2. Day and Night Schedule of the Believer
For each time there is an assigned work
The shift from the schedule of worldly habits to the schedule of worship
The Prophet’s Night Prayer and its Manners
3. The Reward of Hajj and ‹Umra
he Prayer of al-Awwābīn
A House in Paradise
The Successful Trade
Meritorious Chapters and Verses of the Qur’an
That by which Faith is renewed
How to win proximity with the Messenger (God bless him and give him
peace)
Manners of Sleep
Duties of the Student
Sessions of Faith
No Action without Knowledge
The Value of Time in the Life of the Muslim
Du’a ar-Rabita
The Position of Invocation in Islam
The Throne Bearers’ Invocation for the Believers
With what shall we pray? To whom shall we pray?
Du’a ar-Rabita and as-Sohba wa’l Jama’a
Fruit of Du’a ar-Rabita
Invoking God for your brothers is a sign of noble manners
Prayers for the Believer in his absence are answered
On what foundation should invocation be based?
Some Manners of Invocation
“… and to our bothers who embraced Faith before us”
4. Invocation is a remembrance of the Hereafter
Presence and Humility
For each time there is an assigned work
In the name of God, Most Gracious, Most Merciful. God’s Blessing and Peace be
upon His Prophet Muhammad, His Āl al-Bayt[i], Companions, Brothers[ii] and
Party[iii]
Dear Brothers and Sisters in faith, God—Exalted be He—says in Sūrat al-Mulk
(Qur’an 67:2): “He Who created Death and Life, that He may try which
of you is best in deed.”
Notes
5. The shift from the schedule of worldly habits to the schedule of worship
Then, how can you perform your mission in such limited lifespan and attain
the bliss of this life and the Hereafter? In Surat an-Nahl (Qur’an 16:97),
God—Magnified be He—said: “Whoever works righteousness, man or
woman, and has Faith, verily, to him will We give a life that is good
and pure, and We will bestow on such their reward according to the
best of their actions.”
6. Notes
The Prophet’s Night Prayer and its Manners
The Believer should begin his day by waking up one hour before the Dawn
Prayer or less than an hour if he is idle—and he should not be—in order
to perform the Prophet’s Night Prayer made of five two-unit prayers and
completed by a one-unit prayer. He should display humility, misery and
helplessness before God, for the Prayer is a total devotion to Him. The best
prayer after the Ritual Prayer is the Night Prayer according to a Ḥadīth[i]
of the Prophet (God bless him and give him peace.)
9. The Forenoon Prayer aḍ-Ḍuḥā is the prayer of those who turn constantly
to God (from one to four two-unit prayers according to your time and
availability). God’s Messenger (God bless him and give him peace) reported
that His Lord said[i]: “O son of Adam, perform a pair of two-unit prayers
for My Sake in the beginning of the day and I shall protect you until the
end thereof.”
Notes
A House in Paradise
The accompanying supererogatory prostrations ar-Rawātib (that is,
those performed regularly before or after the five Ritual Prayers) are the
following: one two-unit prayer before the Dawn Prayer al-Fajr, one two-
unit prayer after ablution al-Wudū’, which is the tradition of the noble
Companion, Bilāl; a pair of two-unit prayers before the Noon Prayer aẓ-
Ẓuhr (for which the Gates of Heaven open) and one two-unit prayer after;
one two-unit prayer before the Afternoon Prayer al-’Aṣr, one two-unit
prayer before the Sunset Prayer al-Maghrib and three two-unit prayers
after; one two-unit prayer before the Evening Prayer al-’Ishā’ and a pair of
two-unit prayers after.
Each day, a House in Paradise is built for the one who regularly performs
ar-Rawātib, as Imām Muslim and others reported from God’s Messenger
(God bless him and give him peace). Let him perform the Night Prayer al-
Witr before sleeping he who cannot wake up before the Dawn Prayer or
fears to wake up late. Still, the Night Prayer before the Dawn Prayer is the
best.
