 Alhamdulillah, Allah has allowed us to gather together on Jumu'ah for the Friday prayer. But as we gather here for the prayer, sometimes we, you know, we're busy in our days. We go and we pray and we come back and sometimes we don't pause and reflect on exactly how this prayer came to us. We don't take the time to reflect and think about not only the virtues and the values of the prayer, but where did this great blessing come from? Perhaps we don't even think of it as a blessing sometimes. It behooves us at least once a year or at least once in a while to look back at how we got this prayer, where it came from. And the first thing to understand the value of something is to see what your life would be like if that blessing in your life was gone. You know, they say you don't miss the well until the, you don't miss the water until the well runs dry. You don't know what you've got till it's gone. Can you imagine what it was like, what it would be like if we had no Salah, if there was no prayer? And this is where the masjids that we have that are full on Friday, Alhamdulillah, and other days, all over the world, can you imagine if they were empty with the Salah being formed inside them? Can you imagine if, SubhanAllah, if you had no idea about how to pray, you had no way to connect to your Lord, no way that you understood, you had no way to practice a type of a devotional ritual to Allah, you know, every Friday. And in fact, every time there's a prayer, people approach prayer with all kinds of needs in their heart, some with pain, some with broken-heartedness, others with du'as that they are desperately making. They come with their needs, they come with their hopes, they come with all sorts of things, they bring their sins to the prayer, they bring their addictions to the prayer, their flaws, their secrets, trauma, guilt, and the Salah helps to fix that for them. The Salah may not immediately take everything out, but the Salah gives a consolation, the Salah gives a cleansing to us. Now, can you imagine if that was gone? Can you imagine if when Allah says, wa sta'een wa sabri wa salah, then seek help through patience and prayer? If we didn't have the means of seeking help from Allah, what about the fact that the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, he asked the Sahaba that if any of you had a river running in front of his house and you could bathe there five times a day, would any dirt remain on you? And they said, how can if you take a bath five times a day in a running river, how could you have any dirt remaining on you? And this is the way our prayer is. Every time from Salat, from prayer to prayer, Friday to Friday, your sins are being shed and forgiven. Can you imagine if you didn't have that river running right in front of your home? And can you imagine as well when Allah SWT says, wa aqimus sallatalli dhikri, and so establish the prayer for my remembrance? Allah is saying, Subhan Allah, if Allah willed, we would not even know who Allah is. We wouldn't even be able to say his name. And yet he gives us this prayer and says, establish it for my remembrance, Allah says. When anything is described to Allah, it's something that is amazing, majestic and great. Imagine that way of remembering Allah was God. And the prophets I saw that we know as well that prayer is the key to jannah. The prayer is the key to jannah. Can you imagine if you lost the keys to that? Subhan Allah, we lose the keys to our house or to our car. We get so fraught, distraught, and we get scared. Now imagine losing a key to your ultimate happiness. And Subhan Allah, the prayer doesn't just bring those spiritual blessings. Can you imagine not seeing your brothers and your sisters regularly when you come to the masjid? Can you imagine not being able to connect, touch side by side? Can you imagine having no qibla to face to because there's no prayer? Can you imagine not having to ever make wudu because there's nothing to purify yourself for, nothing to take a Russell for, nothing to adorn yourself for, your nakedness for? And so Subhan Allah, we also know that the Salah in the day of judgment will be the first thing that you'll be questioned about, the very first thing. And what does our Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam tell us? If your Salah is in order, then everything else will go smoothly in your judgment. If your Salah is not in order, then the rest of your judgment, your hesab, your accounting, you'll have some work to do. And so can you imagine that ability to have that quick accounting through prayer taken away from us? Can you imagine when the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam told us that that the closest that a servant can be to his or her lord is when they're sajid, when they're in sujood? Allah, he calls himself the most high, but when you put yourself the most low, when you put that mark of your honor, your forehead onto the ground, you are the closest you can possibly be to the Lord of all the worlds. And that's why the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam said, and make dua at that time, increase in your dua at that time. Can you imagine not having that understanding of that closeness to Allah? I can keep going, Subhan Allah. Can you imagine when the angels listen to your recitation, that you have nothing for the angels to listen to you anymore? That when you say Ameen after the Fatiha that no, you don't have any reason to say the Fatiha or Ameen, so angels never say Ameen to your prayer. Can you imagine that how many of us send salawat on Rasulullah Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam? Where we know that you send one salat on him, he sends ten back. And he says whoever sends a salam, an angel takes it to him, wherever Allah has him, wherever Allah is keeping our beloved Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, and