Why Your Position in Prayer Matters to Everyone

Very heavy on the right side. It's very light on the left side. This is akin to the row being out of order to the row not being straight. The rows have to be straight and the rows have to be as close to the im as possible. Being on the right side of the imam is no more virtuous than being on the left side unless both sides are equal. If you walk into the masid and you find that if I stand on the right or if I stand on the left I'll be the same distance from the imam then you choose the right. any other instance you stand in the place in the row that places you closest to the imam. This affects everyone. This affects everyone that is in the prayer with us. In Ahmed, the prophet sallall.aii Wasam led and he was reciting and he slipped in a verse. And so after the he turned and he said because of the mistake that he made in the recitation.

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He said I have made this mistake in recitation because there are those amongst us who joined the prayer that had not properly made their woo and so it affected the recitation of the imam. And so if you come to pray with us, make sure that you perfect the your will make it properly. Anything that any one of us does affects everyone else in the prayer. So we have an a reward to be had when we come together for salah. We can't get this reward anywhere else. It has to be together in jama. And when one person makes a mistake in the row or the row is not balanced or the woo is not made correctly or etc. It affects the reward of everyone. Every single one of us has their reward docked. We lose parts of our reward because of these seemingly simple mistakes. And so it's very important that when you come into the masid, you think don't just pray where the doors are or I know sometimes we have an anxiety that maybe I'm going to miss the even if you miss the it's never a justification to improperly make the salah. I mean, if you if we think about it, we all woke up at this hour. We made wool. We inconvenienced ourselves. We came all the way out here for what? For what reason? Reward. So then why would we shoot ourselves in the foot with such a silly thing? So we want to make sure that the row is always straight and that the row is always balanced. This was so important that the prophet sallallah.aii wasallam refused to start salah until every single person in the row was exactly where they were supposed to be. And this was so important that one of the miracles that the prophet sallallah.aii alaihi wasallam was given was that Allah gave him the ability only in salah to be able to simultaneously see the people in the rows behind him while he's in salah. So Allah gave him the ability to monitor everyone in the salah as long as he was in salah. That's how important it is that the rows be straight and that the rows be balanced. They have to be balanced. They have to be straight. Even if you're going to miss the rur, if you come in and the imam is in rur, if you come in and the imam is in rur, and if you stand in the wrong place, you're going to catch the the and if you go to the right place, you are going to miss the it is obligatory upon you to miss the and go to the proper obligatory. These are not suggestions. None of these things are suggestions. These are obligations upon us. And our children are watching us. It's not okay for our rose to be out of whack or imbalanced or we want to get rid of these old things. We want to make sure that if the prophet sallall.aii alaihi wasallam himself walked in through those doors, he would find us practicing his sunnah and he wouldn't look down on us as people who ignored our scholars and ignored our and and ignored his sunnah saiam again tomorrow will be a 4:45 the the will be at 4:45 and That's the only time change for salah starting tomorrow. Continuing in from Alwaj. Yesterday we discussed what is what woo is obligatory for or another way of putting it what is haram for a person to do who doesn't have two ways of putting it. And so who can remember how many things we mentioned? Three things. The first thing a person needs woo to do is what? Salah. And the second and the third Quran. Yes. Touching the musaf, handling the mus. Now we will go into a sub chapter of that or subcategory and that is what is preferable. The times when it is preferable to make wudoo. the times when it is preferable to make woo and those are far more numerous than those things which wuloo is obligatory for the first is very general and broad the remembrance of Allah in general any remembrance whether it's recitation of Quran from memory or the remembrance of Allah subhan allah alhamdulillah or even to convey. The prophet sallall.aii wasallam was narrated to have responded to salah after he had finished his wudoo. And that's actually the narration that the author mentions. Who here has ever heard of Muajar Ibut? Anyone? This is a companion and this is part of a group of companions who have narrated less than three narrations. There are some narration some companions who only narrated one narration in all of the books of hadith even weak narrations counting all narrations. Some who have only mentioned two some who have only done three. The scholars of hadith have compiled books enumerating and listing these companions who have only one or two narrations. And these books are referred to as a category of books in the science of hadith as Sahabah. So he tells us a story. He says,.

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For.

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So, Muajbud he says that he passed by the prophet sallall.aii Wasam whilst he was making and mu passed by he saw he's making he said and most of the time the companions when they would say to him they would add and he did not respond. And so when he finished his wudoo, he then responded and he said, he said, "The only thing that stopped me from responding to you in the moment moment that you said assam to me when you greeted me is that I disliked the remembrance of Allah without being on in a state of purity. So we have to take this narration in its proper context. What was the difference between when he received a salam and when he answered salam? Well, he was in the middle of making mudoo. So, at most it was how much? Maybe a few seconds, 20, 30 seconds, maybe a minute at most tops. Right? and he saw that Muhaj wasn't leaving. Now, if he had saw that he was leaving and he would leave with the wrong impression or was not someone who is teachable or it would make it far too long for the lesson to sink in, then he would have responded to because the others companions tell us that the prophet sallall.aii alaihi wasallam used to remember Allah in all instances and in all states of being laying down on his side standing up in right in all instances he would remember Allah without his clothing on with his clothes with his clothing on etc in all states of being. However, what is better? What is better is that a person have and so he wanted to teach muhaj here this. So he went out of his way to do this in order to articulate to him the preferable nature of the remembrance of Allah in a state of and so this is why he says now what part of a salam is the remembrance of Allah. What part of salam is the remembrance of Allah? What is last part? Say what part? What word? Huh? For instance, itself in an narrates that the prophet sallall.aii Wasam said he said is one of the names of Allah. That's one of his names. And so he has placed it on the earth for you. He has bestowed upon you this name of his. So spread it amongst yourselves. So when we say this is the name of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and this is also what this is also a dua. It's also a dua that a person is making and this is why it is not preferred that people get fancy with a sal. What do I mean by fancy? Right? Sometimes it goes into the realm of mockery which is very dangerous. Right? Says it's a joke. This is not how the companions how the prophet sallall.aii wasallam gave salam to each other. They did not give salam to each other as salamkum. They did not give salam to each other as this is how they used to say to and people they were stepping onto the battlefield with or.

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Right? These are things that people say joking and you know when we grow up in the west and grow up in this era where everything is a joke, everything is funny, nothing is sacred, nothing is off limits, everything is just geared for us to have fun, right? we start to trample on our own sacred rights, right? Is salam is sacred. It's not just sacred. The prophet sallallah.aii wasallam said that it is the envy of the Jews. It is their envy that the knowledgeable Jews would envy the Muslim because of Salam. They wish they had one it, right? And the strict regulations of Islam. And if you look into the books of you'll find that the that the books and chapters dealing with the rulings of Salam are very expansive many narrations at least in the hundreds just about the rulings of a salam. Who gives salam to who and how we respond to salam. And if one person says salam to a group, do they all have to respond or just one of them? An elder and a younger, who who initiates the other with a salam, the person riding or the person walking? The person walking or the person seated? Is salam and shaking hands? Are they mutually exclusive? These things have been discussed at nauseium in hundreds of pages of Islamic literature. Why? Because of the gravity of this subhanahu aldulill.