The Successful Trade
10. Notes
Meritorious Chapters and Verses of the Qur’an
Because certain chapters and verses of the Qur’an have certain merits
and benefits acquired sooner or later, like protection from woes and evils,
dispelling of worries, forgiving [of sins], earning of higher grades and
others, several noble Sayings of the Prophet reported the merit of reading
them. Therefore, the Believer should regularly read them and make them
a daily wird. The meritorious chapters and verses of the Qur’an are the
following:
After al-Isti’ādha (that is, saying “I seek refuge with God from the Evil
One”) and al-Basmala (that is, saying “In the Name of God, Most Gracious,
Most Merciful”), you recite the following:
Qur’an 1: al-Fātiḥa ♦ Qur’an 2:1-5 ♦ Qur’an 2:255-7 ♦ Qur’an 2:284-6 ♦
11. Qur’an 3:1-9, 18, 19, 26, 27, and 190-200 ♦ Qur’an 18:107-110 ♦ Qur’an
32 ♦ Qur’an 36 ♦ Qur’an 40:1-3 ♦ Qur’an 44 ♦ Qur’an 48:29 ♦ Qur’an 56.
Then you recite al-Musabbiḥāt (the chapters that begin with glorifying
God): Qur’an 57, 59, 61, 62, and 64.
Then you recite the ending chapters of the Qur’an: 67, 87, 93, 94, 96,
97, 99 (four times), 102, 103 (twice), 107, 108 (three times), 109 (four
times), 110 (four times), 112 (three times), 113, and 114.
Then you end the reading by reciting al-Fātiḥa and Chapter 2:1-5.
That by which Faith is renewed
At least three sessions of 15 minutes each to utter the Blessed Statement
[al-Kalima at-Ṭayyiba], there is no god but God [lā ilāha illallāh], the
highest branch of faith. By uttering it Faith is renewed when the heart
is present with God—Exaltedbe He. Imām Aḥmad reported that the
Messenger (God bless him and give him peace) said: “Do renew your
Faith.” They said, O Messenger of God! How shall we renew our Faith? He
said, “Say there is no god but God [lā ilāha illallāh] as often as you can.”
How to win proximity with the Messenger (God bless him and give him
peace)
You should perform aṣ-Ṣalāt ‘alā Rassūlillāh that is, ask God to shed His
Blessings and Salutations upon the Prophet (God bless him and give
him peace) at least 300 times per day; you should also devote the eve
and daytime of Friday to this prayer. By it God saves us from the depths
of darkness into light and illuminates our hearts. At-Tirmidhī and Ibn
12. Ḥibbān in his Ṣaḥīḥ reported on the authority of Ibn Mas’ūd (God be
pleased with him) that God’s Messenger (God bless him and give him
peace) said: “Those who will most deserve my company on the Day of
Resurrection are those who most often ask God (in this life) to shed His
blessings upon me.
Manners of Sleep
Before going to sleep, turn yourself towards God—Exalted be He—and
call yourself to account with regard to how you have spent your day.
Indeed the pious, as the noble Tābi’ī (disciple of the Companions) Maymūn
bnu Mahrān said, is the one who calls himself to account in a way that is
stricter than that of a tyrant ruler or a niggardly business partner calling
people to account. Renew your turning in repentance to God and sleep in
a state of Ritual Purity [Ṭahāra], of remembrance of God [Dhikr] and with
the best of intentions.
Let the last moments of your wakefulness be moments wherein you
invoke your Lord to open to you the avenues of Jihad and of reaching
His Presence. For whoever has not partaken or intended to partake in a
campaign (military Jihad) will die as a pagan, as the beloved Messenger
(God bless him and give him peace) said. You had better not sit up late at
night so that you may not waste the rights of the following day, for he is a
loser he whose following day is not better than his present day.
