Corrected Khutba - Salah Life s Forgotten Purpose
By Yasmin Mogahed | 2026-01-10T10:59:37.284507+00:00 | Topic: Purpose
Khutba: Salah - Life's Forgotten Purpose
by Yasmin Mogahed
Opening Greetings
Arabic Opening: (السَّلَامُ عَلَيْكُمْ وَرَحْمَةُ اللهِ وَبَرَكَاتُهُ - As-salamu alaykum (Peace be upon you)).
Translation: As-salamu alaykum (Peace be upon you).
Introduction: Our Connection with Allah
The topic today is one of the most important topics because it's the topic of Salah. And Salah is our connection with Allah.
It's our daily conversation with Allah. Allah tells us that when a person is praying and when they recite Surat al-Fatihah, we think that when we recite Surat al-Fatihah, we are just saying these ayaat. We say:
"In the name of Allah, the Entirely Merciful, the Especially Merciful. All praise is due to Allah, Lord of the worlds."
And we say these things and we think that we're just saying it and it's a one-way conversation. We're speaking to Allah. But this actually isn't true.
Arabic Hadith Reference: When we say (اهْدِنَا الصِّرَاطَ الْمُسْتَقِيمَ - Guide us to the straight path) or when we are praising Allah, Allah responds and says "My servant has praised me." (Muslim 395)
We're told that when we are saying Surat al-Fatihah, after we say each part, Allah is actually responding to us. So when we say, when the servant is saying, for example, asking Allah (اهْدِنَا الصِّرَاطَ الْمُسْتَقِيمَ - Guide us to the straight path). Or when we are praising Allah, Allah responds and says my servant has praised me.
Or when we ask Allah for guidance, Allah is responding with each ayah that we're saying. So when we are praying, we should realize that it is not a one-way conversation. We are speaking to Allah and we are standing in front of Allah.
Allah is actually responding to us.
The Special Way Salah Was Given
Now, one of the, you know, when we think, when we want to understand the importance of salah, one of the things we can think about to realize the importance of salah is to look at how salah, how the
commandment of salah actually came down to the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم. That the commandment for salah came during (الإِسْرَاءِ وَالْمِعْرَاجِ - al-Isra wal-Mi'raj).
And al-Isra wal-Mi'raj was the journey of the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم. Now a little bit of background about al-Isra wal-Mi'raj, that's very important. Al-Isra wal-Mi'raj, we learn about this, it's the journey of the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم from Mecca first to Jerusalem to (الْقُدْسِ - al-Quds), and then to the heavens to meet Allah.
The Context: The Year of Sadness
The reason, now one thing is we, often times we learn about this story as sort of an isolated incident. And we don't understand always the context of this incident, which is extremely important. And the context of al-Isra wal-Mi'raj is that when it happened, it happened during one of the hardest times in the Prophet's صلى الله عليه وسلم life.
So you know that there was (عَام الْحُزْن - the year of sadness). And in the year of sadness, the Prophet Muhammad صلى الله عليه وسلم he lost both his wife Khadijah and his uncle. And his uncle Abu Talib was the one who had supported him, Khadijah was the one who had supported him.
So basically in one year, he lost two of his greatest supports. At the same time, he had the incident in Ta'if, where he went to Ta'if and they threw him out. And in a very humiliating and insulting way.
So it was a very painful time for the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم. So it was at that time that Allah did this for the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم. First he went from Mecca to Al-Quds.
The Gift of Righteous Company
And what happened in Al-Quds is something really special. He, you know, one of the things that we're told about in Jannah, and this is one of the gifts of Jannah, is actually the righteous company. Because you know, when Allah, when He describes Jannah, He talks about being with other righteous people and having that righteous company, being with your family.
That's a big part of Jannah. Because we as human beings, we like to be in other people's company that we love. This is just a natural part of us.
Allah gives us this in Jannah. What the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم got in Al-Quds is the best company. He was able to pray with all of the Prophets.
So he, you know, part of his comfort was the fact that he got to be in that company. And imagine, I mean, just think about that. Imagine what that would have been like, that all of the Prophets, peace be upon them all, all in one place, praying together.
And the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم leading the salah. It's something that when you really sit and think about it, you imagine what could that have been like. And them walking around the masjid together.
And one thing I wonder is, I wonder what was recited. What did the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم choose to recite? I don't know if you know that. But it's just, it's something that the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم had.
He had, and this was part of, you know, during this hardest time in his life, he was given this. This gift. And then after that, he was taken, and this is al-Mi'raj, he was taken up to the heavens to Allah.
The Commandment of Salah: From 50 to 5
And it was in this time, in this most special time, that the commandment of salah was given. At this point, it was, salah was not mandatory. But at this time, during al-Mi'raj, when he spoke with Allah, Allah told him at first that it was mandatory 50 times a day.
50 times a day. And when he came down and spoke with Musa عليه السلام, Musa عليه السلام had experience with Bani Israel, who like to argue a lot, and you know, they were kind of difficult to deal with. So he knew that it would be too difficult for us to pray 50 times a day.
So he asked him, you know, ask Allah to reduce it, because they're not going to do that. So he kept going back and forth, and eventually it was brought down to 5. Reflecting on this, why, you know, scholars reflect on this. Why did it, you know, what could have been the wisdom? Of course Allah knew that he would make it 5. Why begin with 50? And there are different reflections on this issue.
But one of the reflections I had read that really hit me, is the idea of if you imagine, imagine if you really prayed 50 times a day. Would you do anything else? I mean, basically your entire life would be salah, right? And yet that's the first commandment Allah gave in that way. It's almost to say that this is really all you should be doing.
Our Purpose of Creation
This is really all you have been created for. And isn't it true that Allah said:
"And I did not create the jinn and mankind except to worship Me."
We have not created jinn and human beings except for one purpose, and that is to worship Allah, to fulfill ubudiyyah) Allah
That is actually why we were created.
So praying 50 times a day would be fulfilling our actual purpose of creation. And salah, of course this doesn't mean that the only form of worship is through salah. In fact we can make our entire life an act of worship, and we can talk about that inshallah, because Allah turned it from 50 to 5. So in between those 5
we can also be doing ibadah), but it depends on what is our focus, what is our intention, and how is it that we're living our life.
The Unique Nature of Salah's Revelation
But the question here is, every other commandment that was given to the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم it came down to the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم through Jibreel عليه السلام. Except for one, and that's salah. For salah it's something so important, Allah brought the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم up to him, and gave him that commandment at that time, at that very special time.
And we should see from this the importance of salah, the importance that salah should have in our lives.
Correcting Our Perspective on Salah
So when you think about this 50 times, and how we think of salah in the wrong way in our lives. The way we think about salah is it's something that we do when we have time.
We have our life, we have our meetings, our parties, the things that we do in life, and then when we have time, if we have time, we fit in salah. And the focus needs to be completely the opposite. Our life needs to revolve around salah, not the other way around.
But the way we live our life, if we even pray, is that salah revolves around our life. So we have our life in place, those are the pillars, we have a class at this time, we have an appointment at this time, we have all of these dunya things, and then if I have time, I'll pray. This isn't the way we need to.
Salah is actually the purpose of our creation. That needs to be what is the pillars of our existence, of our day, of what we're doing. The rest is just filling in the blanks.
The rest is just motions. And we ask Allah that even the rest is an extension of the salah, it's an extension of our ibadah, but the salah needs to be that thing you don't compromise.
The Gravity of Abandoning Salah
One other reflection that I think we need to realize, in terms of the importance of salah, is that there are many types of sins that we consider really big deals, like stealing, drinking alcohol, these kinds of things, fornication, these are big sins.
And yet there are no scholars who say that if you steal, you are no longer a Muslim. And there's no scholar who says that if you drink alcohol, you're no longer a Muslim. It's true that these are sins, but nobody says that you're no longer a Muslim.
