Bismillahirrahmanirrahim. I hope with that, I won't stumble upon my words and not express anything that is in the wrong. Anyway here goes.
It was something that I never used to question. I was taught that we as Muslims are required to pray five times a day and I accepted it. This is regardless of me not fulfilling this duty everyday sometime ago, that's not the question. yet. But so there was no question about it. I didn't really ponder why and what the purpose was, except for the explanation that were given to me on the surface, let them be by my teachers, my parents, my grandparents, my aunts/uncles, etc. In other words, I sort of just took this at its face value.
I might not fully grasp what it is all about yet. I speak this as today. However as I have been growing up with various life experiences, Allah has given me a little of an enlightenment as to what solat should mean to me. And I say that as the weakest hamba Allah. Going back to my interpretation of sembahyang before... it was not something that I made pivotal in my life regretfully. Sometimes, I'd pray. Other times, I just wouldn't. And probably a lot of times, I'd crumple Zuhur and Asar together or Maghrib and Isyak together (by praying late in Zuhur just so in time for Asar tarus so I don't have to do things twice, catch my drift). I thought, you know, there, inda payah dua kali keraja =s. Karang malas lagi. And then there's the ever so famous 'been there done that' story of how you seek Allah by never missing your prayers and adding Hajat prayers when your exam is near or when we are faced with some hardship. How foolish right!! That was the level of shallowness that I had regarding sembahyang. But might I add that, it is ofcourse not wrong to seek Allah when your exams are near or when we're faced with hardships. If not Allah, who else do we seek? Allah is our unwavering friend, so long as we keep seeking Him. He is not comparable to our parents, sebesar-besar mana our parents have helped us in our life, besar dan agung lagi pertolongan Allah arah ketani. Sebaik mana kawan ketani, baik lagi Allah akan kami. He is the companionship that we need all the time. But so yeah, not wrong to seek Him during all of those times. What's wrong with that is our niat. Praying not because of Allah is wrong. And leaving Allah when the rainbows start showing is wronger than wrong. Tapi ini lah manusia. Kita senang alpa dengan kesenangan dan kemewahan, hanya bila susah baru ternangis-nangis mencari pertolongan. I've been there too so I know how it is. And that is jahiliah.
Then one day. Someone asked me. Of all the things that Allah has blessed you with, how have you thanked Him? How have you shown thanks? I was caught off guard. I wasn't uncomfortable because of that person asking me, but it was the fact that I really didn't know how I thanked Him for giving me life. And we can all agree that it is the biggest gift you could ever receive and one that cannot be granted by anyone other than Allah. Do we say thank you, is that enough? We say thank you to Allah just as we say thank you to someone who lends us an umbrella on a rainy day? Oh how we dare do that? How dare we scale the latter's magnitude to the Honor and Nobility of the former? Whether we realize this or we don't. It doesn't suffice to say Alhamdulillah. Ofcourse it's a good thing that we say Alhamdulillah like right after we eat or we hear some good news, etc, etc. But is that where it ends?
So sembahyang to me, is showing our thanks to our Lord. To show and agree that He is the only one worthy of worship. That He is the only one that is capable of everything. To surrender to His decrees and ask for His forgiveness and love. Believe that everything, minute or mega, comes from Allah. It's not just about fulfilling my duty as a Muslim. It's saying thank you Allah for enabling me to wake up to another healthy day. It's saying thank you Allah for maintaining my five senses of sight, taste, touch, hear and smell. It's saying thank you Allah for granting me this family and blissful life. It's saying thank you Allah for giving me Islam. It's saying thank you Allah for giving me the opportunity to learn to distinguish between what is light and what is darkness. And this list goes on and on. And might I even say, praying five times a day is still not sufficient to show our gratitude to Allah the Almighty. Allah the Powerful. Allah the one with Most Honour and Most Noble. And as we always are told, as much as we try, we will never be able to live up to the highest of iman. But ofcourse this fact is not supposed to be discouraging! It's supposed to be motivational. This is not in the same context when someone tells you that you'll never be able to study until phd (implying that you're too dumb to be capable of such a task). When it is said that we'll never clear ourselves from complete sin and full good deeds, it means that we're flawed humans that should continually strive in search of keredhaanNya. So we will not get complacent and think "oh man I'm so beriman, I will defo go into the doors of heaven. I do this everyday and I don't do this, like all of other people, gerenti Allah loves me, no doubt." Doesn't that sound incredibly dense? And believe me, despite being created sebaik-sebaik makhluk by Allah, we are so full of weaknesses and flaws that the probability of us allowing to feel complacent is higher than we think. May it be complacency in terms of iman, may it be complacency in academic aspects or whatever.
