Khatira [Voluntary Prayers Are the Believer's Provision]

Occasion: Transcription of a khatira delivered on 19 October 2021 Source: A transcription of a video khatira by Dr. Ahmed Abouseif — Watch the original video on YouTube

Our talk remains connected to voluntary worship, which is the topic of this week's lesson. We mentioned last week that Allah, blessed and exalted, commanded us, on the tongue of His Prophet ﷺ, with worship additional to the obligatory. The five prayers, for example, have voluntary prayers: two rakʿas before Fajr, a number of rakʿas before and after Ẓuhr, two rakʿas after Maghrib, two rakʿas after ʿIshāʾ, and the Witr prayer. Then we have what is additional to that of unrestricted voluntary prayer, such as praying as much as Allah lets you pray, outside the times in which prayer is forbidden.

Every Obligation Has a Voluntary Counterpart

And voluntary worship is not in the prayer alone, but in everything. Our jurists say that every obligation has a voluntary counterpart. Tawḥīd and the testimony of faith are an obligation that was made binding on us, to pronounce it for Allah, blessed and exalted, and its voluntary counterpart is dhikr. The voluntary counterpart of the prayer is the voluntary performance of the prescribed prayers, among them a confirmed Sunna and an unconfirmed Sunna. What is obligatory in fasting is the fasting of Ramaḍān, and its voluntary counterpart is what the Prophet ﷺ prescribed of fasting scattered through the year. And the voluntary counterpart of the Ḥajj is the ʿUmra.

"Be Upright, and You Will Never Be Able to Count"

And when we speak about the matter of voluntary prayer, we see a ḥadīth of the Prophet ﷺ in which he says: «اسْتَقِيمُوا وَلَنْ تُحْصُوا، وَاعْلَمُوا أَنَّ خَيْرَ أَعْمَالِكُمُ الصَّلَاةُ، وَلَنْ يُحَافِظَ عَلَى الْوُضُوءِ إِلَّا مُؤْمِنٌ» ("Be upright, and you will never be able to count; and know that the best of your deeds is the prayer, and none will preserve wudūʾ except a believer")^[1]. How many items are in this ḥadīth? Three. The first: «استقيموا ولن تحصوا» ("Be upright, and you will never be able to count"). The second: «واعلموا أن خير أعمالكم الصلاة» ("And know that the best of your deeds is the prayer"). The third: «ولن يحافظ على الوضوء إلا مؤمن» ("And none will preserve wudūʾ except a believer").

The first item. What is it that we will not be able to count? We will not be able to take in the doors of obedience. Be upright in your homes, and you will not be able to count the degree of perfection in uprightness. Be upright in the prayer, and you will not reach the perfection of uprightness. Be upright in fulfilling the rights of the servants of Allah, in works and dealings, and you will not be able to count. And why will we not be able to count? Because we are in origin human beings, from whom there issues what is right and there issues what is wrong, so we strive as much as we can strive, and then we do not count.

And why did Allah, blessed and exalted, establish this matter, that we will not count, and that there is no human being who counts? Because the servant must sense the favor of Allah upon him. For whatever blessing we have is not by our deeds, and is not a reply to our obedience, and is not in any way a due of ours with Allah, exalted. And however much we strive in acts of worship we will not be able to perform them in the required way, and we will not be able to give Allah, blessed and exalted, His due. «ولن تحصوا» ("and you will never be able to count"): so that humility remains with the servant before Allah, exalted, asking Him for more success in more worship, and more blessings that worship cannot repay, but the generosity is from Allah, blessed and exalted, alone, Mighty and Majestic.

The second item. Then the Prophet ﷺ gives us an example of the kinds of uprightness which, if the servant stands firm on it, he reaches a stage among the stages, or a rank among the ranks, and it is the prayer. And why the prayer? As we have mentioned often, it is the tie of the servant with his Lord, and the proof of presence before Allah, blessed and exalted, and the humbling of the soul and placing the forehead on the ground before the King, exalted in His highness. The Prophet ﷺ says: «خير أعمالكم الصلاة» ("the best of your deeds is the prayer"); by it the pillars of the religion stand, by it life becomes upright, by it the individuals of society are joined together, and by it rights between people are fulfilled for those who are keen on it.

The third item. Then the Prophet ﷺ speaks and says: «ولن يحافظ على الوضوء إلا مؤمن» ("and none will preserve wudūʾ except a believer"). The person who is keen to be in a state of wudūʾ, pure in his outward self, that purity teaches him purity within his soul and heart. And from here comes the importance of voluntary worship. For wudūʾ is not obligatory except for the obligatory prayers, or when beginning the acts of worship for which wudūʾ is required; but for the servant to be keen to be always in wudūʾ, that is voluntary worship.

