Abstaining for the Sake of Allah

The eleventh form of worship in ṣalāh, for which additional ḥasanāt are given, is abstinence: abstinence from the normal things one would otherwise do — eating, drinking, or engaging in intimacy in its ḥalāl form. One stops oneself; one abstains, because one is in ṣalāh. It is like the month of Ramaḍān — may Allah (swt) let us reach it, ballighnā Ramaḍān. When Ramaḍān comes, even the ḥalāl things — water during the day, the food one enjoys, which is ḥalāl — become ḥarām, and cannot be touched until the time of ifṭār, the time of Maghrib. Similarly in ṣalāh one cannot eat, cannot chew, cannot sing, cannot do the things one wants to do. As soon as the hands are raised and Allāhu akbar is said, that is the takbīr taḥrīmah: the takbīr that makes everything else ḥarām, the ḥarām takbīr. Allāhu akbar means: from this moment onwards, I make everything ḥarām upon myself except the worship of Allah (swt). Because one abstains in this way from the ḥalāl things during ṣalāh, Allah (swt) gives extra ḥasanāt, extra reward, for that abstinence. SubḥānAllāh. And when one abstains from maḥārim Allāh, the ḥarām things of Allah, for the sake of Allah (swt), what is the reward? As Allah (swt) says in Sūrat al-Nāziʿāt:

When a person, out of fear of Allah (swt), out of respect for Allah (swt), controls the temptations, the wants, the whims and the wishes of his nafs and does not give in to it, then surely for such people the reward is none other than Jannat al-Maʾwā. SubḥānAllāh. So what happens in ṣalāh? If somebody offers a person his favourite drink, or ice cream, will he eat it, will he drink it, even though he is thirsty, in ṣalāh? He cannot; it is ḥarām. Allāhu akbar — finished; khalāṣ. For this particular abstinence, this self-restraint, this self-control, because one fears Allah, Allah (swt) says that the reward is Jannah.