Salaam Minara Family,

Starting off with a gem of a hadith today!

What a remarkable message of love ❣️

Shall we explore this hadith in layman terms?

Draw to mind one person you love very much. What is your duty toward them?

Perhaps it’s your child you bring to mind. You feed, clothe and shelter them. Perhaps you’re thinking of your dearest mother. You speak to her kindly, you run errands for her, you come when she calls you. Perhaps it’s your partner. You go out to work to provide for them or you maintain the house and nourish them with food you have cooked and the warmth you spread in the house.

Okay so you fulfil all your obligations 🙂 Alhamdulillah. You do this unthinkingly even, without hesitation. Our worlds would crumble without our obligations fulfilled.

But what about that steaming cup of tea you made so lovingly despite the tiredness you felt at the end of the day because you know your partner will relish it?

What about the long night you spent meticulously crafting a school project so that your little one would have something to share with his/her class the next day?

What about the gift you treated your mother with because you know she deserves so much?

The meal you made for a friend because they were considerably sick one day?

[Insert all your scenarios here - we could all collectively fill volumes of the deeds we have done for our loved ones alhamdulillah💌]

And what an honour to be able to do all of the above. What an honour to be driven by love.

What an honour to go above and beyond.

This is exactly what it means to pray our sunnah and nafl salah.

An absolute honour to give love and then to receive it - from our mortal loved ones, a smile of gratitude, a small gift to say thank you, a little du’a - or perhaps nothing at all because we humans can be forgetful like that!

But to receive it from Allah, the Exalter, the Generous, the Enricher?

When we go above and beyond our obligations, we do so because we love. Similarly, when we offer sunnah and nawafil salah, we do so because we love.

Just like we yearn for the smile and appreciation of our loved ones on this earth, our sunnah prayers are an open declaration, a love letter if you will - of our yearning for His love. He does not need our love but we so need His.

May we all be enveloped in the Love of our Lord.

There are two types of sunnah prayers.

Sunnat-e-Muakkadah is an emphasised sunnah. Thought it doesn’t hold the same obligatory nature of a fardh salah, the Prophet never missed the sunnat-e-muakkadah salaah and missing these again and again without a valid excuse would prove to be sinful. These are as follows:

The Ghayr Muakkadah are as follows:

The Sunnat-e-Ghayr Muakkadah fall under the category of following the Prophet’s ﷺ manner of sitting, standing, combing his hair, eating, drinking, bathing and so on.

The Ghayr Muakkadah are not necessary to observe BUT if and when you do, you are in fact sharing the life of the noble Prophet ﷺ and the blessing that he received from Allah. Observing the sunnah erases the distance of time and place between us and our Prophet ﷺ. Our scarred hearts are alleviated and allayed by his quiet presence in our observance of his beautiful sunnah.

To sum up so far as to why we should observe our sunnah and optional prayers too?

These are all pretty convincing reasons to be reading our non-fardh salah right?!

And if these weren’t enough …. ⬇️

Aishah narrated that Allah’s Messenger ﷺ said:

Thawban, the freed slave of Allah’s Messenger ﷺ narrated from him:

Abu Huraira reported that he heard Allah’s Messenger ﷺ saying:

[Quick note, the above hadith can be found in full here].

In short, any fardh prayer found to be lacking on Judgement Day, Allah will command his angels to look to the optional prayers so that the blemishes may be mended. There is absolutely no end to Allah’s magnificent Mercy. May we all bask in it - aameen!

We most definitely haven’t done this topic justice. But insha Allah we are all walking away with a little bit of that sunnah mojo friends!

Speaking of walking…

Could we 360 back to our opening hadith for a sec?

Look at the language here ⬆️“drawing near.”

Allah doesn’t mention the destination - the person being in a state of something, or having acquired something - but rather the effort and exertion.

This is about the journey, not the state.

Minara’s philosophy exactly. We’re all here for the ride, the journey, the wayfaring.

We are not static photographs, but motion pictures in varying degrees of movement and change. The only constant is effort. We read a great analogy of riding a bicycle; if you don’t constantly exert energy and push while riding, the bike will fall.

Making an effort in both the obligatory and optional acts is the piston that keeps us evolving. Without them, we would be pictures - frozen in time, static and devoid of life.

And we know my friends - there is more life in us than that. 🦺

Leaving you with best wishes for a fruitful, sunnah-filled week,

The Minara Team