Why Voluntary Worship?

We mentioned in the last gathering why voluntary worship. We mentioned that it is a test of the sincerity of the servant's turning to his Lord. For we agreed that there are deeds required of you literally, but it is as if we had employed you in this place and hoped good of you that you would perform; so if you perform only what is required of you, you have not added to performing the duty, but if you perform what is additional, you have shown good turning. And the Lord of Might, when He asked of us the Sunna and the voluntary and the supererogatory, wanted, glory be to Him, to show in us the sincerity of our turning to Him.

Then comes the other benefit, which is making up for what was missed of the obligatory acts of worship, as we explained before.

And the other matter is raising the level of performing the obligations. I say it a second time: raising the level of performing the obligations. For when you write a word the first time, a long word that you are learning, you write it like this and the handwriting comes out stumbling, then you write it again and it passes, then the third time, then the fifth, then the tenth, then the twentieth, and you write it with your eyes closed, or you write it without paying attention to it, naturally. So mastery of deeds comes only from repeating them. Whoever wants to master the obligatory prayer with true mastery must have a share of the voluntary prayer, for whoever performs the voluntary prayer becomes better at mastering the performance of the obligatory act of worship.

And among the benefits of voluntary worship is a matter of the utmost importance, which is filling the emptiness of those who have time on their hands. Consider the man sitting in his house with nothing to do, and his wife, fed up with him, says to him: What is the matter with you, sitting there? This is dirty and this is clean, lift this and put down that, why are you idle? Get up and pray two rakʿas, man, have mercy on us, you have exhausted us, pray two rakʿas. And they say of those who have time on their hands: either their time is occupied with obedience, or it is occupied with disobedience.

And the Prophet ﷺ, as is well known about him, used to pray with his wife beside him, and yet he was occupied with her, meaning that he gave her the time that met her need, then gave himself and gave his Lord what filled the rest of his time, though he ﷺ had no free time at all.

The Voluntary Prayer at Home

And we move to a heading which says: the preferability of a person's praying in his house. Why at home? The Prophet ﷺ says: «إِذَا صَلَّى أَحَدُكُمُ الصَّلَاةَ فِي مَسْجِدِهِ فَلْيَجْعَلْ لِبَيْتِهِ نَصِيبًا مِنْ صَلَاتِهِ، فَإِنَّ اللَّهَ جَاعِلٌ فِي بَيْتِهِ مِنْ صَلَاتِهِ خَيْرًا» ("When one of you has prayed the prayer in his mosque, let him make for his house a share of his prayer, for Allah will place in his house, from his prayer, good")^[2]. The meaning of the words: if we have finished the ʿIshāʾ prayer now, it is fitting that I return to the house to pray some rakʿas there. So what do these rakʿas bring? The prayer at home is a reminder for the wife if she has not prayed, and perhaps she will pray behind me, according to those who permitted one praying an obligatory prayer to follow one praying a voluntary prayer. Then it also draws the attention of the children who are in the house; they feel that a prayer is being held inside this house, so they imitate their father, or circle around him, or are drawn to a prayer being held.

Then comes the matter of tranquility entering the house^[3]. For what is with Allah is attained only through obedience to Him, and the good that comes about in homes comes only through the remembrance of Allah, exalted, in these homes. And we have seen, through the large number of cases presented to us, that most of them, indeed nearly all of them, when disputes between spouses intensify, we say at once: there is a shortfall in the level of performing acts of worship inside this house, or a misunderstanding that has arisen between the two parties. But at the general level: whenever worship increases, Satan's voice lowers, and whenever tranquility descends upon the people of the house, matters become upright and stand firm on their stalk.

And it is related from the Prophet ﷺ that he said: «صلاة الرجل في بيته تطوعًا نور، فمن شاء نوّر بيته» ("A man's voluntary prayer in his house is light, so whoever wishes, let him light up his house").^[4] And the light that comes about through the prayer is only the effect of the blessing of Allah, blessed and exalted, in these homes. And the blessing of Allah, blessed and exalted, descends upon hearts and calms their fright, stills minds and sweetens thoughts. And this blessing descending from Allah is a provision that is never available except from the Lord of Might, glory be to Him, the Most High.

And hence the Prophet's ﷺ counsel in the ḥadīth of ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿUmar: «اجْعَلُوا مِنْ صَلَاتِكُمْ فِي بُيُوتِكُمْ، وَلَا تَتَّخِذُوهَا قُبُورًا» ("Make some of your prayer in your houses, and do not take them as graves")^[5]. It is as if the house in which Allah is not remembered, in which the servant does not pray, is like a grave, in which Satan plays with his feet and wanders about with no one to restrain him. And nothing keeps Satan from the house except the remembrance of Allah and establishing the prayer in it. And we mentioned that in praying at home there is a reminder for a woman who wants to pray when the time of prayer comes, for often our women are busy with the children and preparing food and other things. And in it also is accustoming the children in the homes to perform the prayers from which Satan may perhaps distract them.

Lengthy Standing

And the second heading I will say very briefly, and it is a wondrous heading to me: the superiority of lengthy standing over many prostrations in voluntary prayer. What does this mean? It means that lengthy standing in the prayer, reciting the Qur'an, is better than many prostrations. And we learned that the Prophet ﷺ told us that «أقرب ما يكون العبد من ربّه وهو ساجد» ("the closest a servant is to his Lord is when he is prostrating"),^[6] so how can standing receive a reward better than the reward of prostration?

The people of knowledge say that lengthy standing means more recitation of the Qur'an, which illuminates the mind and the heart together. And what happens to the servant in his prostration is only a reflection of what he recited in the standing. When I prostrate, I am only translating what I recited in my standing: I said "Allahu akbar," and we recited the story of Mūsā with his people, in which many events took place, so what I learned in the standing and the recitation affects my state in my prostration. That is the way of the believer who interacts with what he hears and recites in the prayer, unlike the one who recites in a mere run, not knowing where he began nor where he ended, nor how many mistakes he made, nor what happened to him, then prostrates the prostration of one picking up something from the ground, rising quickly, and does not express anything through his prayer.

The author of this saying, narrating to us, says: The Group narrated, except Abū Dāwūd, from al-Mughīra ibn Shuʿba that he said: The Messenger of Allah ﷺ used to stand and pray until his feet swelled. And when we speak of the swelling of the feet we are not speaking of one prostrating, for in prostration the feet are humbled, but it is the one standing who stood praying and reciting much of the noble Qur'an whose feet swell.

And someone may say: Is this in the voluntary prayer or the obligatory? So we say what we mentioned previously when we spoke about the guidance of the Prophet ﷺ in recitation. In the obligatory prayer the imam must take into account the state of those behind him; if behind him is someone sitting or unable to stand long, then everything the imam performs, he must by obligation take into account in it the state of those following, and not burden them in any way. It is easy for me to show off to you my memorization of Sūrat al-Baqara in full, and stand reciting slowly while the people behind me are strained and hate coming to the mosque because of that, but that is not fiqh; fiqh is taking into account people's conditions in the obligatory prayer. As for the voluntary prayer, it is a choice: whoever wishes to complete with you completes, and whoever wishes to leave leaves. And in addition, in the voluntary prayer the servant may sit while the imam stands and there is no sin on him in that, whereas the obligatory prayer must have standing, and the imam must take into account the state of those following.

I ask Allah, blessed and exalted, to grant us and you sincerity in word and deed, and to turn away from us the whisperings of Satan. O Allah, we ask You for a good deliverance when we stand before You on the Day of Resurrection, and we ask You, our Lord, for a good provision from Yourself. Praise be to Allah, and may Allah send blessings and peace upon our Prophet Muhammad.

--- ^[1]: Editor's documentation: The ḥadīth with this wording is narrated from the ḥadīth of Thawbān (may Allah be pleased with him) in the Musnad of Aḥmad and the Sunan of Ibn Māja. ^[2]: Editor's documentation: The ḥadīth is from the narration of Jābir (may Allah be pleased with him) in Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim, and its wording is: «إذا قضى أحدكم الصلاة في مسجده فليجعل لبيته نصيبًا من صلاته، فإن الله جاعلٌ في بيته من صلاته خيرًا» ("When one of you has completed the prayer in his mosque, let him make for his house a share of his prayer, for Allah will place in his house, from his prayer, good"). ^[3]: Editor's documentation: The transcription has "the ship" (al-safīna) at this point and in what follows, and the context (homes, blessing and dispute) indicates "tranquility" (al-sakīna), so it has been set down thus. ^[4]: Editor's documentation: The speaker did not attribute it, and the editor has not verified its authenticity or its source, so it has been given in the form "it is related." ^[5]: Editor's documentation: The ḥadīth is in the two Ṣaḥīḥs from the narration of ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿUmar (may Allah be pleased with them both). ^[6]: Editor's documentation: Narrated by Muslim from the ḥadīth of Abū Hurayra (may Allah be pleased with him): «أقرب ما يكون العبد من ربه وهو ساجد فأكثروا الدعاء» ("The closest a servant is to his Lord is when he is prostrating, so make much supplication"). And among what is cited as evidence for lengthy standing is his saying ﷺ: «أفضل الصلاة طول القنوت» ("The best prayer is the long standing"), narrated by Muslim from the ḥadīth of Jābir (may Allah be pleased with him).