Okay going back to my initial point. I read this phrase in some forum sometime ago. It was stated in this person's signature I think. It felt light to read. It said "if you want to talk to Allah, perform your prayers. If you want Allah to talk to you, read the Quran." Isn't that simplicity? Maybe you would think that that's quite obvious. But I have seriously never thought about it in that perspective. But once you do.. it's like wow. You want to talk to Allah in the best manner possible. And that is also what sembahyang is also about. And by sort of communicating with Allah, dengan sendirinya ketani akan mendekatkan diri denganNya. That itself is another purpose. Aside from expressing our syukur to Him, it's a means of us continually asking Him for forgiveness to match our continually performances of sins. and as He has repeatedly told us in the Quran that He will continue to forgive you for your continuous sins as long as you continually ask for His forgiveness. Allah Maha Pengampun, MasyaAllah.
As I also keep hearing and indeed sembahyang is like the tiang that you need when you begin building a house so it will be able to stand properly. Our prayers shall protect us from committing sins and ofcourse I don't mean when someone prays 5 times a day, never miss, he will not sin ever again. That's not our nature. I mean we'd like that to be, how we wish that's the case. But no. But it makes praying all the more necessary. If we are prone to committing sins whilst consistently performing prayers, how much more prone would we be to sins whilst not praying?
Also remember that our prayers will save us. The prayers that Allah SWT accept. The day in our grave when we get questioned by the angels. When they ask about our God, and our deeds that synchronized our faith in Allah and islam. our prayers will speak for us. believe in this day. whole heartedly. it will come. and the fact that Allah has given you another day today only means that He is giving you chances after chances to repent =') He hasn't given us another day to add more weight to our sins. He does the opposite. So which one do we want to do? Remember that Allah tidak menzalimi hamba-hambaNya. Malahan mereka sendiri yang menzalimi diri mereka. ='(
Allah ani lagi Maha Pemurah. Inda abis-abis di barinya tani chance. He has blessed us with Ramadhans after Ramadhans. When we perform our wajib prayers, He grants us 70 more times the pahala than the non-Ramadhan times. How gracious? I mean what have we done to deserve such favour? Nothing, I believe yet He has constantly given us His blessings. Masyallah. And for us to ignore them and throw it away like it shouldn't affect us? Instead, we indulge in all these worldly matters that create a facade of happiness to fulfill our lonely souls. Our souls are lonely. that is why we are constantly on the pursuit of something... something that we try so hard to find, to achieve happiness. to fulfill that hollow, empty feeling. why must we look so far. feed our lonely soul with our love for Allah and Insyallah that is sufficient as He is the disposer of all of our affairs.
Not to mention again.. betapa iblis berada di dalam kekalahan bila umat Muhammad menunaikan sembahyang :) apatah lagi kalau berjemaah :)
RASULULLAH S.A.W: "Hai iblis! Apabila umatku mendirikan solat, bagaimanakah keadaan engkau?"
raja iblis : "Itulah sebesar-besar kesusahan kepada hamba. Gementarlah seluruh badan hamba dan lemahlah tulang sendi hamba, maka pada waktu itu, hamba menyuruh puluhan syaitan iblis menggoda setiap orang yang hendak bersolat menerusi anggotanya supaya malas bersolat dan hatinya supaya was-was dalam solatnya serta terlupa bilangan rakaatnya. Jika sekelian iblis berkenaan gagal menggoda seperti yang demikian, nescaya mereka akan hamba hukum seberat-beratnya.
Must feel pretty amazing to beat his(iblis) ass. right? the ball is in our court. so which team do we wanna score for? :)
And ofcourse there are many more countless blessings that are contained in prayers. ones that I have not even discovered yet. Insyallah Allah will guide me onto the right paths and shan't I falter especially on the day that i return to Him. Insyallah same goes to you.
notably, may it be known to you the death of umar ibn al-khattab, when he was stabbed six times with a dagger as he was praying, he did not scream and cry in pain, as we probably would. instead he recited Allah and asked people around him if his prayers was complete. :') Masyallah. there was no care for him in his last moments of life but his affairs with Allah. such faith and strength that man held is beyond my comprehension. one that we all just pray to possess even a tenth of. may Allah be pleased with him, umar, who has brought glory to islam. =') Masyallah. atu baru sahabat Nabi. apatah lagi Muhammad SAW sendiri. Masyallah.
So when we do pray five times a day, Insyallah, the next step is to jaga them. Apa gunanya sembahyang lima kali sehari kalau tidak diterima Allah? Mudahan ibadat ketani akan di pelihara dan di terima oleh Allah. Amin. And on that note, I quote a song, it aint my intention to preach but by sharing thoughts I might find some peace here.