There's no scholar who says if you commit fornication, you're no longer a Muslim. And yet there are scholars who say if you don't pray, you're no longer a Muslim. So when we look at the heaviness of salah,
we need to see it in this context.
(Ahmad 22937, Tirmidhi 2621)
And the reason why these scholars say that, among others, is it's based on a hadith of the Prophet. One of them is where the Prophet says "The covenant between us and them is the prayer. So if anyone abandons it, he has become a disbeliever."
And this hadith, it's very clear. The Prophet is explaining, this is what makes us different than the disbelievers, is in the act of salah.
The Sin of Delaying Salah
Similarly, when we think about, you know, sometimes we might go through our day, we're out, we're at the mall, or we're at a gathering or something, and we feel like we're too busy, and so we pray when we get home. We might combine the prayers when we get home. What we've just done is we have put aside our purpose of creation for the sake of a party or a sale, whatever it is.
This is a serious problem. It means that our priority is completely upside down. And it also, it is a major sin to pray even outside of its time.
The salah has a certain time, Allah tells us in the Quran, "Indeed, prayer has been decreed upon the believers a decree of specified times."
The Medicine Analogy
And there's a reason for that. You know if the doctor comes and gives you a prescription for medicine, and he tells you, take it at 12 o'clock, and then again 12 hours later, right? Or three times a day.
But you need to take it at a certain time. Suppose you come and say, actually I'm just going to take it whenever I feel like it. What's going to happen? First of all, the medicine is not going to work properly.
You have to take that medicine at a certain time because the doctor knows that that's the only way it's going to work. And if you don't do that, you actually, not only is it not going to work, but oftentimes you can hurt yourself. Imagine what would happen if you took two doses right next to each other.
Now you've overdosed, right? Or if you miss a dose altogether, now it's not going to work. And if it's an antibiotic, you can even be susceptible for antibiotic resistance. So now you've actually hurt yourself.
Next time you're going to have to take a stronger antibiotic. You've just bred antibiotic-resistant bacteria in your body. So this is because you're not following the prescription as it was given to you.
When Allah Says
When Allah says that the salah needs to be a certain time, there's a certain reason for that. And when we don't follow the prescription of Allah, we're the ones who suffer because we never hurt Allah by not following His commandments. His commandments are for our own sake.
And when we worship Allah, we are only helping ourselves. We are not helping Allah, and when we don't worship Allah, we are not hurting Allah. We're only hurting ourselves.
We have to keep that in mind.
The Benefits of the Five Daily Prayers
Now one of the things when you think about salah being five times a day, spread out, what are some of the things that happen if you follow that prescription correctly? One, no matter what you're doing in your life, no matter what you're doing in your day, you could be at work, you could be at school, you could be involved in an argument, you could be shopping, whatever it is you're doing, five times a day you have to pull away from what you're doing and refocus. And without that, it becomes very easy to just get completely consumed with dunya.
Because this is what happens, right? We're so involved, and if you go a long time without praying, it's easy to forget about Allah. Because you have not taken yourself away and refocused. Allah gives us a way five times to refocus, refocus.
What does that tell you? One, human beings are very forgetful. And even the word (إِنْسَان - insan) comes from the same root which means (نِسْيَان - nisyan), the one who forgets. Human beings, as our nature, we forget.
Why then do we have reminders? Because we're so forgetful. One of the names of the Quran itself is (الذِّكْر - adh-dhikr), it's the reminder. So we need constant reminders of what we're doing here, where we're going, what's our purpose.
So five times a day we're reminding ourselves. And we're refocusing on what it is that we're actually doing.
Salah and the Day of Judgment
(Tabarani in al-Kabir 7939)
Translation: Salah is also the first thing that we are asked about on the Day of Judgment. The Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم said "The first thing which will be judged among a man's deeds on the Day of Judgment is the prayer. If this is in good order, then he will succeed and prosper. And if it is defective, then he will fail and will be a loser."
