The Key to Paradise

As a seventh virtue, the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) says: al-ṣalātu miftāḥ al-jannah. Ṣalāh is the access code, the secret PIN number, the key to Jannah. Consider the opposite. A person who has no ṣalāh has no access code; a person who does not pray has no key to Jannah. What does that mean? Without the keys to Jannah, where does one go in the hereafter? Jahannam — because there is no purgatory in Islam. There is no limbo land. One stays either in Jannah or in Jahannam. In a hotel one is given a card — a magnetic card, a key card — and it is swiped. What happens if the door does not open? There are two possibilities. Either the card is being swiped at the wrong door — check the number — or the key does not work: it has not been activated yet; it has not been properly magnetised. Where does one have to go? Back to the reception, to get a new card, a new key. The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) says that the only thing which will work to open the gates of Jannah is ṣalāh. Here ṣalāh is the first thing. If ṣalāh is not there, then that is that: there is no Jannah for anyone — naʿūdhu billāh.