It was something that I never used to question. I was taught that we as Muslims are required to pray five times a day and I accepted it. This is regardless of me not fulfilling this duty everyday sometime ago, that's not the question. yet. But so there was no question about it. I didn't really ponder why and what the purpose was, except for the explanation that were given to me on the surface, let them be by my teachers, my parents, my grandparents, my aunts/uncles, etc. In other words, I sort of just took this at its face value.
I might not fully grasp what it is all about yet. I speak this as today. However as I have been growing up with various life experiences, Allah has given me a little of an enlightenment as to what solat should mean to me. And I say that as the weakest hamba Allah. Going back to my interpretation of sembahyang before... it was not something that I made pivotal in my life regretfully. Sometimes, I'd pray. Other times, I just wouldn't. And probably a lot of times, I'd crumple Zuhur and Asar together or Maghrib and Isyak together (by praying late in Zuhur just so in time for Asar tarus so I don't have to do things twice, catch my drift). I thought, you know, there, inda payah dua kali keraja =s. Karang malas lagi. And then there's the ever so famous 'been there done that' story of how you seek Allah by never missing your prayers and adding Hajat prayers when your exam is near or when we are faced with some hardship. How foolish right!! That was the level of shallowness that I had regarding sembahyang. But might I add that, it is ofcourse not wrong to seek Allah when your exams are near or when we're faced with hardships. If not Allah, who else do we seek? Allah is our unwavering friend, so long as we keep seeking Him. He is not comparable to our parents, sebesar-besar mana our parents have helped us in our life, besar dan agung lagi pertolongan Allah arah ketani. Sebaik mana kawan ketani, baik lagi Allah akan kami. He is the companionship that we need all the time. But so yeah, not wrong to seek Him during all of those times. What's wrong with that is our niat. Praying not because of Allah is wrong. And leaving Allah when the rainbows start showing is wronger than wrong. Tapi ini lah manusia. Kita senang alpa dengan kesenangan dan kemewahan, hanya bila susah baru ternangis-nangis mencari pertolongan. I've been there too so I know how it is. And that is jahiliah.
Then one day. Someone asked me. Of all the things that Allah has blessed you with, how have you thanked Him? How have you shown thanks? I was caught off guard. I wasn't uncomfortable because of that person asking me, but it was the fact that I really didn't know how I thanked Him for giving me life. And we can all agree that it is the biggest gift you could ever receive and one that cannot be granted by anyone other than Allah. Do we say thank you, is that enough? We say thank you to Allah just as we say thank you to someone who lends us an umbrella on a rainy day? Oh how we dare do that? How dare we scale the latter's magnitude to the Honor and Nobility of the former? Whether we realize this or we don't. It doesn't suffice to say Alhamdulillah. Ofcourse it's a good thing that we say Alhamdulillah like right after we eat or we hear some good news, etc, etc. But is that where it ends?
So sembahyang to me, is showing our thanks to our Lord. To show and agree that He is the only one worthy of worship. That He is the only one that is capable of everything. To surrender to His decrees and ask for His forgiveness and love. Believe that everything, minute or mega, comes from Allah. It's not just about fulfilling my duty as a Muslim. It's saying thank you Allah for enabling me to wake up to another healthy day. It's saying thank you Allah for maintaining my five senses of sight, taste, touch, hear and smell. It's saying thank you Allah for granting me this family and blissful life. It's saying thank you Allah for giving me Islam. It's saying thank you Allah for giving me the opportunity to learn to distinguish between what is light and what is darkness. And this list goes on and on. And might I even say, praying five times a day is still not sufficient to show our gratitude to Allah the Almighty. Allah the Powerful. Allah the one with Most Honour and Most Noble. And as we always are told, as much as we try, we will never be able to live up to the highest of iman. But ofcourse this fact is not supposed to be discouraging! It's supposed to be motivational. This is not in the same context when someone tells you that you'll never be able to study until phd (implying that you're too dumb to be capable of such a task). When it is said that we'll never clear ourselves from complete sin and full good deeds, it means that we're flawed humans that should continually strive in search of keredhaanNya. So we will not get complacent and think "oh man I'm so beriman, I will defo go into the doors of heaven. I do this everyday and I don't do this, like all of other people, gerenti Allah loves me, no doubt." Doesn't that sound incredibly dense? And believe me, despite being created sebaik-sebaik makhluk by Allah, we are so full of weaknesses and flaws that the probability of us allowing to feel complacent is higher than we think. May it be complacency in terms of iman, may it be complacency in academic aspects or whatever.
