say i know listen to the statement i know however what's the harm okay imagine with me that every muslim from the time of the prophet salallahu alaihi wasallam till today had that attitude and each muslim had one thing of islam that they took away or added under the guise of what's the harm right this is what we call innovation in islam so imagine if every muslim had just they added one little thing to islam or they took away one little thing do that for 1500 years do that with billions of people what of islam would be left by now the answer is not very much if anything it's mentioned that one-fourth of the original torah has been changed and altered in its wording and that is something that jewish scholars admit to right and concede that yes this has been changed it's not what musa alayhis-salam originally brought could you imagine this book is all we have this is the only thing we have and so we have to make sure that it is purified day in and day out and that we never add or take away anything not in our actions not in our statements and certainly that we don't teach others to carry on such a legacy if i can add whatever i want and take off whatever i want because i see that it's okay well that's kind of an invalidation of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam's legacy isn't it did he go through all of what he went through did he spend all of those years trying to articulate to us the message of our lord only for me to now change it as i and do with it what i want that's not acceptable and so this is how the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam would stand to pray another statement ibn al-qaeda makes which is very interesting he says none of the four imams of the form of have adopted this opinion that a person should verbalize his or her intention and that is true and when someone ibn kayem says none of the four imams have have endorsed that or adopted that or encouraged that you can go ahead and as we say in america you can take that to the bank you can count on that right that is solid because you are hearing this from an imam who has mastered the form of someone who is considered a reference of islamic doctrine and law for everyone who has can come after him he says he says and the way that the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam would initiate his prayer.

[Arabic recitation]

And he would never say anything else to initiate his prayer this first takbir this initial takbir which is referred to by the scholars of phil as taqbir this is a pillar of prayer this is something that is a pillar if.

[Arabic recitation]

Initiate your prayer you have not even begun praying yet.

[Arabic recitation]

