Ramadan Reflections (2025)
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Fasting & Prayer: The Amazing Hidden Connections | Ramadan Reflections
Fasting and prayer are more connected than you realize. Dr. Omar Suleiman explores the deep bond between sawm and salah—and how they elevate your worship in Ramadan and beyond.
Transcript
This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings. So yesterday in the khutbah, I alluded to a connection between as-siyam wa-s-salaam, fasting and praying. And a very obvious one that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala brought these two pillars of Islam together in the Qur'an. wa-sta'inu bi-s-sabri wa-s-salaam Hold on with as-sabr, patience, which is fasting, as-siyam, wa-s-salaam, and prayer. And verily it is difficult except for the people of khushur, the people who are khash'een, the people who have humility. And subhanAllah, there is something so deeply profound about this because I actually want to give you a high level of the five pillars of Islam and how beautiful they all connect together. You will notice something about these five pillars of Islam. That if someone does not take one of them seriously, they almost certainly don't take the other one seriously as well. Meaning the attitude that would exist with one of them will certainly be reflected in all four of them. So, if there is a person who views these things as something that just came to them in life, right? They are nonchalant about it. And who is at most risk of becoming complacent with these pillars of Islam? Obviously those who were born and raised Muslim. And Umar radiAllahu ta'ala al-Mu'sa said as much. He said that, I don't fear Islam being lost except, إِذْ نَشَأَ فِي الْإِسْلَامَ لَمْ يَعْرِفَ الْجَاهِرِيَةَ When people grow up in Islam and they don't know the days of ignorance. Meaning people that were born and raised Muslim and they just took it for granted. That same attitude towards the shahadah of La ilaha illa Allah, Muhammad Rasulullah. You know I mentioned the sister subhanAllah who, she had the whole room crying. Because the amount of passion and love in her shahadah was beautiful. But someone that just kind of grew up with the shahadah of La ilaha illa Allah, Muhammad Rasulullah.
They might, if they are complacent with that, they look at salah like, Okay fine, I've got to pray, I get it, I've got to pray. Because they were used to their parents telling them they have to pray. And then alright, Ramadan is coming around, great, what day is it going to be? Okay, well I need to, you know fine, I won't eat and drink, I'll fast. I'm going to keep it, when is Eid going to be by the way? It's going to be a rough month, okay fine, inshAllah I'll get through it. Zakah, maybe, I may or may not, like I'm kind of looking at it, but do I take my zakah seriously? Probably pretty nonchalant. And by the way, I want to make a point here. That subhanAllah, the pillar of Islam that is most often not taken seriously, and the Prophet ﷺ talked about it haunting a person on the Day of Judgment, is zakah. Like who's really taking the time out at the Haww once a year, seeing how much they owe to make sure they're paying their zakah. And the first way that people, the first pillar of Islam to go was the one that was underestimated the most, which was the zakah. The first deviation in regards to the pillars of Islam was in regards to zakah. The first deviation, so it's the last of them, and the first deviation in regards to the pillars of Iman was Al-Qadr, Divine Decree. People left off Al-Qadr, because they just didn't take it seriously. So, you know, if I have that attitude of mediocrity towards the shahadah, I just kind of grew up with it, then I'll have that attitude with salah, I'll have that attitude with my fasting, I'll have that attitude with my zakah. Hajj, yeah, one day, maybe I'll get to it, inshAllah. And Umar ﷺ says, listen very closely to this warning by the way. He said, whoever has the means to do hajj and does not seek to fulfill their right of hajj, let them die a Jew or a Christian. Might as well not even die a Muslim. Like, hajj is a pillar of Islam, why aren't you taking this seriously? But it's like, it's like, ah, one day. So the attitude towards one of the pillars of Islam will naturally find itself reflected towards all of the pillars of Islam, which is an attitude of mediocrity, complacency. That's the first one, right?