The salah, the first thing. And on the Day of Judgment, the people of Jannah are going to ask the people who have entered Jahannam a question. They're going to ask them, this is something Allah tells us in the Quran.
Translation: They're going to ask them, "What put you into Saqar (Hellfire)?" And Allah tells us in the Quran what they're going to say. The first reason that they give is "We were not of those who prayed." That's the first reason that they give.
How many of us are going to be among those who say we were not among those who prayed? Or, we were not among those who prayed on time, or we were not among those who gave salah any importance in our life.
The Body vs. The Soul
Why is it that when we're in class, or at work, or asleep, or asleep at the time of Fajr, and say if we are in class, or we are asleep, or we're in a meeting, say we need to use the bathroom.
We need to use the restroom. Say you're asleep, does that not happen? You're sleeping, it's Fajr time, and you need to use the bathroom. No matter who you are, whether you believe in God or you don't believe in God, whether you're a practicing Muslim or not a practicing Muslim, you're going to get up and use the bathroom.
And then you're going to go back to sleep. So we will wake up to use the bathroom, but we won't wake up to pray. What we do as human beings is we put the needs of our body over the needs of our heart and our soul.
Even though the body is something which is passing away. Our body is not something that we're going to keep, right? And nobody can argue with this fact, that the body is going to eventually pass away. And what's going to be left? The soul.
And it's the soul that we're neglecting. We feed our body food, right? Who starves themselves? We eat food. We feed our body food, if we don't, we die.
And we're scared of dying, we're scared of our body dying. But we're not scared of our soul dying. This is something we allow to happen.
Even though the soul is the thing that lasts, and the body is the thing that goes away. Subhanallah, right? The soul is what goes back to eternity, forever, right? Forever in Jahannam, forever in Jannah. And yet the soul is the thing that we neglect.
The Bathroom Example
Subhanallah. When you think about the example, you know, it's funny, right? Because you think about the example of using... The reason why I think it's a good example is because no matter what situation you're in, you could be in the most important meeting of your career. But if you need to use the bathroom, guess what? You're going to take your leave, right? Even if you're taking the most important exam of your school, you need to use the bathroom, you're going to go use the bathroom.
Why do you do that? Let me ask you this question. It is not physically necessary for you to do that. Because, I mean, technically you could just wet your pants.
I mean, physically it's possible. But you make a decision because you say to yourself, the consequences of not getting up and using the bathroom far outweigh whatever consequences there are in telling my professor, in telling, you know, the people in the meeting, in waking up, the consequences are far outweigh whatever consequences come from leaving that particular setting. So you're making a conscious decision.
Do you guys understand what I mean? It's not physically necessary, and yet you do that. You do that because it would be too mortifying and too humiliating to not do that. And yet with salah, we consider that the consequences of missing salah is less important than the consequences of leaving that meeting or leaving the mall or whatever it is, wherever it is that we are.
The Protective Function of Salah
Translation: With regards to the purpose and the benefit of salah, we talked about, first of all, about the conversation with Allah, that it connects us to Allah. The salah also has other purposes. Allah tells us in the Qur'an that "Indeed, prayer prohibits immorality and wrongdoing."
It prevents or protects from, it keeps you away, basically, from (فَحْشَاء - fahsha') and (مُنكَر - munkar), shamelessness and evil deeds.
When you have the salah, it's like you're wearing an armor, a protective coat. When you take away the salah, now it becomes much, much easier to fall into sin. And فَحْشَاء becomes easier.
Shamelessness becomes easier. مُنكّر becomes easier. Because the salah was your protection and you took it off.
How Shaytan Works: The Steps to Spiritual Downfall
When you take it off, and taking it off means either not praying or not praying on time, abandoning it, not giving it its proper importance, now it's much easier to fall into sin. And you'll find that situations with people, you know how this path to Allah, it involves struggle, right? And you know sometimes people,
they might be on the right path, and then at one point in their life they fell off the path, right? Somebody was really religious and then something happened and they ended up somewhere completely different, right? It happens. It's something that happens.