he returns. I return that salam back. If we didn't have the prayer, how many salawat in the day would we be missing? And that the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, he told us don't even spit in front of you in the direction of the tibla because when you pray, you're facing Allah. Their Lord is facing you. Can you imagine not having the Lord facing you? The Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam told us that Allah says, I have divided the prayer between me and my servant. Allah has divided it. That when we say Alhamdulillah, Allah says my servant has praised me. And every time we say something of the prayer, Allah is answering us back but we don't hear it. Can you imagine not having that discourse with Allah Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam? When the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam said that what is the line between iman and kufr? It's prayer. What would happen if that line became blurred or even worse became erased? You see, other other deans that have come and gone have prayers. But where are those prayers going now? Where are the people now filling their places of worship? SubhanAllah, how many places of worship are closing down? I mean, other places of worship. I have a friend of mine, when he became a Muslim, he said the same masjid, the same masjid I pray in now was a church before I used to come to when I was a kid. SubhanAllah. So with the loss of this idea of prayer with other religions, you have the loss of their values as well. And what we don't realize is that the Salah is what is anchoring us, is what is anchoring us. Because even you know what they call the Eid Muslim, Ramadan Muslim, even once a year sometimes. Person who has very little relation to his faith still come, let's go on Eid prayer, let's do it and go once a year. But that's that handlehold they have on their faith, their iman with Allah. And so this is our and it's SubhanAllah. I mean, just look at the Haramain, Allahu Akbar, Mecca and Medina. And the Haram Sharif in Masjid al-Aqsa. Can you imagine if those places were not filled with worshipers? Can you imagine what right would we have to those places if we didn't fill it with worship? And so this is the greatest blessing after our iman and after our beloved Rasul SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam being sent to us. Our prayer is the greatest blessing and this is why we recount this when we think about the Isra and the Meiraj. People ask the question, is tomorrow Isra and Meiraj? The answer I have is no, tomorrow is not Isra and Meiraj. Isra and Meiraj happened 1400 something years ago. But what do, what do we do? Whether you do it today, whether Ulamas say it's in Rabi'l Awwa, there are differences of opinion, that's not the point. You're forgetting the point. But the point is every day if you recounted that journey, Isra and the Meiraj of the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, the night journey from Mecca to Jerusalem by night. And then from Jerusalem, from Masjid Aqsa, all the way beyond the seven heavens, beyond the city of Muntaha, to that divine discourse with Allah Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, that's what we were counting. Why? Because whenever you go to travel, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, whenever you go to travel somewhere, like for example, I'm here in California, when I come back, you better believe I'm going to take a gift from my wife and my kids. Because when you go somewhere and you come back, and the more special that place is, when someone goes for Hajj and they come back, what do they bring? They bring gifts, they bring things. Now, we have a Prophet who loved us more than anything else, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. And when he goes through the greatest journey to see the greatest things you could ever see, to interact with Allah Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam himself, when he comes back, what kind of gift would he bring back? Chocolate? Something else? No, clothes? No, he brings back Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. Because when you go to a king, you expect a gift that is fit from the king. And so the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, he comes back from this journey all the way to there with a gift that is Allah Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam's worthy for us. Even before when he went from Mecca to Jerusalem, what did he do with the prophets when they all were gathered there? All the prophets were gathered. He performed Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam with them. In fact, he was the natural Imam. One of the narration states that I came into Masjid al-Aqsa, and as we'll recount more in detail tonight, inshallah. But he said, I saw some in Ruku, some Saajid, some standing in different positions of prayer. And as he came, he was the natural Imam to lead everyone. So it was prayer actually that was first established in our first qibla. We often think that the Kaaba is our first qibla. No, actually Masjid al-Aqsa was our first qibla. So if we don't have the prayer, then what claim do we have to that place? What, how is it holy to us other than the fact that it's the best jid, a place of sujood? And so the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, subhanallah, that act of prayer was an act of unity. All the prophets from all the different places. In fact, every single prophet he knew and those that he did a lot of not tell him about were all there. And that's the one thing that unites us. How many people can, can, can recount? For example, when they became Muslim, this is my experience, Hamdullah too. When you come to the Masjid, you see people of all different races and colors and backgrounds. And the only thing that combines