And so, innaha lakabeeratun illa alal khashi'in. It's heavy, except for people of khushu' people of depth, people who are listening on the inside, who are trying to internalize these acts of worship, not simply get through them. It's going to be difficult upon them. And the attitude will be, ah, yeah, whatever. Hayya alal salah, I'll wait until the very end of the time of salah, drag my feet and I'll just get it over with. Ramadan is here, alright, fine, I'll just get through Ramadan. All of these things, I'll just get through them. The opposite of that is our Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. Arihna biha ya bilal. For the prayer, comfort us with the prayer, O Bilal. Praying the sunnah of salah, fasting sha'ban before Ramadan, right? Getting yourself ready for the act to come, and then greeting it with an open heart and love, and let me immerse myself in this as if nothing else is in the world right now. The attitude of the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam in salah, was the same attitude of the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam in siyam. Completely immersed, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. And the attitude of ihsan and excellence is that. Like this is special, this is important. I need to take it seriously. You greet it before it greets you. You ask about your zakah before it's due upon you. You try to go to hajj before you even have the means to go to hajj. You're already thinking about when you can go to hajj, right? So you're trying to greet the ibadah before the ibadah comes upon you. So there's an attitude adjustment towards how you approach the pillar of Islam in the first place. That's the first thing that I want to mention. The second one is rushing through. The equivalent of rushing through the salah is hastening towards Eid. As Al-Hafidh Ibn Rajab Rahim Allah makes this beautiful connection, right, in that regard. I'm paraphrasing him obviously in this regard. But what's the equivalent of someone that just tries to get through their salah quickly? Someone that's asking, is it Eid ya?
27th night is over and you're already partying like it's Eid, right? And you still got the 28th, the 29th and possibly the 30th night where Laylatul Qadr could be there. But hey, everybody else, they've already passed out the sweets. And I'm pretty sure it was Laylatul Qadr, I'm good now. Is it Eid ya? I'm already doing my Eid shopping on the 10th day of Ramadan for some reason. Alright? It doesn't make sense. But that's the equivalent of rushing through the salah. Someone goes to hajj. And by the way, like I just have to say this, please don't be offended, but American hajjaj, probably the most difficult to deal with. I'll count myself in that group, right? Want all the convenience in the world, want all the luxury in the world. Like, alright, is this here yet? Is this here yet? But where's the immersion in hajj? And then you have the nerve to mock that illiterate Muslim that's going around the Kaaba and doing the best that they can but crying and trying to come close to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. Rushing through to the end. When can I get the first flight out of here? Right? I gotta get back to work. So there's an attitude of istiqbaal, how you receive, and then an attitude of how you proceed. That's number one that's consistent across all the five pillars of Islam. And Allah azza wa jalla speaks to that attitude. The second thing that we learn from these pillars of Islam and the connections is that all of them have us disconnecting from something in order to connect to something. You have to disconnect from something in order to connect to something. And there's a remarkable coherence there. Salah, you disconnect from your daily life, from your daily routine, to enter into a conversation with Allah, and what do you connect to? The Qur'an, dhikr, and du'a. Ramadan, you disconnect from something of your daily routine, and what do you fill your cup with? Qur'an, dhikr, du'a. It's the same thing, right? In salah, you're not allowed to talk. In siyam, you're not allowed to talk about people. So in salah, you can't talk to people. In siyam, you can't talk about people. It's disciplining your conversation as well,
and how you connect to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, the unique ways that you connect to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. Now here, subhanAllah, is also something in the divine scheme that I want you to pay attention to. Imam al-Jawzi rahimahullah ta'ala, he talks about what the pillars of Islam guard us from. And ultimately, I want you to see that the pillars of Islam break us off, or they guard us from two things. Number one, the destructive flaws, al-muhrikat, the destructive flaws. Number two is routine. Routine. Very interesting, subhanAllah, if you think about this. The five pillars disconnect us from what is sinful, and they disconnect us from what is familiar in order to reorient us to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. When it comes to disconnecting us from al-muhrikat, cutting us off from destructive flaws, the first part of the shahada is negation. La ilaha. There is no God but Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. La ilaha illallah. Right? So negation of shirk, the most destructive of all flaws. Disconnecting you from the idols, disconnecting you from shirk, disconnecting you from worshipping anything besides Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. Salat. إِنَّ الصَّلَاةَ تَنْهَى عَنِ الْفَحْشَاءِ وَالْمُنْكَرِ Prayer is supposed to protect you from wickedness and shamelessness. It's supposed to disconnect you from these things. لا رَفَثَ وَلا فُسُوقَ وَلا جِدَالَ فِي الْحَجِّ There is no intimacy obviously, but the argumentation and the sinfulness in hajj, it's supposed to disconnect you from those things. And your zakah is supposed to disconnect you from greed. And your siyam, the Prophet ﷺ is saying about fasting, whoever does not give up idol speech and acting upon it, then Allah عز و جل has no need for them to give up their food and their drink.
