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Better Than Praying All Night | Live Reminder
How one hour of contemplation in the day can be more virtuous than hours of praying at night.
Transcript
This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings. Welcome back to our Monday reminder and inshaAllah ta'ala this is going to be an exciting week as we start to release some promos about what our Ramadan content is going to look like this year. I know that many of you have been asking about it and Alhamdulillah we are blessed to have that excitement and honestly we are blessed to be in this place of Sha'ban and in the lead up to Ramadan. I pray that as you cross the 15 night mark of Sha'ban that you cleared your heart of your grudges or anything that is in there that does not accommodate Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and the Qur'an, the words of Allah that we plan to fill our heart with and the sunnah of the Prophet salallahu alaihi wasalam and his practices. I pray that you have emptied all of that out now inshaAllah and that you are getting ready for these blessed weeks that are ahead of us bismillah. And of course we know that in the lead up to Ramadan there is always something that happens, there are always seeds of discord, the seeds of shaitan that are planted so be careful in your individual life, in your family life, in your community life to make sure that you stay focused inshaAllah and we will have a lot of content over the next two weeks bismillah about Ramadan prep. We are also going to be finishing the first inshaAllah ta'ala, this part of the first we will resume it after Ramadan but we will be finishing 40 episodes inshaAllah ta'ala next week so we will have it this Wednesday and then next week inshaAllah ta'ala and then we will pause that for our Ramadan series bismillah ta'ala. Now what I wanted to talk about tonight was actually a beautiful narration that compares
the validity and the virtue of tafakkur, of contemplation to the virtue of qiyam al-layl, the virtue of praying at night and how these concepts actually are married within the books of the salaf, within the narrations of the pious predecessors. And it starts with a narration from Awn ibn Abdullah rahimahullah ta'ala. He asked Umm Darda radiyaAllahu ta'ala about Abu Darda radiyaAllahu ta'ala and I wanted to know what his best form of ibadah was, what his best form of worship was. Now Abu Darda obviously radiyaAllahu ta'ala was one of the muftis of the companions, one of the most knowledgeable of the companions and distinguished with his ibadah and admired by the tabi'een, admired by the next generation for the example that he left behind in that regard. And of course his wife Umm Darda al-Sughra is a scholar in her own right that was sought out and asked many times and would often relay things on behalf of her husband. So Awn ibn Abdullah is asking Umm Darda what was his best ibadah and particularly by the way there are two narrations ayyu wa ibadati Abu Darda kanat akthar and in one narration afdal. She asked which of the acts of worship of Abu Darda radiyaAllahu ta'ala anhu were most or which of them were the best. So what is his most virtuous and most distinctive form of worship and what is his most frequent form of worship, akthar. And she said that what distinguished him qalat attafakkuru wa al-i'tibar. To remember, contemplate Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala attafakkur and i'tibar, to take into account, to reflect and to take into account. Both of them are within the same domain of contemplation. Attafakkuru wa al-i'tibar. And she goes on to say that Abu Darda radiyaAllahu ta'ala anhu said tafakkuru sa'a khayrun min qiyami layla.
To remember Allah for an hour and particularly here to contemplate for an hour, to contemplate for an hour is better than praying all night. To contemplate for an hour is better than praying all night. This is also something by the way that has been narrated on behalf of Hassan al-Basri rahimah Allah ta'ala. He said tafakkuru sa'a khayrun min qiyami layla. That to remember Allah, I keep on saying to remember Allah because I'll talk about what tafakkur means in this context, but to contemplate for an hour is better than an entire night of prayer. Now what is tafakkur and how is it related to qiyam al-layl and what is al-i'tibar. This is another word that often does not get introduced. You hear the words tafakkur and you hear tadabbur which are contemplation and reflection, i'tibar which is to consider, to take into account something is a word that is often not used when we are talking about this blessed practice. So let's first talk about the domain as a whole insha'Allah ta'ala. You know clearing your head, if you go out in nature and you don't do anything, you don't say anything, you just look around and you just take it all in, quiet everything, then that in and of itself is a means of really opening up the pathways in your heart and in your thoughts so that you can remember Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala properly so that you can consider the greatness of Allah and the greatness of your purpose in living in accordance with what Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has revealed and what comes next after this life, the true meaning of this life and what comes in the hereafter and so on and so forth. That practice of taking time out is incredibly not just therapeutic but beneficial to your iman and it's usually just talked about in the capacity of how therapeutic it is and it is therapeutic to get time out to breathe fresh air but it's also extremely beneficial
to your iman, beneficial to your faith and it's increasingly become difficult to do that because of the devices that we have now that don't allow us to ever disconnect and you have to disconnect from the world to connect with Allah. Sometimes you have to take those breaks so if you have your phone with you, if you have your laptop with you, wherever you are, it is so hard to cut off everything for an hour to just remember Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and to think about him and that's something that's very important here that the nature of contemplation here and tafakkur is not one where you're just enjoying the outdoors but you're looking around and as you are enjoying the outdoors and you are looking at the signs of Allah as they are so observable to you, you're saying subhanAllah, subhanAllah, la ilaha illallah, alhamdulillah, right? You are alternating between the various recitations of adhkar, of remembrances that we learn from the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam and deeply considering those things. So tafakkur is to contemplate on the signs of Allah, to contemplate on the verses of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and it should provoke a sense of remembrance. So saying alhamdulillah, saying subhanAllah, saying allahu akbar, saying la ilaha illallah, going between those various verses of praise, those statements of praise and those statements of remembrance is a way of keeping you connected not just to the signs that are around you and contemplating them but also connecting you to their maker and your maker which is the ultimate goal of that tadabbur and of that tafakkur, right? So that's where tafakkur usually comes into play. It is contemplating on the signs of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and connecting that to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, remembering Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala as you contemplate those signs and the quality of your worship that comes after that is incredible, right? If you do that, then the quality of your worship at night, the quality of your five salawat,
