Surah Bakarah:43-46

These ayahs provide us with tremendous amount of advice concerning the deen.  If you can inculcate the advice of these ayah’s in your life you will be able to make tremendous progress in the deen. 

To do Salah: means a particular act of worship done in order to lower ones self before their Lord and to praise and raise the name of their Creator

Iqeemu means to straighten your Salah or establish Salah correctly and consistently

• We need to understand that Salah is a verb or an act that needs to be corrected, straightened, reflected upon, and established.

This command includes everything that surrounds the salah i.e. correctly performing the rituals of Wudoo, Azaan, observing the right times, praying in the right direction, ensuring purity of self, sincerity in the performance of Salah

Another point here is that each deed has effects and the means of understanding the effects of whether the deed is done properly is to see the effects of the deed. 

• If you are performing your Salah correctly than you will be unable to do bad deeds.  If you continue to do things that you identify as “bad” than your salah isn’t working.  It’s like bulb.  If you turn it on it should light up.  If it doesn’t than something is wrong with the bulb.  In the same way if you pray, you should stop doing bad things.  If you don’t, something is wrong with your Salah.
• The Prophet (SAW) said that the Salah is the mi’raj of the Mumin.  If you perform salah correctly you should feel closer to Allah.  If you don’t something is wrong with the Salah. 

The word Zakat means to grow or purify our wealth.  A way by which we purify our wealth and allow the benefit of barakah (blessing) to growing our wealth.  

One of the greatest mercies of Allah is that he has provided us with a means to purify our selves and start anew.  No matter how much sin, kufr or disobedience of Allah you engage in, Allah always leaves the door of mercy open for you to do astaghfar and purify yourself. 

• In the previous generations when people made mistakes the only way to purify  and redeem themselves was to sacrifice themselves

As a human being our wealth picks up impurities. 

• A time will come when even the best person will not be able to avoid the dust of Reba (interest)
  

When you give Zakat you are ridding your self of the impurities in your wealth. 

Zakat cannot be given to the following:  your family, the family of the Prophet, the mosque

Whenever you purify something, Allah’s mercy and blessings descend upon it.  So when you purify your wealth, Allah’s blessings come to the wealth making it grow.  So that whatever is purchased with this wealth is beneficial for the person who spends it. 

If you find that no matter how much money you make it seems to disappear then there is a problem in your Zakat.  You may not be calculating it correctly.

This command was new to the Bani Israel.  Although they had been required to pray and give Zakat, their zakat included Qiyyam (standing) and Sujood (Prostration) but did not include Ruku
Allah is telling the Bani Israel that they need to join the Muslims. 
For muslims this means that muslims should bow down in prayer together in Jamaa.  Salah in Jamat is Sunnat alMukaidah, an emphasized Sunnah.  This is a Sunnah that you must do unless you can provide a valid excuse for not doing it.  If you do not have an excuse you will be held accountable.

Hadith: Abdullah bin Masood Narrates:  A man who desires to meet Allah as a true Muslim, has to offer his five Salah in the place where the Azan is regularly called.  Allah laid down and established for H. Muhammad (SAW) certain Sunan Al Huda i.e. essensial ways of guidance.  Praying in Jama’a is one of the Sunanan Huda.  If you start to leave your Salah in Jama’a, then know that you will be leaving the Sunnah of the Prophet (SAW) and know that the person who leaves the Sunnah of the Prophet he eventually goes astray.  A person who makes Wodou and walks to the masjid receives three benefits.  First, one sin is removed for every step they take, second, one good deed is written for ever step they take, and third they gain a rank with Allah for each step they take.  During our time, not a single person offered prayer away from the masjid except the hypocrite so much so that if a person was sick somebody would carry him to the masjid so he could pray in the Jama’a. 

• Make your Wudoo before coming to the masjid
• Sunnah to walk to the masjid. Driving doesn’t could as foot steps.  In another Hadith the Prophet said that a person who comes to the masjid on a mount doesn’t receive the above blessings

Preaching what you don’t practice is a characteristic that is  despicable to Allah

Bani Israel: Had a book from which they taught, but would not practice it themselves

Hadith: Anas (RA) narrates when the Prophet (SAW) was taken on the Miraj he was allowed to see the people of Jannah and was given a distant exposure of what Jahanum might be. In this journey the Prophet passed by different groups of people who were being punished.  One group of people were having their tongues cut by scissors of fire.  When the Prophet (SAW) asked Jibrael (RA) who these people were, he was told that these were people who preached but did not practice what they preached.
This should not act as a deterrent to preaching. It is simply important to practice what we preach not to stop preaching

Ayahs  43 and 44 are a burdensome weight of responsibility on any human.  So here Allah gives us advise on how to uphold this responsibility: by the means of patience and prayer

Three types of patience

• To be patient in the time of difficulty:  Here the point is that when you have a test or difficulty that befalls you, you do not complain and know that Allah will rectify the problem and to know that you are Allah’s servant and all that comes from Allah is for the best
• To have patience in your obedience: being consistent in any good deed you do despite the difficulties and challenges of continuing to do so.
• To have patience in staying away from bad things: continually avoiding situation that cause you to do bad deeds

Purpose of patience:  Patience restricts desires.  In order to understand this we need to understand the nature of spirituality.  A person consists of the body and soul.  The nature of the soul is that it loves to do good such as worship Allah, give Zakat, care for people etc.  The nature of the body is that it loves to consume anything and everything, it likes to do what it wants to do and when it wants to do it.  It is ruled by the nafs or desire. 

Example:  Ramadan.  Most people agree that Ramadan is the most spiritual month of the year.  What people don’t realize is that it is spiritual because you crush your nafs by not eating, by giving away money and not sleeping etc. When this is combined with reading Quran, praying, meeting with muslims regularly etc. your soul is fed and thus elevated

Salah is the greatest kind of Patience because when you stand up in prayer you restrict the nafs

• You start by doing Takbir Tehrima or the Takbir (raising your hands to your ears) that makes everything that you normally do to Haraam until you say your salam because after you do your Takbir, you will not be able to eat, look around, think about whatever you want otherwise your prayer will not be accepted
• On the other hand your soul is fed during the Salah because the mercy of Allah comes down on it
• If you keep doing Salah you will be able to tame your nafs to get pleasure from good things and it will be aligned with the desire of your soul

After explaining the patience and Salah, Allah explains that obtaining this level of spirituality is hard for every one except for the people who have Khushu (restfulness of the heart and body).  It is the nature of the mNafs to move and jump.  But the true benefit of the deen can be realized through restfulness.

Khushu arises from the greatness of Allah and our understanding of our own insignificance.

Realize that you are given reward for salah in the amount of Khushu that you had.  So if you had Khushu for ½ of your Salah your receive reward for ½ of your slaah.  If you had no Khushu, you receive no reward and the salah is flung back in your face like a dirty cloth.

Here Allah tells us HOW to obtain the Khushu required for blessings to count.

In order to obtain Khushu you must reflect upon the fact that you will meet your creator one day. 

Sitting and reflecting is known as  muraqbah (meditation)

Muraqabah results in patience which results in Khushu