Max Benefits Frm Salah

Bismillaah il-Rahmaan il-Raheem In the Name of Allaah, Most Gracious Most Merciful.Praise be to Allaah, Lord of the Worlds and peace and blessings be upon the leader of the pious, Muhammad the Messenger of Allaah, and on all his family and companions. Salah , It is one of the most important pillars of Islam.It is such an important pillar of islam that one of the hadiths in saheeh Muslim says that the diff between a muslim and kafir is negligence of salaah(vol1,ch36,h146).The first thing a person will be asked to account among all his actions will be salah (abu dawood vol1, ch300, h863) It is compulsory for every muslim to offer salaah.There is no excuse for not offering salaah (even for those who are sick).It is mentioned in saheeh bukhari (vol2,ch19,h218) that a person approached Prophet Muhammed (pbuh) and said that he was suffering from piles and how he should offer salah.the prophet said” pray while standing.if u cant do it pray while sitting. if u cant do it pray while lying by ur sides”.So there is no excuse for not offering salaah .Even if u r sick,you have to offer salaah. Many of us offer salaah regularly, but do we really offer salaah in the manner allah wants us to offer salaah.We offer salaah as though we are doing some favour upon allah by offering salaah. Whether we offer salaah five times a day or fifty times a day Allah will neither benefit from it nor will He lose anything if we don’t offer salaah.It is we who will benefit from it. salaah is not just some sort of physical exercise (though it has many medical benefits) that we perform five times a day.It is through salaah that we communicate with Allah, It is through salaah that we thank Allah, It is through salaah that we ask for Allah’s help and his guidance.As most of us (non arabs) don’t know Arabic as a language,our mind keeps on wandering while offering salaah. For e.g. if a student after attending an examination is offering salaah then durng salaah he starts reviewing his paper,whether he has written all the questions correctly,whether he has attempted all the questions etc.The reason for the wandering of our mind is that our mind is empty and our mind cannot remain empty.therefore it wanders. So the best way of preventing our mind from wandering is to learn the Arabic language. So that we are able to understand and ponder upon what is being recited during the salaah and hence prevent our mind from wandering. But many people think that it is not possible to learn Arabic . Moreover the Qur’anic Arabic is far superior than the spoken Arabic. So the best solution is to learn the translation of those chapters of the Qur’an that we recite during the salaah in the language that we know best and recall the translation when the verse is being recited. Most of the muslims know the surah Fatiha. We can recite it at 100 mph. but have you really pondered upon the way we recite surah fatiha in our salaah. Just try to read the translation of surah Fatiha in the manner we recite it in the salaah and u’ll come to know in what a hopeless manner we offer salaah. In

surah Fatiha we r praising Allah and asking his guidance and help, but is it the way of praising someone or asking for help from anyone.!!! To gain maximum benefits from the salaah(also cultivate interest in offering salaah) we should even understand the meaning of what is being recited and also try to imagine it. For eg when we recite Aauzo billahi minashaitan nirrajeem(I take refuge in Allah from the shaitan the outcast) we try to feel the enemity of shaitan and imagine that Allah is giving us protection from it.