The question is how does stuff like that happen? What are the steps that lead to something like that? Because it doesn't happen usually overnight. It happens in steps, and that's actually the way shaytan works. Shaytan works in steps with us.
He doesn't come to you and tell you as a believer, disbelieve in Allah, and you say okay. Because he knows you're not going to say okay. But he's smarter than that.
So he works in steps. And where does shaytan want to start? One of the ways, if you want to get someone, you want to be able to shoot someone, but they're wearing a bulletproof vest. How are you going to get to that person? You have to make them take off their vest first, right? So shaytan, the first thing he needs to do is make us take off our vest.
Make us remove the salah, then now it's much easier. Now it's like open, open fire, right? So shaytan will maybe if you're very strict on your salah, he won't come and say just miss salah altogether. But maybe he'll say delay it.
The First Step: Procrastination
And that's the first step is delay it. And when I say delay it, I mean even within the time. So salah has an interval, right? It starts at say 1 and it goes till 3.30, 4. Okay, so there's an interval.
You can either pray right at the beginning of the time, or you can pray in the middle of the time, you can pray at the end of the time. Well, the first thing that he wants you to do is push it as much as possible. Procrastinate it as much as possible.
You don't need to pray now, you have plenty of time, right? We all get that (وَسْوَسَة - waswasa), right? That whisper, do this thing first and then pray. Procrastinating the salah is the first step. And what happens with this also is realize that the benefit and the reward and how much you actually benefit from the salah and how much (خُشُوع - khushu') you have in the salah, how much concentration and focus and humility you have in the salah is not the same at the beginning of the time, at the middle of the time and at the end of the time.
They're not the same. That you benefit more and you get more out of it when you pray earlier in the time. So the first thing he'll try to do, push it to the end.
Push it to the middle first, do this thing first, but you're still going to pray, but you're going to do this thing first. Now all of a sudden, you know, you're not as focused, right? Then once you're there, oh, just
push it a little bit more, do this other thing. Or if you're going somewhere, just pray when you get there or instead of praying before you leave or whatever it is.
Until eventually you're praying right before, like you're still praying within the time, but it's like in the last few minutes. Now salah is just something you're trying to get rid of. I mean, just trying to finish.
It becomes a task. It becomes a burden that you just need to do. Because you've pushed it till the end.
You guys know what I'm saying. When you pray at the very end, it's just something that's like a heavy burden that you just have to finish, right? And there's no really خشوع is out the window usually. You're just like quickly finishing it and it's not something you're enjoying.
It's not something you're wanting to do, but something you just have to finish. And actually one of the characteristics that we're taught of the hypocrites is this. One is that they're lazy to get up for salah.
And one is that they leave the salah till the very end. These are signs of hypocrites. So we want to avoid this.
And this is how, this is again, the first step. Know for sure that when you do that, you will eventually even pray it outside of the time. Because that's what happens.
You push it all the way till the end until something comes up. Sometimes emergency comes up, right? Oh no, no, I have to take care of this thing right now. Then the time is gone.
And that's how shaytan works. Yeah? So what you need to do is rush to the worship of Allah. And those people who rush to the worship of Allah are not the same as those who lag behind.
Racing to Good Deeds
Translation: You know, Allah says in surah al-Waqi'ah, "And the foremost, the foremost, those are the ones brought near [to Allah]" - that the السابقون - assabiqoon) are like, it's like a race. The people racing to be in the front, those are the ones who are going to be closest to Allah. They're not the same as those who lag behind.
So when you're trying, and you know what's interesting? Is when it comes to dunya, we're all racing. Nobody's like, you know, I'm okay with just making the minimum amount of money. We're all trying to maximize the amount of money we're making.
We're all trying to maximize how beautiful we are. We're all trying to maximize how many friends we have, and how big our house is, and how nice our car is, and our status. These are all things where we're not just like, you know, we're running, we're racing.
