Good Sleep, Good Health, and Tahajjud: Sh. Yaser Birjas

Our very own Shaykh Yaser Birjas posted a short video, which we at MM thought was a reminder important enough to share.

The Prophet (ṣallallāhu 'alayhi wa sallam) said,
“The best ṣalāh after the obligatory/farḍ ṣalāh is the qiyām'l-layl.“

“Good Sleep, Good Health, and Tahajjud” In 3 Minutes!! By Shaykh Yaser Birjas

But we might be thinking, “Who am I to make qiyām'l-layl?  I haven't memorized nearly enough to do that on my own!”

I took Fiqh of Salah in SoCal with Shaykh Yaser Birjas last year, and a convert asked the question, “How can I make qiyām'l-layl when I only know one or two sūrahs?” His response was, “Stand there and read 'Qul huwa Allāhu aḥad' 50 times in one rak'ah if you have to.”

We shouldn't let the amount of Qurʾān we've memorized keep us from making tahajjud /qiyām'l-layl / night prayer. The important thing to remember is that with making qiyām, we are supposed to stand for a long time and recite whatever we know, even if it's just a few sūrahs on repeat. Imagine how much Allāh would love for us to be so excited to make qiyām and to stand there in front of Him, even if it means that we just end up reading that sūrah (or any other sūrah) over and over again!!

Bilāl (raḍyAllāhu 'anhu) was asked by one of the ṣaḥābi, “When you were being tortured, why did you keep saying 'aḥadun, aḥadun (one, one)'?”  He responded by saying, “If I had known anything else at the time, I would have said it.“

Bilāl (raḍyAllāhu 'anhu) was one of the greatest companions of the Prophet (ṣallallāhu 'alayhi wa sallam) and one of the men who left behind one of his own practices in ṣalāh that earned him a special place in Jannah and one that the Prophet (ṣallallāhu 'alayhi wa sallam) himself asked him about and accepted into his own Prophetic Sunnah that we still follow today (making 2 rak'ah ṣalāh every time after making wuḍū'.)

If Bilāl (raḍyAllāhu 'anhu) had to put to use what little he had at the beginnings of his growth in Islam, who are we to feel too insignificant or not good enough or not qualified enough and not use what we've got? And who are we to not continue to keep growing, to not want to grow into the kind of Muslim that Bilāl (raḍyAllāhu 'anhu) was?

Don't forget! Short days. Long nights. We all have something to pray for.