Duas needed

If any of you could spare 10 seconds, could you please make dua for me?  inshaAllah ta’ala I am starting the 40 Grand today, and I need all the help I can get.

It’s funny (in a kind of ironic way, not ha ha funny), but one of the main reasons I am muslim is because of salat.  It’s a form of worship given to us by God, validated by God, ordered by God, unlike the liturgy/mass/service of the christian churches.  It’s remained unchanged since it was given to our Prophet (saws).  Allah (swt) told the Prophet (saws) that his ummah should pray 5 times a day.  What’s so funny about that, you may ask?  It’s funny because I struggle so hard to make my salat.  I can’t think of a single month since I converted where I’ve prayed all my salat, astaghfirullah.  I get on a roll, then bam, that time of month hits and afterwards, I’ve lost all my momentum.  Sometimes I struggle back up to that level, and sometimes, it takes months to motivate myself again, astaghfirullah.

But this time, inshaAllah inshaAllah inshaAllah, I’m going to do it.  It may take me a year, but I’m going to finish 40 days of salat come hell or high water. 

Please make dua for me.

Expiation

 

from flickr

1045. Abu Hurayra reported that the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said, “The five prayers, and Jumu’a to Jumu’a is expiation for what is between them as long as a man has committed no major sins.” [Muslim]

Tahiyatul Masjid

On the authority of Abu Qatada (ra) he said, “The Messenger of Allah (saws) said: ‘If any of you enters the Mosque, let him not sit until he prays two rakats.’” [Bukhari & Muslim]

Ah Salah

My very own quran for taraweeh

Alhamdulilah, the long copy and paste nightmare is over! Courtesy of transliteration.org, I now have a word document that consists just of the Qur’an as translated by Yusuf Ali and a transliteration of the arabic into roman letters.

A common site at taraweeh prayers (at least at the masjids I go to) is for the congregants to hold little booklets containing one juz (1/30th) of the Qur’an, so that they may follow along with the imam during the prayer. Unfortunately, all the ones I’ve come across are simply in arabic, and since my arabic reading and comprehension skills are sorely lacking (one day inshaAllah!), I decided to make my own quran for taraweeh this year.

I copied and pasted the transliteration and translation from the website listed above into a word document. I plan to print it out, 3 hole punch and put it all in a large binder. Then, each night during Ramadan, I can take out one juz, stick it in a smaller binder and read from that during taraweeh. I think if I stick my backpack in front of me, during sujood I can stick the book on it so that the quran is not on the floor.

If anyone would like a copy, please leave me your email address, and I’ll email you a copy inshaAllah. It’s kind of long at 600+ pages, and not very pretty format wise, but it’s functional.

Alhamdulilah, only a month until Ramadan!

ps - It’s valid to read from a quran in the shafi’i school, so long as you don’t fidget with it too much I believe. inshaAllah will look in my fiqh books when i get home to post the specifics

Your salat on the Day of Judgment

Riyad as-Salihin (The Meadows of the Righteous) - 193. Chapter: On the command to persevere in the prescribed prayers and the strongest prohibition against abandoning them

1081. Abu Hurayra reported that the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said, “The first action which the slave will be called to account for on the Day of Rising is his prayer. If it is in order, he will have success and win through. If it is not in order, he will be disappointed and lose out. If any of his obligatory prayers are lacking, the Lord, the Mighty and Exalted, will say, ‘See if My slave has any supererogatory actions and use them to complete his obligatory prayer.’ Then the rest of his actions will be assessed in the same way.” [at-Tirmidhi]

Washed away

Abu Hurairahu (ra) reported: I heard the Messenger of Allah (saws) saying, “Say, if there were a river at the door of one of you in which he takes a bath five times a day, would any soiling remain on him?” They replied, “No soiling would left on him.” He (saws) said, ” That is the five Salat. Allah obliterates all sins as a result of performing them.”

[Al-Bukhari and Muslim].

Shafi’i salat video

To watch for later. Work is cracking down on watching videos.

Ow!

A word of advice:

Never make up a dozen prayers in a row and then go out for a run. My thighs still hurt 2 days later.

Missed Salat

Making up missed prayers according to the Shafi’i madhab

Calculating how many missed prayers I have to make up

How to Offer Makeup Prayers

One can offer make-up prayers at any time, even at times when prayers are normally forbidden.

Nawawi on making up missed prayers: scholarly consensus

Make up prayers of a new convert