Duties of the Student
13. If you are a student, do your best and spend the requisite time in studying.
The first of your duties after the Ritual Prayer, recitation of the Qur’an
and God’s Ritual Remembrance is to acquire the minimal share of Islamic
knowledge. Then you should strive hard to succeed in your academic
studies, for the latter are the Jihad of your age. You had better choose
books that will benefit you in this world and in the Hereafter. A wise man
said: tell me which books you read, I will tell you who you are.
Sessions of Faith
Devote one hour for a session of faith with your brothers[i] so that you
may be of those who rejoice in the Gardens of Paradise, as the beloved
Messenger (God bless him and give him peace) informed us. Such sessions
of God’s remembrance are occasions for the servants to seek God’s favor
and to rejoice in God’s HeavenlyGardens. The session of faith should also
include a visit, for the purposes of Da’wa[invitation to worship God] and
academic learning. God’s Messenger (God bless him and give him peace)
said: “That God may guide one man to Him through your person is better
for you than (all) the things upon which the sun rises.”
Note
No Action without Knowledge
Devote one hour of your day to learn Islamic rituals through studying
simplified related books for the purpose of mastering the requirements of
Ritual Purity, Ritual Prayer and other acts of worship. For God—Exalted
14. be He—does not accept the sincere acts until they are correct, that is, in
conformity with the Prophet’s Tradition.
The Value of Time in the Life of the Muslim
Al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī (God have mercy upon him) said: “O son of Adam, you
are none but a number of days; each time a day passes, a part of you
departs.” Therefore, let your time be like a budget from which you spend.
Be like a niggard and avoid wasting time in heedlessness and trivialities.
Know that the time over which you will feel sorrow—sorrow will be then
too late—is the time wherein you did not remember God—Exalted be He—
with your tongue, your heart and the ceaseless effort to serve His Cause
and support His Faith. Save your time and avoid wasting the time of your
brothers with long visits and lack of punctuality.
Du’a ar-Rabita
The Position of Invocation in Islam
Invocation is the core of worship; it comprises invoking God for particular
matters and needs, and for the sake of worship. The latter encompasses all
acts of worship that bring closer to God, inward and outward. Thus, all acts
of worship may come under the scope of invocation. Then, O brother, were
invocation to have only the merit of bringing you closer to your Lord—
Glorified be He—that would have been far enough. Then what if invocation
had countless benefits and blessings? God’s Messenger (God bless him and
give him peace) said[i]: “There is nothing that God holds more in esteem
than His (servant’s) invocation.”
Note
15. The Throne Bearers’ Invocation for the Believers
So long as man is incapable of knowing his own interests, God—Exalted
be He—showed him invocations in the Qur’an and others in the Prophet’s
Tradition. Among the Qur’anic invocations is the invocation of the angels
(peace be upon them) for the righteous Believers. It is a teaching from
God—Magnified be He—that came to us through the Throne Bearers so
that we may pray for the Believers. In Sūrat Ghāfir(Qur’an 40:7-9), God—
Glorified be He—said:
“Those who sustain the Throne (of God) and those around it
sing Glory and Praise to their Lord, believe in Him, and implore
Forgiveness for those who believe: Our Lord! Your Reach is over all
things in Mercy and Knowledge. Forgive, then, those who turn in
repentance (to You), and follow Your Path; and preserve them from
the Penalty of the Blazing Fire! And grant them, our Lord, that they
enter the Gardens of Eternity, which You have promised to them,
and to the righteous among their fathers, their wives, and their
posterity! For You are the Exalted in Might, Full of Wisdom. And
preservethem from (all) ills; and any whom You do preserve from
ills that day—on them will You have bestowed Mercy indeed. And
that will be truly (for them) the highest achievement.”
With what shall we pray? To whom shall we pray?
Among the signs of God’s Mercy upon His creatures is that He taught them
how to invoke Him just as He taught them how to worship Him. The best
of invocations are the ones formulated by His Words; they are the best
invocations by which we turn toward God, for they are from Him to Him.
