Allahu Akbar… Allahu Akbar…”
I hear the adhan through the windows of my office, and I see the pop up on my computer, “It’s time for dhuhr prayer.”
Few minutes earlier, I just started getting into the flow of my work and I don’t want the momentum to be lost. So I tell myself, “I still got 20 minutes until iqama ti2me. Let me wrap this up and I will make it in time, in sha Allah.”
25 minutes later, I know salah started and I am frantically trying to send that last e-mail before rushing off to make a quick wudhu and join the prayers. I am late, again!
And this was not only for zuhr prayer, but for all 5 daily prayers: late for fajr because I woke up late, late for zuhr and ‘asr because of work, late for maghreb because of rush hour, late for ‘isha because of dinner!
And each time I was late, I felt bad, and told myself, “This is the last time I will ever be late!” And guess what? For the next salah, I was late again. In fact, I was the brother who seemed to have a permanent position in the last rows of every musalla/masjid I entered.
Initially, I was taking this lateness lightly. In fact, I fell into the classic trap of shaytaan and said to myself: “Alhamdulillah, brother, at least, you pray, and in the masjid as well! Masha Allah, how many brothers are out there who do not pray in the masjid, or pray at all!” But slowly I realised, this lateness was making an impact on my spirituality and character, and affecting my overall productivity.
Why being chronically late for salah is bad for you?
When you are always late for salah, it says a lot about you and your character.3 It shows that you lack discipline, internal strength, and integrity to be where you are supposed to be ‘on time’ for your most important appointments of the day, and you are not dependable. No one likes to say about themselves that they are not dependable or lack discipline, but actions speak louder than words, and being late for salah is the first warning that you are on a slippery slope towards being chronically late in everything else in your life.قالُ الحَسنُ البَصري: إذَا هَانَت عَليكَ صَلاتك فَمَا الذي يَعـزُ عَليـكْ ؟!! .بقدر ماتتعدل صلاتك تتعدل حياتك ألم تعلم أن الصلاة اقترنت بالفــلاح … “حي على الصــــــــلاة حي على الفـــلاح”، ، فكيف تطلب من الله التوفيق وأنت لحقه غير مجيب Al-Hasan Al-BasriIf you are wondering why there is a delay in your sustenance, in your marriage, in your work, in your health, look into your salah: are you delaying it?8said: “When salah is the least of your concerns, then what is your most important concern? As much as you fix your salah, your life will be fixed. Did you not know that salah was equated with Success: ