Pray, Even If You Don’t Feel Like It | Nouman Ali Khan

The True Meaning of Prayer

So for us, prayer is not just, yes, prayer is an act of worship. Prayer is our connection to Allah. The word Salah literally means reform, right? To put the stick in the fire.

Remember Salah, Salah yaslu, right? So it's reforming us. It's correcting us. But it's actually burning off our distractions in life, and it's connecting us to the bigger picture.

So we don't get lost in the small things. We always think big. We don't forget that we're part of something big.

You know, if you don't have high goals, you don't have a high objective, and you don't remind yourself of your higher objective, then you can get lost doing small, small, small things, and thinking about small, small, small things, and years will go by and you won't make any progress because you never set a higher goal for yourself.

The People of Hellfire and Their Confession

As-salamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuhu. The people in Jannah asked the people in Jahannam a question, what got you here? What got you stuck in Saqar? Notice, Saqar is being brought up from before, سَأُصْلِيهِ سَقَرَ, right? Allah is now going to broaden the scope. One thing I highlighted to you, the 1%, the elite, were criticized in the beginning, and Allah particularly mentioned ذَرْنِي وَمَنْ خَلَقْتُ وَحِيدًا وَجَعَلْتُ لَهُ مَالًا مَمْدُودًا.

But by the end, Allah is going to talk about the larger population. So before I start this, I want you to understand the preface from which we will understand this passage. The people that are in power, the people that have an extraordinary amount of wealth, the people that try to control the world in some way, you can imagine CEOs of major oil corporations or tech companies or weapons manufacturers or presidents and things like that.

You think they're just sitting around just chilling? No, I'm pretty sure they're not sitting and playing Roblox or, you know, they're not doing that. They're busy. They wake up and they're strategizing, concerned, manipulating, holding one meeting, another meeting, another meeting, everybody's following up with them.

And even as they go to sleep, their minds are running busy, right? Because domination and taking over the world and building an empire, all of those things require an obsession. Those people are actually truly obsessed. And Allah gave us kind of a hint towards their kind of obsession, where Allah says, إِنَّهُ فَكَّرَ وَقَدَّرَ فَقُتِلَ كَيْفَ قَدَّرَ ثُمَّ قُتِلَ كَيْفَ قَدَّرَ These are calculating, strategizing kinds of people.

But one thing about them, and we know about Waleed, he used to be very poor and then he became very rich, right? You don't get that way if you're not, if you don't have the hustle. And you have the hustle mindset, you know, and he's constantly pushing and pushing and pushing. But these people, when they get to a certain place, they know that if everybody starts hustling, it's not going to be good for them.

So they want to make sure they create a culture of people that are just relaxed. Because they don't want the rest of the population to move up, they want them to stay in a certain place, right? So for them, they create a culture that will keep them busy with useless things. Sports, entertainment, gossip, storytelling, poetry, these things.

They'll do those things a little bit, but really they're driven 97% of the time with their mission. But they want people to be basically lost in these things generally. We're going to find as we explore this passage that now Allah is not just talking about the top 1%.

Allah is now talking about the masses of people. The larger population also, so many of them, who end up in hellfire. And why they end up in hellfire.

So we're not just talking about the worst of the worst people who end up in hellfire, but why even some general populations can also end up in hellfire. May Allah protect all of us from it.

First Confession: We Weren't From Those Who Pray

They first say, we weren't from those people who pray. We weren't from those people who pray. This is a deep statement. We weren't from those people who pray.

In other words, prayer is directly tied to religion. We weren't religious. We didn't care about religion. It didn't even occur to us to think about religion. That was not our thing. You know, it didn't really matter to us.

Life is good, why do I need religion? Why do I need to pray? What am I going to get out of it? You know, when you live a transactional life, prayer is not going to give you anything. You can't make a channel about, if you pray, you're not going to have back problems, you're going to have better blood circulation, because from ruku to sujood to sajdah, it's going to increase blood flow into your brain, and you're going to have better memory, etc. And you're like, wow, this is why I should pray.

