The Five Prayers as a Check-Up for the Heart, and the Meaning of 'Praise Be to Allah'

المناسبة: تفريغ خاطرة بعد صلاة الظهر أُلقيت في المركز الإسلامي بمدينة موريس بتاريخ 4 سبتمبر 2022م المصدر: تفريغ خاطرة مرئية للدكتور أحمد أبو سيف، مشاهدة الفيديو الأصلي على يوتيوب

Dear brothers, we are really pleased and honored to be with you today. Did anyone pray with us earlier today? A different audience, different people, perhaps. The prayer we have just said is a blessing from Allah. Allah chose us to start the day with the morning prayer, with obedience to Him. So do we not need to continue and complete our day at the same level of obedience? Alhamdulillah, we started the day with prayer, and now we are praying again.

Why five times a day?

Why did Allah choose these times for prayer, and why five times a day? It is a common question, even from our children: "Do we really have to pray five times a day?"

Take an example from the IT people, who teach us that once you connect to the internet, you should expect to catch some kind of virus. If you have antivirus on your computer, it may catch some of them and keep your computer out of dangerous situations; but if you start a scan, it will directly remove any virus on the machine. Now imagine scanning your computer every single day, twice a day, five times a day. Do you think there would be any viruses left at the end of the day?

Allah, glory be to Him, ordered us to pray five times a day so that our hearts are scanned. Just as your computer connects to the internet, your heart connects with the people around you, with the world, with money and desires and so many things that can distract your mind and your heart. That is why we come here, to scan our hearts. It is like checking your body by going to a machine, which costs a lot of money; here we will not spend a penny. But I am here, by the way, to scan my own heart.

Are you the same person who entered the prayer?

I still remember a time when one of my teachers, a friend of my father, asked me: "Do you know whether your prayer is accepted or not?" I said, nobody can know that. He said: "Who told you that I do not know? If you feel, after the prayer, that you are a different person from the one who started it, then be sure your prayer is accepted. If you feel you are the same person who entered the prayer, then be sure it is not accepted."

If you benefit from your prayer, it means your mind is refreshed, your heart is refreshed, your body is refreshed; everything is good. Imagine taking a shower: if you finish your shower in the same condition you started in, did you really take a shower, or did you only feel the water? But if you step out clean, you know you got something from it.

Understanding what we recite

How can you reach this level? Try to understand what you are reciting. Everybody says "Alhamdulillah," but how many understand exactly the meaning of that one word, with which Allah asked us to begin our prayer? Last week I was teaching my students the meaning of "al-hamd," and we found at least four meanings; three of them are these:

• Satisfaction. When I say "Alhamdulillah," I am saying I am satisfied, I am okay, I have no problem.^[1]
• Thanks. I am thanking You for what I have: I am standing now, I am breathing, my heart is working, my body is working, I am here and I see you, and I say "Alhamdulillah" because of the many blessings Allah has given me.
• Praise. Why do we need to praise Allah? Because He deserves it; He deserves all of that praise from us.

We need to think deeply about this word. If I am satisfied and have no problems, it means that when I go home I will be okay with my wife and my children, and when I go back to work I will be better with my coworkers and everyone around me.

A further thought comes from the idea of growing up, of taking care of something. Imagine when you feel that Allah is taking care of you, taking everything bad away from your way, defending you, protecting you and bringing you everything good. It means that whatever I have right now is the best situation of my entire life, because Allah chose it for me. My life right now, my place right now, I will never be back in this minute: if I am in my home right now, this is the best place I can be in this minute, because Allah chose it for me. Try to understand the meaning of the words you recite in your prayer, to have its real blessings.

--- ^[1]: Editor's documentation: In the Arabic lexicons, al-hamd is praise of the One praised for His perfection and kindness; "satisfaction" and "being cared for" are reflections the speaker draws out of the word, as he presents them here. The transcript is unclear on the speaker's fourth meaning, so only three are listed.