Initiate his prayer the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam would simultaneously raise both of his hands with the fingers of his hands extended so not this he would extend his fingers this and he would face the qibla with his hands palms towards the qibla right so not this i've even heard this which you know i i still today have not found where that came from and what people do and basically what people do you can never completely know all of what they do however he would raise his hands with the palms facing towards the qibla with the fingers extended right they would not be spread open they would not be clasped close the hands are extended towards the qibla he says this is the furor of the udon right the earlobes that he would raise his hands to ear level just i'm doing right now and it's also been narrated to shoulder level so he would sometimes raise his hands this sometimes he would raise his hands this shoulder level right it's interesting people who wish to do the sunnah that sometimes people get lazy and they end up neither doing the sunnah nor not doing the sunnah they start doing other things so you'll see people that pray they they'll raise their hands this they want to do i've even seen this just this that is not the sun of the prophet sallallahu alaihi you're better off not doing that at all because that now has nothing to do with saleh if you are going to raise your hands you raise your hands shoulder height or you raise your hands ear height this is how the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam would initiate his prayer he says and he would then place his right hand over his left hand interesting point here mentions that the right over the left right and this goes back to a narration in which the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam said he said we the prophets have been commanded that in prayer we are to place our right hands over our left hands he says and that we also break our fast as soon as the sun goes down at the earliest time that is permissible so right hand on the left that's something that has been agreed upon amongst the scholars of islam the authentic narrations of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam are he would place his right over his left right now other narrations have been narrated some say under his navel some say on his navel some say above his navel some say on his chest and i'll tell you now all of the narrations of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam with regards to where he would place his hands are weak narrations the scholars then differ on what is best should we use a weak narration should we go with the least weak should we they differ on how they approach that anatomically speaking there is a principle that the scholars of islam have employed and this is a principle that imam hashem allah as well has employed and that is any movement or position in prayer now focus with me this is a principle any movement or position in prayer which contradicts the natural anatomy of the human body needs a specific evidence what does that mean well naturally if i'm going to place my right hand over my left hand and the the companions narrate that we were commanded to place our right palm over our left wrist okay if i'm going to do this and two ways have been narrated some narrate that he would grasp others would narrate that he would place both are the sunnah if i'm going to do this the way that my body naturally does this is just this between the navel and the chest what contradicts the natural anatomy of the human body meaning it's uncomfortable then would be up here or would be down here okay this needs a particular it needs a specific evidence because the essence of the human body was created for worship and so it only goes to fit that the way that a person expresses his daily worship should fit with the way that the human body has been constructed either way ibn khayyim doesn't mention anything with regards to where a person places his hands he just says right over left and that's very wise because he mentions that this book is about the sunnah not about what the scholars of islam have later stipulated therefore as long as a person has his right hand over his left hand wherever it is that is fine there is only one position which is not permissible and that is what is called a tasalob a tasab is some people have read narrations or they have read books right and they'll notice that in this book the scholar may write that the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam would place his hands on his chest right and they would read this in english so already we have a problem that's been compounded and that is that english is a translation it's it's not really the actual work it's a reflection of what the translator understood so you read in english chest so they say oh an english chest is right here this is your chest so they'll put their hands up here that is not correct that's called and that's specifically impermissible right rather the only place a person cannot put his right over his left is up here this this is called tasalub on the on on the collar bones just below or just on the collar bones and as a matter of fact in surat yasin allah subhanahu wa has mentioned that the people of the hellfire will have their their hands yoked to their athcon right they will have their hands yoked and ali was asked what this will look like right what does this look like and imam he said radhiallahu he said this and he showed just this he put his two hands over on top of his tar just this and he said the people of the hellfire will be chained and yoked in this fashion that is not befitting for a person to pray in that way so this is the only place where a person cannot place his hands in prayer up here and you see people place their hands up here in this very uncomfortable way and that brings and presents a lot of problems because if we were to consider that a person is praying in gemma and he has his brothers and sisters real close to him and shoulder to shoulder how are you going to have shoulder to shoulder with your elbows jutting out into the person next to you rather the prophet salallahu he said the best of you in prayer al hadith the best of you in prayer are those who have the most malleable most plastic shoulders the scholars of islam mention what that means is that when you're standing next to people you don't interfere with them you don't make them uncomfortable rather you form yourself to the form of those next to you and so if everybody is standing like this it's not going to be possible to to align the rose properly therefore some scholars have mentioned this this is the way that ebil would pray and imam ahmad ibn hambala and other scholars of hadith imam shepherd mentions this which i just mentioned and another in another method of would be on or below the navel all of this is acceptable he goes on to say well now is going to get into what we call as dua these are small supplications.

[Arabic recitation]

Initiating his prayer the prophet salallahu alaihi wasallam would make these supplications or these praises of allah.

[Arabic recitation]

He would do these during regular salah and he would do these during his sunan and salawat the only time a person is not to do dua is during the prayer of geneza there's no evidence for doing it in the prayer of geneza funeral prayer so now we will just mention briefly if you want a good book that will tell you of these and you'd to memorize some of these supplications a very good book would be muslim which is the fortress of the muslim which is absolutely abound in every muslim household so that is a very good book he says sometimes he would initiate his prayer with an initiating supplication as oh allah which translates to allah my sins from me the distance that you have made between the east and the west allah oh my lord oh allah bathe me and purify me of my sins with water and ice.

[Arabic recitation]

Allah purify me so thoroughly from my sin just as a white garment would be purified of impurities he says sometimes he would say i have faced my face towards the one who has created the heavens and the earth i have faced myself in a state of total submission to allah not associating others unto he nor am i of those who would associate others unto my lord. indeed my prayer and my slaughter or my worship as well as my life and even my death all belong to allah the lord of the worlds no partner is unto him and this is what i have been commanded and i am the first and foremost of the muslims and he goes on to mention many others i will just mention them here in arabic and those who wish to refer to them can refer to them in the book that we have mentioned will be.