Among the teachings that the Holy Qur’an showed us is that we should
pray for those who embraced Faith before us as of our father Adam and
mother Eve (God grant them peace), then to those who transmitted
to us this true Faith since we have learned Islam from them and have
16. taken them as models. They were honest in their transmission, honest in
their practical work, distinguished and guiding paragons in sincere work
for God’s Cause. That is why God—Exalted be He—teaches us how to
pray for them. In Sūrat al-Ḥashr (Qur’an 59:10), He—Glorified be He—
says: “Our Lord! Forgive us, and our brothers who came before us
into the Faith, and leave not in our hearts rancor against those who
believed. Our Lord! You are indeed Full of Kindness, Most Merciful.”
Du’a ar-Rabita and as-Sohba wa’l Jama’a
What Imām al-Bannā (God have mercy upon him) called Wird ar-Rābiṭa
is none but a practical expression of the Pact of Brotherhood between the
Believers. I deem ad-Du’ā’ ar-Rābiṭ [that is, Du’ā’ ar-Rābiṭa] necessary to
join the Believers in a community. When the feeling of association spreads
[among the Believers] through repeated meetings, repeated standing
before God in the Ritual Prayer, working together and ad-Du’ā’ ar-Rābiṭ,
Companionship and Community[i] meet together in such a way that the
community [of the Believers] does not remain a body without a soul and
the companionship [of a spiritual guide] does not remain an individual and
isolated relationship.
Note
[i] TN: Companionship and Community [aṣ-Ṣoḥba wa’l Jamā’a] is the
first of the Ten Virtues arranged by Imām Abdessalam Yassine within
a context of progress and ascension (moral, spiritual and intellectual.)
Companionship and Community means to have a spiritual guide—who
is also your temporal guide unlike Sufi orders—who shows you the way
towards God through opening to you all the avenues of Jihad without
exception. The inward Jihad of the self in the company of your brothers
and sisters in faith comes in the first place; then follow the Jihad in all
spheres of life, not in the sense of military war exclusively but rather
in the sense of acquiring all the means (scientific, economic, industrial,
technological, moral and spiritual) susceptible to qualify our Umma to
transmit the message of mercy to mankind in peaceful ways. Thus,
Companionship and Community are two sides of the same coin. In other
words, a Believer cannot attain spiritual excellence in its most perfect
form, that of the Prophet (God bless him and give him peace), without
17. being engaged in a communitarian project similar to that in which the
Companions (God be pleased with them) were involved.
Fruit of Du’a ar-Rabita
Note
Invoking God for your brothers is a sign of noble manners
The Companions (God be pleased with them) followed the pattern of the
Glorious Qur’an and the Prophet’s Noble Tradition. They used to pray
for each other in their absence, namely in the midst of the night. They
considered such act as a token of good manners, for it is a sign that their
hearts were free from rancor against their brothers and full of their love.
In his Shu’ab al-Īmān (Affluents of Faith), al-Bayhaqīreported that Um ad-
Dardā’ said:
“Abū ad-Dardā’ spent a night in prayer; throughout the night he shed tears
and kept saying: ‘O Lord! Refine my manners even as You have created
18. me in the best of fashions’ until dawn came. I said, O Abū ad-Dardā’! Your
invocation throughout this night was exclusively about good manners. He
said, ‘O Um ad-Dardā’! The Muslim servant may refine his manners until
the latter enable him to be admitted toParadise. He may, on the other
hand, spoil his manners until the latter make him enter Hell. Furthermore,
the Muslim servant may have his sins forgiven while he is asleep.’ I said,
How is that, O Abū ad-Dardā’? He said, ‘His brother stands up at night for
prayer, prays to God—Exalted be He—Who answers his prayers and prays
for his brother and God answers his prayers too.’”