These are the things we compete in. When it comes to (عِبَادَة - ‘ibadah) though, you know, it's like, it's alright. I'll just be at the bottom of Jannah, it's okay.
You know, like we're not looking to race. You know, and with salah and with (عِبَادَة - ‘ibadah), we're not looking to race. We're looking, you know, so what we want to do is have that attitude.
And realizing that that attitude is what brings you closest to Allah. And they're not the same. Even if they are within the acceptable boundary of salah in this case, it's not the same.
The River Analogy
(Bukhari 528, Muslim 667)
Translation: And one of the other, you know, purposes and benefits of salah that were taught by the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم is that he was sitting with his companions, and he said to them, "Can you imagine a person who has a river outside of his house, and he bathes in that river five times a day. Would that person have any dirt left on them?" And he said that the salah is like that. It's our bathing, it's like our bath five times a day to remove the dirt of our sins.
Because every one of us are sinning. We sin because we're not angels, we're human. We need that bath.
Can you imagine a person who goes days, weeks, months without taking a bath? Yeah? Like that wouldn't happen. Because we don't want to smell bad. You know? We don't want to be dirty.
We don't want physical dirt on us. But when you're not praying, you are covered in dirt. Yeah? Because you're not taking that bath that the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم says that we have in the salah of removing the sins.
The Reflection on Shaytan's Refusal
One other thing I want to reflect on, because I think this is really interesting, is when you think about shaytan, what was it that shaytan did wrong? He didn't bow down. So shaytan was commanded to make a (سَجْدَة - sajdah). Right? To make, to prostrate.
And he refused. Shaytan refused one (سَجْدَة - sajdah). How many (سَجَدَات - sajdas) do we refuse to make? Yeah, how many (سَجَدَات - sajdas) are we refusing to make when we're not praying? It's something to think about.
Achieving Khushu' in Salah
Now when it comes to, you know, some of us might be praying, and alhamdulillah we're praying on time, but it becomes, it has become mechanical. You know, we're praying but it's just our body praying, or we're praying so fast that we don't feel anything. We don't even know what we just did.
(Bukhari 793)
Translation: And even in the way that we pray, it's wrong. Because one time the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم he saw a companion praying, and he told him after he was done praying, "Go back and pray for you haven't prayed." So he goes back and prays again, and he tells him again, "Go back and pray for you haven't prayed."
And this happened a couple times. And the reason why this happened is that the man was like, you know when somebody is praying so fast, that it's just like they're pecking the ground? It's not the proper salah when you're just like zipping through it.
You know, you just want to get it done.
And your (سَجْدَة - sajdah) isn't even a (سَجْدَة - sajdah) it's just like, you know, you're just like a chicken pecking at the ground. This isn't proper salah. Because the salah, each motion in the salah is supposed to be, you know, a time of stillness.
You hold, and you're still, and you, because it's part of (خُشُوع - khushu'). So then the question is, we have our salah in place, but then we struggle with the (خُشُوع - khushu'). We struggle with, my body is the only thing praying.
My mind isn't there, my heart isn't there, my soul isn't there, it's just my body. How do we change that? How do we work on that aspect?
The Key to Focus in Salah
One of the most important things is this. Whatever occupies my mind, my all day, whatever is most important to me, what's the first thing, whatever the first thing is I think about when I wake up, and the last thing I think about before I sleep, and what I think about all day, and what I stay up at night worrying about, is the same thing I'm thinking about in salah.
So if that thing which occupies my mind most, and which I care about most, is Allah, the rest of the day, that's what I'm going to think about in my salah too. So sometimes the problem, why we can't focus in salah, is because we're not focused outside of salah. We can't focus on Allah in salah, because we can't focus on Allah outside of salah.
We don't focus on Allah outside of salah. We focus on our children, our spouses, our cooking, our cleaning, our jobs, our school, our money, our business, our cars, our homes, this is what we focus on. It's the same thing we're going to focus on in salah.
We need to change our focus outside of salah, so that we can change our focus inside of salah.