Okay going back to my initial point. I read this phrase in some forum sometime ago. It was stated in this person's signature I think. It felt light to read. It said "if you want to talk to Allah, perform your prayers. If you want Allah to talk to you, read the Quran." Isn't that simplicity? Maybe you would think that that's quite obvious. But I have seriously never thought about it in that perspective. But once you do.. it's like wow. You want to talk to Allah in the best manner possible. And that is also what sembahyang is also about. And by sort of communicating with Allah, dengan sendirinya ketani akan mendekatkan diri denganNya. That itself is another purpose. Aside from expressing our syukur to Him, it's a means of us continually asking Him for forgiveness to match our continually performances of sins. and as He has repeatedly told us in the Quran that He will continue to forgive you for your continuous sins as long as you continually ask for His forgiveness. Allah Maha Pengampun, MasyaAllah.
As I also keep hearing and indeed sembahyang is like the tiang that you need when you begin building a house so it will be able to stand properly. Our prayers shall protect us from committing sins and ofcourse I don't mean when someone prays 5 times a day, never miss, he will not sin ever again. That's not our nature. I mean we'd like that to be, how we wish that's the case. But no. But it makes praying all the more necessary. If we are prone to committing sins whilst consistently performing prayers, how much more prone would we be to sins whilst not praying?
Also remember that our prayers will save us. The prayers that Allah SWT accept. The day in our grave when we get questioned by the angels. When they ask about our God, and our deeds that synchronized our faith in Allah and islam. our prayers will speak for us. believe in this day. whole heartedly. it will come. and the fact that Allah has given you another day today only means that He is giving you chances after chances to repent =') He hasn't given us another day to add more weight to our sins. He does the opposite. So which one do we want to do? Remember that Allah tidak menzalimi hamba-hambaNya. Malahan mereka sendiri yang menzalimi diri mereka. ='(
Allah ani lagi Maha Pemurah. Inda abis-abis di barinya tani chance. He has blessed us with Ramadhans after Ramadhans. When we perform our wajib prayers, He grants us 70 more times the pahala than the non-Ramadhan times. How gracious? I mean what have we done to deserve such favour? Nothing, I believe yet He has constantly given us His blessings. Masyallah. And for us to ignore them and throw it away like it shouldn't affect us? Instead, we indulge in all these worldly matters that create a facade of happiness to fulfill our lonely souls. Our souls are lonely. that is why we are constantly on the pursuit of something... something that we try so hard to find, to achieve happiness. to fulfill that hollow, empty feeling. why must we look so far. feed our lonely soul with our love for Allah and Insyallah that is sufficient as He is the disposer of all of our affairs.
Not to mention again.. betapa iblis berada di dalam kekalahan bila umat Muhammad menunaikan sembahyang :) apatah lagi kalau berjemaah :)
RASULULLAH S.A.W: "Hai iblis! Apabila umatku mendirikan solat, bagaimanakah keadaan engkau?"
raja iblis : "Itulah sebesar-besar kesusahan kepada hamba. Gementarlah seluruh badan hamba dan lemahlah tulang sendi hamba, maka pada waktu itu, hamba menyuruh puluhan syaitan iblis menggoda setiap orang yang hendak bersolat menerusi anggotanya supaya malas bersolat dan hatinya supaya was-was dalam solatnya serta terlupa bilangan rakaatnya. Jika sekelian iblis berkenaan gagal menggoda seperti yang demikian, nescaya mereka akan hamba hukum seberat-beratnya.
Must feel pretty amazing to beat his(iblis) ass. right? the ball is in our court. so which team do we wanna score for? :)
And ofcourse there are many more countless blessings that are contained in prayers. ones that I have not even discovered yet. Insyallah Allah will guide me onto the right paths and shan't I falter especially on the day that i return to Him. Insyallah same goes to you.
notably, may it be known to you the death of umar ibn al-khattab, when he was stabbed six times with a dagger as he was praying, he did not scream and cry in pain, as we probably would. instead he recited Allah and asked people around him if his prayers was complete. :') Masyallah. there was no care for him in his last moments of life but his affairs with Allah. such faith and strength that man held is beyond my comprehension. one that we all just pray to possess even a tenth of. may Allah be pleased with him, umar, who has brought glory to islam. =') Masyallah. atu baru sahabat Nabi. apatah lagi Muhammad SAW sendiri. Masyallah.
So when we do pray five times a day, Insyallah, the next step is to jaga them. Apa gunanya sembahyang lima kali sehari kalau tidak diterima Allah? Mudahan ibadat ketani akan di pelihara dan di terima oleh Allah. Amin. And on that note, I quote a song, it aint my intention to preach but by sharing thoughts I might find some peace here.
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