All of them disconnect us from something, the sins of the tongue, the flaws of the tongue, or the flaws of the eyes, or whatever it may be, but they're disconnecting us from these destructive flaws that can overtake us and that can lead us to a path of destruction. So they protect us from المهنكات. They protect us from the destructive flaws, but then they protect us from routine. And this is very profound. Because I'm gonna bring it to something that we all find ourselves with, or many of us find ourselves with in this day and age in regards to routine. When Allah عز و جل talks about الصلاة, prayer, the main function of the prayer in terms of what it breaks of your routine is what? Can anybody tell me? إِنَّ الصَّلَاةَ كَانَتْ كِتَابًا مَوْقُوتًا The prayer is to be established on its time. Salah disrupts your time. It stops you from getting into the routine. You know, they talk about the rat race or the cycle. It stops you from getting caught into that. It cuts off your schedule, cuts off your time. Because a person can find themselves in their time doing what they do every single day and getting lost in their time. And that routine can overcome them to where they don't ever take a moment to actually be purposeful within the midst of that routine of time. So it breaks off your routine of time. The function of Siyam is to break off your routine of consumption, food and drink. You eat and you drink. So first the time is disrupted. The schedule is disrupted. It brings you back to Allah سُبْحَانَهُ وَ تَعَالَى so that you don't become captured by that routine. Siyam disrupts the routine of your food and your drink and your mindless consumption, right? Eating and drinking and you're being thoughtful about what you're putting inside your body. Zakah disrupts the routine in the general sense of charity.
Because Zakah used to mean in the early days of Islam before it was defined as an institution, the purification of wealth meaning it was interchangeable with Sadaqah, with charity as a whole. It disconnects you from your earning and your spending, right? And getting attached to this idea of earning and spending and how you deal with your money. Now subhanAllah, if you think about what that actually does to you. Number one, there is an implicit recognition. Allah owns my time. Allah owns my consumption. And Allah owns my earning and my spending. Allah owns these things. And to Allah سُبْحَانَهُ وَ تَعَالَى is the greatest right of these things, not myself. That's the first thing. Like you take Zakah for example. And subhanAllah, Zakah, a lot of times it's like we think of it as if we're doing something extra. What's implied in the Zakah is that in a normal financial system, you would have had a certain amount of your wealth that is the wasaha, that is the filth of the people that has maybe come through some impermissible earning or somewhere along the process of that circulation of wealth, something wrong was done to someone else. But there is an implicit recognition that even if you have the most halal income in the world and you're functioning in one of the purest financial systems in the world, there's something that's come into your wealth that's not good and needs to be purified, right? And then beyond that, the higher ethic of charity that you're supposed to spend upon people and supposed to spend in good causes, not just on yourself and getting attached to wealth. But Allah عز و جل owns what I own. Allah owns my time. Allah owns my blessings. Therefore, my ihsan is to take the routine and turn it into the righteous. Is to take the things that people take for granted and to make those things a means by which I seek Allah's reward.
So I use my time in accordance with pleasing Allah سُبْحَانَهُ وَ تَعَالَى. I use what Allah عز و جل has given me of blessings to be grateful to Him and to provide those blessings to other than myself. I use the wealth that Allah سُبْحَانَهُ وَ تَعَالَى has given me to pursue Allah سُبْحَانَهُ وَ تَعَالَى's bounty in the hereafter. It's to actually recognize Allah owns it and then to take it. To where even the feeding of your family becomes ibadah. Even the feeding of your family becomes ibadah. Everything you do starts to become an act of worship. And so all of these pillars, they disrupt on purpose. And hajj is the ultimate disruption after shahada. Hajj disrupts everything. It disrupts your schedule. It disrupts your food and your drink. It disrupts everything. It disrupts your wealth and the circulation. It's meant to be an ultimate disruption so that you can break off from those things. Because you don't just need to, if you forget everything else I said. The pillars of Islam are teaching us you don't just need to protect yourself from sin. You need to protect yourself from routine. You need to protect yourself from getting complacent with the dunya. You need to protect yourself from being mindless in the things that you do and how you carry yourself throughout the day. And is there anything, subhanAllah, is there any time in history where we're more mindlessly consumed than now where immediately you pick up your phone and you're always looking and seeing what's next, what's next, what's next and scrolling and scrolling and scrolling and scrolling. You have to break these attachments. You have to break them. And each of them breaks it in some way or the other so that your heart and your mind are focused on Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and your deeds follow in the process. And so I want you to think in Ramadan. Think about yourself right now in one long salah. Think about yourself in hajj
but still at work and still going about your day to day. It's the same mindset that you're supposed to have right now that I should treat this with a level of reverence and I shouldn't rush it till its end. And I pray that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala allow all of us to achieve the full blessings of these pillars of Islam so that we could build in our hearts a construction of the love of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and the pursuit of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala through ihsan, through excellence. Allahumma ameen. BarakAllahu feekum. Assalamualaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh. Al-Fatiha.
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