[Silence]

This is something he would say when he would stand for prayer at night and sometimes he would say allah is this is a supplication as well another that he would mentioned and so these are different ones and there are others and there are others another one that he would very usually open his prayer with is subhanak allah then goes on to mention is seeking refuge in allah subhanahu wa ta'ala subhanahu says if you wish to re recite the quran then seek refuge in allah from the cursed shaitaan would the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam seek refuge in allah from shaitaan he would do it exactly as it is mentioned in the quran and then he would recite surah speaks about the issue of when a person says is he seeking refuge in allah at the beginning of his prayer or for the occasion of reciting the quran only it's a difference of opinion amongst the scholars the correct opinion that ibn ibn kathy rahimahullah has adopted is that a person would say at the beginning of the prayer whether he is going to recite the quran or not so let's say i'm praying behind an imam i'm not going to be reciting the quran i will merely say for the occasion of the prayer likewise in swala i would say after the initiating technique then i would say so he would then recite surat al fatiha now we're going to move into another issue as far as reciting surat al-fatiha that which translates to whoever does not recite surah in his salah is incomplete incomplete incomplete and he repeated it thrice it is a pillar of salah he has also said that one who does not recite surat al-fatiha in his prayer his prayer is not valid he says and he used to recite bismillah aloud and most of the time he would not recite bismillah allowed now this is another big thing which the scholars of islam have differed upon and when the scholars of islam differ on these things they understand the proportion of this differing it's not such a huge deal people who learn it and you know as the saying goes a little knowledge is dangerous people who learn that little thing they think now that they know and others do not they run out into the world and start having arguments and heated debates about this is right and this is wrong this is correct and this is incorrect and that is very very people of knowledge do not conduct themselves that people of knowledge do not conduct themselves in such a black and white world there are certain things that we need to take a stand on there are certain things which this is not open to debate but there are other things which we can understand them in different ways and that's fine we can understand them in different ways and as imam hashem when he was debating with some of the students of imam malik after he had debated with him he saw that the man kind of took offense or kind of took it personally and imam sheffie took his hand and said we are still brothers we can we can differ without having to have animosity there's no reason we can't differ right and so some scholars mention you would say bismillah rahman rahim all the time it's part of surat al-fatiha anytime you recite it you recite bismillah other scholars say no you don't recite it allowed ever and then we have whatever nil claim has mentioned here that sometimes he would recite it aloud but most of the time he would recite it silently where does that come from well when we look at all of the body of narrations of the prophet sallallahu alaihi and his companions we see that others of the companions they narrate that the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam would say bismillah allowed in prayer but then we have a narration such as the narration of enes which is muslim he says i prayed behind the prophet muhammad sallallahu alaihi wasallam abu bakr and never would they start their prayer with bismillah not before not after they would always start their prayer with alhamdulillah meaning audibly but what does that mean does that mean that anas ibn malik was praying salah behind every single prayer that the prophet muhammad sallallahu alaihi wasallam prayed over a span of 13 years or 14 years and then he prayed every prayer behind alma and every prayer behind abu bakr no that's that's just unimaginable but let's say that that's the case we have a principle and that is not having the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence what does that mean the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence this is what we call in logic an inductive argument let's say i have only seen white geese in my life never seen a black goose i can say with an amount of certainty geese are white but does that categorically mean that no black geese exists the answer is no that doesn't categorically mean that because that is the nature of an inductive argument the only way i could know that is if i have observed infinite amount of geese or all of the geese that ever would be or could be to be able to say i have seen and there are no black geese the scholars of islam say that the absence of evidence is not an evidence of absence what that means is if we have two companions one narrates that i never saw the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam do this and the other narrates i saw him do this which one do we go with well obviously we go with the one who affirms that he saw something because the one who negates something they're only speaking about their experience they're saying i've never seen it but it doesn't mean just because you haven't seen it it doesn't exist there are many things that we haven't seen that we haven't heard but they exist nonetheless and so the scholars of islam they tell us the one who affirms something they say i saw this happen we take their testimony ahead and we give precedence to that than the one who says i have not seen such and such ever happen it's because of that and this happens sometimes in the sunnah so ana as far as his experience goes he's never heard them say bismillah rahman or rahim at the beginning of doesn't mean that it never happened just means that he never experienced it he once said to his companions i'm going to pray for you exactly as i observe the prophet salallahu so that means that it happened he saw it but what we do understand from anas ibn malik is that the majority of the time that never happened the great majority very seldomly with the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam ever start his recitation with bismillah rather he would begin it with alhamdulillah we will now conclude for today for this evening next week insha allah we will discuss the way and what the prophet sallallahu alaihi foreign.