Home PodcastAshraf Garda How to keep your focus and honour tarawih salaah

How to keep your focus and honour tarawih salaah

by Luqmaan Rawat

Johannesburg – The blessed month of Ramadan comes with its own benefits. One of them is being able to listen to the entire Quraan during tarawih salaah. However, at times we lack concentration, and this blessing is not fully attained.

Tarawih is a salaah that happens during the month of Ramadan and as such, we should take full advantage and blessings of it. It is also a prayer that can last for more than an hour, sometimes our concentration can break, and we find ourselves daydreaming about something else while we are in salah. Maulana Abdurahman Laily offered some tips to ensure we keep our focus during this beautiful salah.

“The first thing would be that we appreciate why it is that we observe salah-tul-tarawih. The aspects of it being a sunnah [habitual practice of Muhammed (SAW)], for the pleasure of Allah (SWT). The idea of this being one of the easiest attainable opportunities to fulfil the rights of Al-Quraan.”

The Quraan is the speech of Allah (SWT) and it has many rights over a Muslim. Some of them are to believe it as it should be believed, to act on the commands that are in the Quraan and to recite the Quraan. This right can be fulfilled during Ramadan explained Maulana Laily.

“According to some of the jurists [Islamic experts] is that we at minimum complete one khatam, one complete round of recitation of the Quraan in the month of Ramadan and then beyond that one complete recitation of Quraan out of the month of Ramadan. This is the bare minimum as a right of the Quraan. When we approach salaah-tul-tarawih with this idea, that this is the opportunity easily attainable for me to be able to complete this right of the Quraan, already the mindset kind of changes to ‘I got to do this, I got to give it my all’.”

That’s one of the first things. The next is to try and get an understanding of what is going to be read during the salah. Usually, it is already known how much of the Quraan will be recited during the tarawih prayers, it is valuable to then read the tafsir on the chapters recited or sit in on the post tarawih tafsir talk.

“We pre-prepare. How do we do this? Either we read a synopsis and no, not listen to, we read a synopsis of what’s going to be covered that evening, so we have some understanding of the subject matter. If we have a little bit more time available, then we go beyond reading synopsis and we read the actual translation of what’s going to be covered that evening. We then start looking out for some of the highlights in that evening’s salah-tul-tarawih. If mention is made of a particular Prophet, a particular incident in history, particularly aspects that are covered in Islamic jurisprudence, etc. We’re looking out for that and you’re asking how? We all know simple words like salaah, zakat, Hajj. We look for those particular words and create that anticipation within ourselves and we want to hear that portion so that we can connect with it.”

It could also help to remember that this blessing comes only once a year. Life is extremely short and as Ulama have repeatedly mentioned, there is no guarantee that you will be around for the next Ramadan. Take motivation that many people would love to be in your place, but they have departed from this world.

Another thing that draws our mind and concentration away from salah is our worldly problems. Our minds will shift to our businesses, family problems, money problems and other problems. Before you step into the masjid, clear your mind of all these thoughts and then clear your mind again before you start your salaah.

We all want our duas [prayers] to be accepted by Allah (SWT) and one way to attain this is by paying attention during the salah.

Maulana Laily explained, “Allah Subhanahu wa ta’ala is As-Sami’ as the Ever Listening and All-Hearing is attentive to our Duas and supplications all the time. But appreciating that when I’m attentive to Allah’s speech upon me, which is Al-Quraan then my duas are going to be inspired and infused with the same type of narrative that stems from Allah Subhanahu wa ta’ala. If I’m attentive in listening to Quraan, then Insha’Allah [If Allah wills] my duas will be inspired by that and hopefully Allah (SWT) will be more accepting of my duas and them being answered sooner rather than later.”

This is the first Ramadan in two years that one can read with some sense of normality with the previous two years being affected by Covid laws and regulations. This blessed salah has once again been granted to us and it will be a great shame if we do not honour it as it is supposed to be honoured.

The Ashraf Garda Show featured Maulan Abdurahman Laily, listen here:

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