Prayers for the Believer in his absence are answered
When any of the Companions met with his brother, he would ask him to
pray for him, especially if he were traveling to the holiest place on earth:
the blessed city ofMecca. Muslim and Abū Dāwūd reported that Safwān
bnu ‘Abdillāh bnu Safwān bnuUmayya bnu Khalaf, the husband of ad-
Dardā’, said:
“When I came to ash-Shām (present-day Palestine, Lebanon , Jordan and
Syria), I went to Abū ad-Dardā’s house. I did not find him but found his
wife, Um ad-Dardā’. She said, ‘Do you intend to perform Pilgrimage this
year?’ I said, Yes. She said, ‘Then pray for me, for God’s Messenger (God
bless him and give him peace) used to say, ‘The Muslim’s prayers for his
brother in his absence are answered. Standing by him is a commissioned
angel who tells him whenever he prays for his brother: Amen! And your
reward—the prayers you asked for him—shall be the same.’ I went to
the market and met Abū ad-Dardā’. He told me the same Ḥadīth, which
he reported on the authority of the Prophet (God bless him and give him
peace).”
19. Notes
On what foundation should invocation be based?
Our prayers, however, will not be answered until they are substantiated by
righteous deeds, as evidenced by God’s Saying in Sūrat Āl ‘Imrān (Qur’an
3:195):
“And their Lord has accepted of them, and answered them. Never
will I suffer to be lost the work of any of you, be he male or female.
You are members of one another, those who have left their homes,
20. were driven out therefrom, and suffered harm in My Cause. Those
who fought and were slain: verily, I will blot out their iniquities
and admit them into Gardens with rivers flowing beneath, a reward
from the Presence of God; for from His Presence flows the best of
rewards.”
Some Manners of Invocation
Invocation has its proper manners. Ibn ‘Āṭṭā’ Allah as-Sakandarī said:
“Invocation has pillars, wings, means and appointed times. When it agrees
with its pillars, it becomes strong. When it suits its wings, it flies in the sky.
When it concurs with its prescribed times, it wins. When it corresponds
to its means, it earns success. Its pillars are the presence of the heart,
compassion, submission and humility. Its wings are sincerity. Its prescribed
times are the early hours of dawn. Its means are aṣ-Ṣalāt ‘alā Rassūlillāh,
that is, asking God to shed His blessings upon Muhammad (God bless him
and give him peace).”
21. “… and to our bothers who embraced Faith before us”
The Believer should perform Du’ā’ ar-Rābiṭa preferably in the early hours
of dawn when our Lord—Exalted be He—descends to the First Heaven
and asks us if there is anyone who wants to repent, to have his prayers
answered and to have his sins forgiven, or whenever it is possible. He
should begin his invocation with reading Chapter 1 and asking God to shed
His blessings upon the Prophet (God bless him and give him peace).
Then he should ask God to forgive his sins and to grant him as well as to
his parents, wife, children and relatives all the good things of this world
and of the Hereafter.
Then he should ask God to shed his grace and peace upon God’s Prophets
and Messengers from Adam (peace be upon him) to Muhammad (God bless
him and give him peace) by mentioning the names of those stated in the
Qur’an and praying for those whose names we do not know while bearing
in mind the Ḥadīth of the Master of the Messengers (God bless him and
give him peace) wherein he says: “When you salute me, do also salute the
(other) Messengers, for I am but one of them.”
23. How transcendent is the condition of the heart that turns entirely
towards God in those moments of intimate invocations! How close is the
remembrance of the Hereafter through the daily mentioning and saluting
of those pure souls! Indeed, the remembrance of the Hereafter during such
intimate invocations is an act of transcendence from worldly concerns that
God loves the best. By the way, among the acts that God loves the best
are those that you perform regularly. God’s Messenger (God bless him and
give him peace) said[i]: “The acts that God loves the best are those that
one performs regularly.”
Note
Presence and Humility
Among the lessons of the Prophet that may be drawn from day and night
ritual invocations as well as those related to special occasions is that
they do not include one invocation for one matter. Rather, we would
find more than one invocation so that we may not recite the invocation
without contemplation and with a heedless heart. At-Tirmidhī and al-
Ḥākim reported that God’s Messenger (God bless him and give him peace)
said: “And do know that God does not answer the prayers emanating from
a heedless heart.”
