 In the name of Allah, the beneficent, the merciful, respected viewers, assalamu alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuhu May the peace and blessings of Allah be upon you. Hello and welcome to the 19th episode of the Treaties of Rights series. Today we will discuss the right of the prayer leader. Regarding this, Imam Sajjad Zain al-Abdina alaihi assalam has said, and the right of your prayer leader is that you should know that he has taken on the role of a mediator between you and God and appeared in the presence of your Lord on your behalf. And he speaks for you, but you do not speak for him. And he supplicates for you, but you do not supplicate for him. And he has besieged for you, and you do not besiege for him. And he has spared you the anxiety of standing before God the Almighty and the question of interrogation for your prayer. But you do not spare him that. Should he perform the prayer imperfectly, he is held responsible for that, not you. And if he makes a mistake during the prayer, you will not be his partner in it. There is no authority in this for him over you. Then he protected you through himself, and he protected your prayer through his prayer. Therefore, thank him for this, and there is no power or strength but in God. What Imam Sajjad al-Abdina al-Abdina al-Abdina al-Abdina alaihi assalam tells us here is that the people praying should know that the prayer leader is a mediator between them and the Lord. He is praying to Allah on their behalf. He asks on their behalf. He suffers the fear of being in the position of being interrogated for their sake. If there are any shortcomings in the prayers, the responsibility rests upon his shoulders. The people attending the prayer are not considered partners in this fault. The prayer leader has no authority over others. He is just the maintainer of others and their prayers at the threshold of God the Almighty. The discussion here is not centered on the prayer itself. Rather, it is about the rights of the leader of the prayers. He who is standing in front is like a military leader who is calling all of his followers to fight with Satan. Now they all attend to God who is the source of all perfections. The prayer leader is guiding a caravan of hearts towards Allah. He expresses ultimate humbleness to God on their behalf. He unites the rich and the poor, the employer and the employee, the master and the slave, the black and the white, the informed and the uninformed together through saying the prayers. Ritual prayer contains in itself many beautiful and heartwarming lessons behind it. Its main idea is so universal and extraordinary. People from all walks of life unite under one Imam or one leader for Allah swt. The Almighty Allah has established certain forms of worship to be done in a group. He has set up a certain time and place to do them too. He has done so in order for the believers to achieve the blessings and effects of such social activities on their path to perfection. We can name a few of the effects of congregational prayers as follows. When everyone of the congregational prayers moves towards and performing the various acts of bowing down, prostrating and sitting down in harmony, the majesty of the Lord is manifested. Also when congregational prayers are performed, the might of the Muslims and their majesty and power is demonstrated. When the people follow the prayer leader and their emotions and in what they say in prayers, then they will learn to have order and to abide by the rules. Praying together as a group, several times each day the social ties and the sense of brotherhood between them is reinforced. Praying as a group also develops a sense of mutual trust that can be used when they are to witness about something or make a deal. Since the congregational prayers are always performed on time, they provide the best chance for one to approach God and seek his acceptance of prayers. When one part spates in the prayers, especially the congregational prayers, he abandons the materialistic life and is delved into the spiritual life. Once he starts the prayers, he leaves everything but God behind him and directs his full attention to Allah SWT. An important benefit of congregational prayers is that they are a good means of the development of mosques and places of worship. This includes both the physical and spiritual aspects of development. Another important benefit of congregational prayers is that the attendees get to know each other and their ties of friendship are strengthened. Finally, in the congregational prayers, all people of different classes and races get together and stand in one line. There is no difference between the rich and the poor, the black and the white, the master and the slave, the informed and the uninformed person. Congregational prayer is the best form of elimination of racism. The gap between the people of different classes or races is reduced to zero once they attend the prayers. Fadhul ibn Shaddan, quran authority of Ma'amur adha alaihi salam. Congregational prayers are decreed because true devotion, submission and servitude of Allah shall not be attained unless it is done in public. The public performance of such deeds is a clear testimony of the uniqueness of God for the people of the East and the West. It can be done in public so that even hypocrites and those who belittle the Muslims in private practically have to do what they have verbally confessed in public and have to make their devotion and submission clear to the public. This is done so that it becomes easily possible for the people to testify as to one another's being Muslim. In addition to these, another benefit of the congregational prayer is that it makes it possible to help others and to cooperate with one another. It becomes possible for the people to worship God. Through congregational prayers, a lot of the bad deeds and acts of disobedience to God that exalted and the high are forbidden. Let's go for a quick break. We'll be right back. In another tradition, we read Imam Sadaq peace and blessings be upon him, quoted on the authority of his noble father, who quoted on the authority of God's prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, his pure family, think well of one who performs all his five daily sessions of prayers. In congregations, as Muhammad, peace be upon him, has said, God has established congregational prayers as the means by which men can publicly recognize the servitude to God. And the people of the West and the East can become fully aware of this divine proof. The congregational prayer also fosters cooperation, helping each other in the prevention of wicked deeds. Abu Sayyid, quoted on the authority of the noble prophet of God, Muhammad, peace be upon him, after prayer, Gabriel descended with 70,000 angels and said, O Muhammad, your Lord sends greetings and grants you two gifts, which he has never donated to any of the prophets before you. The prophet asked, O Gabriel, what are these two gifts? Gabriel said, three units of prayer, and saying congregational prayers five times each day. The prophet asked Gabriel, what is the reward of congregational prayers for my nation? Gabriel said, whenever there are two people attending congregational prayer, each one shall be rewarded the reward of 150 prayers for each unit of congregation prayer. When there are three people, the reward will be of that 250 prayers. When there are four people on the prayer, then the reward will be that of 1,200 prayers. When there are five people on the prayer, the reward will be that of 1,300 prayers. When there are six people on the prayer, the reward will be of that 2,400 prayers. When there are seven people in the prayer, the reward will be that of 4,800 prayers. When there are eight people, the reward will be that of 9,600 prayers for each unit of prayer. When there are 10 people, the reward will be of that 19,000 prayers. When there are more than 10 people, the reward cannot be recorded. Even if all the water and all the seas and the heavens and the earth turns into ink, and the wood from all the trees turns into pens, and all the men, the jinns and the angels start to record, they cannot record the reward. O Muhammad, hearing the praises of the Lord that a believer hears in the congregational prayers is better than 70 pilgrimages and 1,000 non-mandatory pilgrimages for him. In another tradition, Zorara said, I asked Imam Sadaq peace and blessings be upon him. Will the congregational prayer be right with just two people? The Imam said, yes. The second man must stand on the right of the prayer leader. According to another tradition, Johani came to the Prophet and said, I live in the desert. After the call for the prayer, there are only my servants, my wife, and my children present there. I say the prayer with them. Is this considered to be a congregational prayer? The Prophet replied, yes. Then considering all the reward, why do the followers of Imam Ali, the commander of the faithful Amir al-Muminin peace be upon him, lose it all by not attending congregational prayers? Is this not a great loss for them indeed? From this, we can clearly understand the importance of congregational prayers. To conclude, we will mention what the late Hajj Mirza Maliki Tabrizi has said regarding congregational prayers. The main wisdom behind the decree on congregational prayers is the unity of the hearts of the believers in God's affair. There are many benefits to this unity, including the strengthening of Islam. In addition to this, congregational prayers are very effective in the perfection of the soul. It's strengthening the soul and trotting along the path towards God, and obtaining divine rewards. This is because God's mercy will encompass all of them if they are united in God's way, if it should be meant to descend upon any one of them. This is true even if not all of them deserve to receive God's mercy. The similitude of the unity of hearts is like that of the joining of narrow muddy streams of water. Once they join, they turn into a wide river that can cleanse everything on its way. This river will no longer become dirty from the least bit of added impurities. Thus, what is important is the unity of the hearts. If one succeeds into uniting congregational prayers with people whose hearts are united with God, then he can be hopeful to receive the reward what is promised in the traditions. However, the people who are attending the prayers are jealous of each other and hold a grudge against each other, then hoping to receive rewards is a far-reaching aspiration. It is not considered hope in God, rather it is fooling oneself. When a prayer leader purifies his soul, anyone who knows him shall love him. He will also be kind with the believers due to this bond of divine love, therefore their congregation will be a divine one. However, if the people who unite in prayer are really disunited in their hearts and are enemies of one another, are jealous of the God-given blessings that each other one has, then there will not be any illumination from this type of unity, especially if one side involved is the prayer leader himself. This is all because the major effect of any worship is due to the way it affects the heart and illuminates it. With this, we conclude this episode. Stay tuned for another episode on the treaties of rights. Thank you all for watching and may Allah hasten the reappearance of our beloved Imam Mahdi.