the quality of your ibadat as a whole is just going to increase substantially. And there's also contemplating on the verses of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, the ayat of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. Many scholars say that's where tadabbur is distinguished which is another form of remembrance and introspection but particularly pondering upon the verses of Allah, reading the Quran and reading those verses of Allah, those signs of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala while you are interacting with the signs of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala outside and if you ever read Quran on the outside in nature, it's a beautiful thing. So reflecting on the verses of Allah, looking around at the signs of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and connecting yourself to those things. And some of the scholars say itibar is a very unique type of reflection like when Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says fa itabiru ya ulu al-absar, to take into account people of al-absar, people who are of pure thoughts and people who are pure in their vision because of the purity of their thoughts. They are in contemplation and they think clearly, they have clarity of thought. Some of the scholars say itibar here is reflecting upon what happens to other than you and taking it into consideration in regards to yourself. Because when Allah azzawajal talks about itibar, he talks about previous nations, he talks about other people and so when you see things happen with others, past or present, you take that into consideration for yourself or some of the scholars said itibar is just generally taking yourself to account, reflecting, receiving things very personally as they are happening to seemingly other than you, whether that's the environment or people around you. Receiving them personally, right? What does this mean for me? What does this mean for me? So again, contemplating on the verses of Allah, contemplating on the signs of Allah, contemplating
on yourself and how you can bring yourself closer to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and then taking it all into account whether it's happening to others or happening to the environment, taking it all into account as to what this means for me. So this is where you find the statement, tafakkaru sa'a khayrun min qiyami layla, to contemplate for an hour is better than praying an entire night. This is also by the way very much so connected to what we've been talking about of purifying your thoughts and fasting is directly tied to purifying your thoughts and so as you're purifying your body and purifying your soul and purifying your thoughts throughout the day, then the quality of your qiyam, the quality of your taraweeh, the quality of your itikaf just is so much more because of your fasting during the day. Just think about if you don't have, and of course some people are not able to fast, right? And the difference between being able to fast and being able to pray at night and the connection of those two and not being able to fast for those that have an illness or are permanently unable to fast during the day, right? So there's a beautiful connection between the two as well and even of course those that are not able to fast due to health reasons, medical reasons, the amount of Quran recitation that takes place during the day of Ramadan and the contemplation therein certainly increases the quality of the prayer in the day and especially at night. And I'll end with this insha'Allah ta'ala because it is the merging of the two things and that is what Ibn Abbas said where he said two rak'ahs that are of moderate length, okay? That are of moderate length. They're not super long because people are used to lengthy rak'ahs. They're not super long but they have in them tafakkur. They have the quality of contemplation. خير من قيام ليلة والقلب ساهر.
Is better than a night of praying the entire night and the heart is sahin, the heart is neglectful, the heart is absent, okay? Forgetful. So if you are able to pray at night and you are able to bring in the quality of thought and of course with qiyam al-layl, reciting a verse and pausing and doing du'a, thinking about that verse, remembering Allah and supplicating is something that we find from the sunnah of the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam especially in the night prayers. So to have shorter prayers, less recitation at night but increase the quality of those prayers with more contemplation, with more tafakkur is better than a forgetful heart and absent heart and long prayers throughout the night. So with the whole quality and quantity discussion, that's something certainly to keep in mind and inshaAllah next week I'll actually talk about how to read Quran, the debate over quantity versus quality when it comes to Quran recitation because I know that's also a question that often comes up. I pray that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala grant us the ability to remember him day and night, that he protect us from being absent minded and being led astray in the process of being absent minded, that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala allow us to be connected to him through good moments of reflection and recitation and then good moments of prayer and good works, good deeds that connect us through him subhanahu wa ta'ala inside of Ramadan and outside of Ramadan during the day and during the night, fasting or not fasting. May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala always allow us to be connected to him. May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala allow us to always be thinking of him and may Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala allow us to have the ultimate reward of meeting him while he is pleased with us subhanahu wa ta'ala. InshaAllah ta'ala I'll see you all Wednesday for the first and then of course there's so much that will be coming out inshaAllah over the next two weeks bid'na and I hope that you'll follow and stay connected to us throughout the month of Ramadan.
Assalamualaikum Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuhu
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