Daily Salat Part 2
Section 18 of 23 · Faraid in Islam · Ustadh Mahmud Kurkcu
Gratitude to Allah and to Parents
Immediately after īmān — belief in the unseen — what is the next quality of a Muslim that Allah (swt) mentions? They establish ṣalāh, on a regular basis, for the rest of their lives. Īmān and ṣalāh are always mentioned together. And they are those who spend, in the path of Allah (swt), from the things that Allah (swt) has given them. Certain pairs are mentioned constantly in the Qur'an: īmān and ṣalāh; ṣalāh and zakāh. There is one more pair that Allah (swt) mentions in the Qur'an:
وَوَصَّيْنَا ٱلْإِنسَـٰنَ بِوَٰلِدَيْهِ حَمَلَتْهُ أُمُّهُۥ وَهْنًا عَلَىٰ وَهْنٍ وَفِصَـٰلُهُۥ فِى عَامَيْنِ أَنِ ٱشْكُرْ لِى وَلِوَٰلِدَيْكَ إِلَىَّ ٱلْمَصِيرُ
“We commanded man (to be good) in respect of his parents. His mother carried him (in her womb) despite weakness upon weakness, and his weaning is in two years. (We said to man,) “Be grateful to Me, and to your parents. To Me is the ultimate return.” (31:14)
Be grateful to Me; show gratitude to Me; be thankful to Me — and to your parents. It is farḍ to be thankful to Allah, and it is also farḍ to be thankful to one's parents. But young people do not understand this. They cannot comprehend it; it is too much for them. They will understand it when they grow older. When they grow older. But until then, this is the reality: Allah never separates shukr to Himself from shukr to one's parents. If a person is ungrateful to his parents, Allah (swt) does not accept his shukr at all. No ṣalāh, no prayer; no fasting; no jihād; no spending in the path of Allah (swt); not any khidmah, any service rendered to the Muslims — not an iota, not an atom's weight of it — will be accepted if one's parents are not happy with one, in ḥalāl things. In ḥalāl things. So this is another pair.
There is a hadith of the Prophet (peace be upon him) in which he said that after the tawḥīd of Allah (swt), Allah (swt) made nothing more dear to Him than a ṣalāh prayed on time. Ṣalāh. Ṣalāh is the first form of worship that Allah created. That is why some of the angels, when they are created, are created in such a manner that some of them are in constant rukūʿ, some in constant sujūd, some in constant qiyām, from the day they were created until eternity. They imitate the movements of ṣalāh — rukūʿ, sujūd, qiyām — constantly. There are angels always in sujūd, always in sajdah; angels always in rukūʿ, in bowing; and some of them in qiyām. So Allah (swt) loves ṣalāh. And after tawḥīd, proper belief in Allah, what is required of a muʾmin is his ṣalāh. It is a virtue.