بِسْمِ اللهِ الرَّحْمٰنِ الرَّحِيْمِ
Prayer is undoubtedly the most important aspect of Islam after taking the shahada. It is what separates a believer from a non-believer and it is the first thing that is questioned on the day of judgement.
The prophet (ﷺ) said: “The first matter that the slave will be brought to account for on the Day of Judgment is the prayer. If it is sound, then the rest of his deeds will be sound. And if it is bad, then the rest of his deeds will be bad.” [Al-Tabarani, authentic according to al-Albaani]
The prophet (ﷺ) also said: “Between faith and unbelief is abandoning the prayer.” [Muslim]
Therefore salah is not to be taken lightly; it comes with guidelines which are our responsibility to perform correctly. We should already know the basics pertaining to salah but there are a few issues to mention regarding this matter.
First of all we must understand that salah is not a chore that must be done as quickly as possible in order to get back to our lives. We must plan our lives around the 5 daily prayers and not our salah around our lives. Allah says in the Qur’an:
“Maintain with care the [obligatory] prayers and [in particular] the middle prayer and stand before Allah, devoutly obedient.” 2:238
Many of us do not take salah for what it is – a blessing and a great responsibility. Allah directly informs us to maintain our prayers; he did not just tell us to pray. We see people rushing their get the salah done as quickly as possible as if it is getting in the way. We must take care in standing before the almighty and it starts with ablution; the prophet (ﷺ) said: “The key to Paradise is Salat, and the key to Salat is Wudu’.” [Tirmidhi]
We must ensure each part of the wudu’ is performed correctly; all areas that are washed must be touched with water accordingly; the wudu’ will define our salah. A narration of the prophet (ﷺ) highlights this point: “The Messenger of Allah saw a man performing ablution and he missed a spot the size of a fingernail on his foot. He commanded him to repeat the ablution and his prayer, so he did.” [Ibn Majah]
A very important aspect is covering the awrah during prayer. For women that is the whole body except for the face, hands and below the ankles. For men it is between the navel and bottom of the knees (and what is parallel to this i.e. the lower back and sides); most scholars also recommend that the shoulders be covered.
The issue of the awrah during prayer for men is widespread. We see many people praying with shirts that move up during ruku’ or sujud exposing the lower back – scholars mention that this invalidates the prayer unless it was done accidentally and then immediately covered.
Here are some other basic mistakes we make:
These are basic, core issues we must take heed of with our daily prayers – let us fix these mistakes to get the reward we need from salah.
Allah knows best.