Assalamualaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh. May the peace and blessings of Allah be upon you all. I have to be honest with you all now. I mean, I've been honest before, but I want to share with you something. When I was told that prayer was five times a day, I asked the question, every single day for the rest of my life, I gotta pray at least five times a day? You see, when asking the question like that, when thinking about my life, how I didn't pray at all, and how sometimes I prayed when I needed something, transitioning to five times a day, phew, that seems like a lot, seems overwhelming. It seems that way, but then you have to be truthful. You have to be truthful with yourself and say, okay, if I was to pray five times a day, that gives me five opportunities to detach myself and to tune out and to talk to God, to speak to God, to ask Him for His virtue. Being honest, will that make me a better person? When I prioritize my life by making prayer a priority, by making that connection that I acknowledge, accept, and understand, making that a priority in my life, I stop what I'm doing and make what I'm doing secondary to that primary action. If I ask myself that question after feeling overburdened and feeling overwhelmed, then what's the answer? It definitely would be better for me. If I'm trying to get closer to God and fulfill that purpose and try my best, I at least will say, I'll try my best to fulfill that purpose of praying five times a day. So the prayers, when are the prayers?
As we know, they are over the span of a whole day. As Allah says in the chapter number four, verse number 103, "'Verily, the Salat, the prayer, has been prescribed upon believers at decreed times.'" Now, it's over the span of 24 hours. And the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, even gave a comparison, a beautiful comparison, when he asked a companion of his, he said, "'If you were to wash in a river five times a day, would there be any filth on you?' And of course, we know the answer. It's kind of a rhetorical question. It's a question that you already know the answer. But think about this comparison, a river. It's even, the water gushes stronger than your typical shower. A river, if you don't watch yourself, and if you're not stationary, you can go along with the river and possibly lose your life. So to show the force of water that is passing you up and that is taking all of this filth off of you, the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, gave a very eloquent, beautiful, concise comparison. Now, looking at the prayer, as we talked about before, when doing that five times a day, having that connection, what would it do to the individual? Understanding the wisdom of Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala in prescribing the prayer for us. Now, what's important to know is that this prayer is time spans and not specific times. So for instance, you'll see on a prayer schedule, if you go on a mosque or you go and you look online, you go to these websites, you'll see that there is like a chart, like an Excel sheet or a chart, and you'll see the five prayers. Under each prayer, they will have specific times. Now, from one time to the next is the time span that you can pray that prayer. So for example, you will see Luhur, the midday prayer, under it will be 12.30 p.m. And then the next prayer is called Asr, which is the evening prayer.
You'll see that at 4.30 p.m. or 6 p.m. Know that you can offer the Luhur prayer from that 12.35 mark all the way till right before that Asr prayer comes in. That's the time span that you can offer the prayer. Mind you, some of these prayers are a little more constricted, such as Maghrib and Fajr, but we will talk about that, inshallah. May Allah make you of those that perform their prayers on time, make you diligent, and make you disciplined. As-salamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh. Thank you.