them is the salah. The only thing, the only reason, sometimes you would have to put your shoulder against the shoulder and your feet to feet and your, and your, your closeness of yourself with someone else, sometimes of another background is in salah. And every time it's different. There's no your spot, my spot. Every time you don't know who you will be beside. Who do you give salams to? Perhaps you may shake their hand as well. So this is the blessing that Allah swt has brought, has given to us that every single command of Islam in all the beautiful laws of our pure Sharia, all of them were brought from Jibril alaihi s-salam from above the seven heavens in the earth, down to earth to reveal to the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. And yet the prayer was something where Allah swt called the Rasul sallallahu alayhi wa sallam up to him, up to beyond I should say the seven heavens. And Allah swt called him to give him that, that ruling. It's the only ruling that we have that was revealed outside of our world, Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar. And then we know as well that originally 50 prayers were prescribed for us, 50 prayers. Why? Not because Allah wanted to make it difficult for us, but because of the blessings of the prayer, because of how much it does for you. But we're human beings after all. We're human beings after all. And as we know the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam went back and had it reduced over and over going back until it was only five. But then the reward of those five prayers was the like the 50 prayers. And so when we pray every single prayer of ours, when we even miss a prayer, how do we feel? Do we realize that we're missing something that is far greater, that the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam had to struggle so much to go through? Something that you're, for example, when your mother and father have to go through so much toil and to bring you some food when you were young to eat, how much did you appreciate that later on? If you know what the Rasul sallallahu alayhi wa sallam had to go through to bring us this deen, what he had to go through to bring us this gift of prayer we would never ever say, I'm just going to skip it and make it up later. We would never say that. I'm just going to keep sleeping and hit the snooze button. When we realize how much of our benefit and how much of the pleasure of Allah lies in that prayer, what about subhanAllah? The fact that our prayer is what weans us away from sins. We know that the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam one day there was a man who used to steal and one of the Sahaba came and complained to Rasulullah, this man comes, prays Asha with you behind you and then he leaves the Masjid and then he goes and commits robbery in the night and comes back in the morning and prays Fajr behind you. So this Sahabi is saying, telling him, why should this person be coming to the Masjid? How is this right? And what did Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam say? He said, his sallah will wean him off of that. Because if you're honest in your prayer, if you're true in your heart, in your prayer that you love it, Allah by the blessings of that will take your sins away from you. It doesn't matter what sin you have, inshaAllah Allah can take that away from you. Especially those of us who are struggling with addictions, struggling with what we're looking at the screens, struggling with what we're taking, struggling with how we're treating our spouses and talking in our anger and many different things. That's why Allah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam says, Allah says that indeed the prayer, it forbids you from doing obscenity and from doing wrong things. Many times, subhanAllah, if you were just, you're thinking about something bad, then you're like, well, I can't do that. I need to pray soon. So the prayer is actually what reminds people to not do that. How many people in the middle of the night, when no one else was watching and it was just them in their screen, they said, I have to pray. I have to be in the hospital. I have to pray. And so that took them away from the sin that they were doing, subhanAllah. And what does Allah say after that? And the remembrance of Allah is greater. Greater than what? Greater than every single thing that you can imagine in your life. And this is why the companions, when they used to pray, they used to consider nothing else more special than that. And actually what some of the scholars say is that it is not when you pray, actually Allah is remembering you. So then you remember Allah because Allah is giving you the tawfiq ability. And so when you remember Allah, then he remembers you again. And so the remembering of Allah to you is greater than you remembering Allah. Which of us would not want to be remembered by Allah subhanAllah? So Alhamdulillah, this is something that we will recount tonight, inshaAllah, more. We can't go over all the details of the prayer as we talk about the israda miraj. But it's enough for us to say that this is our heritage. This is our deen. It's worth learning. And this prayer is something that people have given their lives over. Converts have had to hide and pray. People in fear have prayed. So many people have, we don't even realize when you're busy, an uber driver pulls over on the side, he has a quick prayer, a busy mother just quickly wraps her hijab and says of a distracted prayer. You're busy, but you don't realize you're facing Allah subhanAllah. And that the angels are surrounding you. And so it behooves us as well. When we're praying and when we approach this to thank Allah subhanAllah, to be conscious in our prayers as much as we can, inshaAllah and recount the blessing for the fact that he allowed us to pray these prayers.