You can have those benefits with a prayer, that's cool. But then you're saying, do prayer because it's a good alternative to yoga. Right? You're not praying because of the right reasons.

Their concept was, I just never saw the point. We just, we didn't do that stuff. We weren't religious. That's the first reason, they say. But in Quran, in Islam, the prayer is something even deeper. It's not just, oh, some worship some religion in some religion.

The Deep Meaning of Takbir

Let's think about the prayer. How does it begin? It begins with takbir. Right? Allahu Akbar.

And this surah, interestingly, already said that the fundamental message of da'wah is, وَرَبَّكَ فَكَبِّرْ. We started there. Now, when we say Allahu Akbar, we say this multiple times in a day, at specific times, no matter what activity you're doing, it disrupts your activity, and you turn back towards Allah, and you face the same direction, and you reorient yourself, and you leave the entire world, the argument you were having, the project you were working on, the meetings you were going to have, family time, whatever you were doing, all of that stopped, and you just stood in front of Allah, and it was five minutes, two minutes, ten minutes, but the world didn't exist anymore. It's just you and Allah, and you're just facing Allah directly.

Allah truly became Akbar for those moments, because nothing is greater than Allah when you're standing there. In fact, Allah is so Akbar that your mouth is not saying anything Allah doesn't want you to say. You're only going to say what Allah wants you to say.

Your body will move exactly where Allah wants you to move. Your eyes will only go where Allah wants them to go. You are demonstrating Allahu Akbar when you pray.

You're not just saying it, you're showing it. And what is that supposed to do? It's supposed to reorient you, to help you appreciate that we do things every day. We have family stuff to do, work stuff to do, study stuff to do, health stuff to do, all kinds of activities during the day.

Prayer as Connection to the Bigger Purpose

So I'll give you an analogy. I run Bayyinah, I've been running it for a long time, and we have a team of employees, and some employees are working in accounting, some are working in tech, some are working in marketing, some are working in video production, some are working in research. People working in different spaces in the organization, right? And they do the work every day, and they're working, and they're working, and they're working, and you know what happens over time? You get so lost in the work, you start asking yourself, why am I even doing this? The accountant can look at Excel and Access files, Excel files all day and be like, this is so stressful.

But then, we have a company-wide get-together. So all the employees get together, and then we discuss what our vision is, what we're trying to do next year, what impact we're trying to have, how this is part of a larger goal and objective. So even the person working on the Excel file, and even the person that's working on hours and hours of video editing, or whatever else, and they're sitting there going, this is so boring, oh my God.

All of a sudden, they're re-energized. Why are they re-energized? Because they see that their small effort, or their corner of the work, is part of a much larger unified whole, and that whole is trying to do something great, right? And they're a part of that. So when you feel connected like that, and you feel energized like that, your intentions get renewed, your motivation gets renewed, your energy gets renewed, right?

We're busy every day doing life, life, life, and Allah stops us, and you stand in front of Allah, and you start talking about, اهْدِنَا الصِّرَاطَ المُسْتَقِيمَ صِرَاطَ الَّذِينَ أَنْعَمْتَ عَلَيْهِمْ غَيْرِ المَغْضُوبِ عَلَيْهِمْ وَلَا الضَّالِّينَ and what's going to be the day on which Allah will be angry with some people, and why do we need the straight path, because مَالِكِ يَوْمِ الدِّينِ. So even though I'm going through today's tasks and tomorrow's tasks, and these micro activities, all of a sudden I step back and I think about Judgment Day itself, and so Allah is actually making us think about the long term every few hours.

What does that do? If we truly contemplate the prayer, then we become aware, re-aware of Judgment Day, which is what we're heading towards, every few hours. Renewed, a renewed sense of purpose, a renewed sense of awareness that I'm on a journey, and I'm taking steps even today towards that journey.

Prayer as a Rehearsal for Judgment Day

What's even more remarkable to me is Judgment Day and the prayer. On Judgment Day we will be standing, in prayer we're standing. On Judgment Day nobody speaks unless Allah gives permission, in prayer we don't speak unless we say what Allah permits us to say. On Judgment Day Allah describes that the angels are going to be showing us the deeds that we did.

كِرَامًا كَاتِبِينَ They're writing, and by the time you end your prayer you acknowledge the presence of the angels that are documenting you. Think of it another way, when you remember when you used to take exams and the teacher used to walk up and down the aisle, and there's a teacher standing right behind you while you're taking the test? All of a sudden there's a high, you're not just taking the test, you're so aware of the breath of your teacher. Right? And even though if he wasn't there you would look up, you would look around, you would stretch your neck, and none of that stuff.

Hyper aware. Why? Because you're under watch. You're being watched.

When we say assalamu alaykum wa rahmatullah assalamu alaykum wa rahmatullah you're not saying salam to the guy next to you that smells like curry. You're saying salam to the angels. You're acknowledging their presence.

You're reminding yourself that you're being watched and you're being recorded and everything you do is being documented. With every single end of every prayer. Isn't that what we're doing? And we don't see them. We don't see these angels. But you know what? مَالِكِ يَوْمِ الدِّينِ, judgment day comes, what are we going to see? These angels roll out their record. لَا يُغَادِرُ صَغِيرَةً وَلَا كَبِيرَةً إِلَّا أَحْصَاهَا It doesn't leave any record out.

When you don't have that in your life, so for us, prayer is not just, yes, prayer is an act of worship. Prayer is our connection to Allah. The word Salah literally means reform, right? To put the stick in the fire. Remember Salah? Salah yaslu, right? So it's reforming us, it's correcting us. But it's actually burning off our distractions in life.

And it's connecting us to the bigger picture. So we don't get lost in the small things. We always think big. We don't forget that we're part of something big.

You know, if you don't have high goals, you don't have a high objective, and you don't remind yourself of your higher objective, then you can get lost doing small, small, small things, and thinking about small, small, small things, and years will go by and you won't make any progress because you never set a higher goal for yourself, right?

Preparing to Meet Allah

The Quran, its first high objective is I'm going to meet Allah. Just like if you were going to meet with an employer, you were going to meet with a university applicant, an application processor, you were going to meet with that. The day of that meeting is getting closer, your preparation is getting stronger and stronger, your reminder, the day before you're going to just like make sure you sleep early, you dress properly, clothes are ready, documents are ready, everything's ready, right?

So the idea that we're meeting Allah, the whole point of that is we have become more and more serious about our preparation for that meeting, because we didn't have the thing that gives us purpose. We didn't have the thing that orients us mentally, spiritually, emotionally, psychologically towards meeting Allah, and that is Salah.

And if Salah means that you declare the greatness of Allah, and I told you even physically, we allow, the prayer is us accepting Allah's overpowering authority over us, so it doesn't matter if your boss is calling you, your wife is calling you, your child's calling you, you're praying, you're not responding, doesn't matter if your phone's going off, doesn't matter anything, you're just praying, you're not moving.

Once you do that, isn't that the first indication that Allah truly is greater than everything else in your life? So if you don't have Salah, which is the first step of Takbeer, the first Takbeer is the Takbeer of Salah, that's why the prayer is Islam itself, actually. The prayer itself, it's not just an action.

Prayer is Faith

In the Quran, in Surah Al-Baqarah, Allah says, that Allah, you remember Muslims used to pray towards Jerusalem? And then Allah revealed that we should pray towards the Kaaba eventually? And then the Jews came to the Muslims and said, oh you were praying towards Jerusalem before and now you're praying towards Mecca. And Allah responded and He said, وَمَا كَانَ اللَّهُ لِيُضِيعَ إِيمَانَكُمْ Allah will not let your faith be wasted.

He didn't say Allah will not let your prayer be wasted. He said Allah will not let your faith be wasted, because that's Allah's way of teaching us the prayer itself is the ultimate evidence of faith. So when they say we didn't pray, they're saying we didn't really have faith.

The Solution to All Problems: Salah

Salah. When somebody comes to me and says, Ustad, I don't wear hijab. What should I do? Pray. Ustad, I have a problem. I'm still trying to quit alcohol. What should I do? Pray. Ustad, I have some bad habits I don't want to talk about. What should I do? Pray. I don't know where to begin. Pray. I feel disconnected from Allah. Pray.

How many? Five. Five. I don't even know if I can do all five. Don't let it go. Because the first thing people in hell will say is we weren't those who prayed. You want to be saved? You don't want to be there? And I don't even say you should pray so that you don't go to hell. That's not why I say you should pray.

I say you should pray so you have purpose in your life. So you have meaning in your life. So you're protected in this life. And then the other side of it. That brings us to the future. Our meeting with Allah.

Prayer Protects from Evil

But there's something else. Allah says إِنَّ الصَّلَاةَ تَنْهَىٰ عَنِ الْفَحْشَاءِ وَالْمُنكَرِ. The prayer ultimately is the thing that protects you from shamelessness. And the prayer is ultimately something that protects you from all other evil things.

In other words, in me, in you, in every human being, there is a desire to do bad things. And the thing that will give you the power to overcome that burn inside you, that fire inside you, is the prayer. The prayer is an every few hours fire extinguisher over al-fahshaa wal-munkar.

Your anger problem, your hormonal issue, your addiction to whatever or whatever else. All the things, the evils that are inside us, the munkar that's inside us, the fahshaa that's inside us will be suppressed because Allah says the prayer is the thing that prevents shamelessness and evil from taking root. It stops it.

And the remembrance of Allah is truly greater. And what is the prayer? It's the remembrance of Allah. It's the ultimate remembrance of Allah.

Prayer is the Ultimate Spiritual Practice

There is no greater spiritual practice. I don't get tired of saying this because we've developed this notion that we have to find a spiritual connection to Allah somewhere else. Prayer is just prayer. It's the thing that connects even the messenger of Allah to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. That's the salah. If you heard me say this a hundred times, now it's a hundred and one times.

Musa alayhis salaam meets Allah on the mountain. He's meeting Allah on the mountain. He's hearing Allah himself. How can you say Musa alayhis salaam will ever forget Allah? He'll never forget Allah because he actually what? Spoke to him. He said their psyche is someone who directly spoke to God. It's one of the most amazing moments in the history of humanity.

A human being is having a conversation directly with Allah. And Allah tells him, وَأَقِمِ الصَّلَاةَ لِذِكْرِي if you truly want to remember me, establish the prayer. Even he's being told the real way to remember me is salah.

So how are we diminishing the role, the spiritual role of this thing? So when they say we didn't pray, we didn't protect our character. We didn't protect our emotions. We let our emotions go in any way they want because we didn't guide them and control them and restrict them through the prayer.

We didn't have any spiritual connection with God and truly remember him because we didn't pray. We refused. In fact, even there are Hindus, Christians, Jews, used to be atheists that say I just need to figure out like I know people that accepted Islam and they pray to you but I'm just asking help me out here.

They don't even know. You know what? That was a prayer. That was also salah. And that salah will eventually guide that person to the revealed salah. There's a straight line between those two things.

The Four Confessions of the People of Hell

So these people say we weren't from those that pray. They say a few things. First they say they didn't pray. I'm summarizing. I'll go into detail in a second. They don't pray, they don't feed poor people and then the third one is we got distracted and got absorbed into everything that other people get absorbed into. We got absorbed in all kinds of things.

And then the fourth one is we used to deny judgment day. Four things. But notice these four things.

Right? Because they're immersed in all kinds of useless things and they deny judgment day. Look at how the Quran begins. Baqarah, which was revealed much later but it's in the opening of the book.

They have conviction in the afterlife. It's like the Quran has a message and it reinforces that message early on in Revelation, later on in Revelation. It's the same curriculum, same thing being reinforced in different ways.

It's not new and newer and newer lessons. It's the same lessons but different ways for us to internalize them. We come now to the next component.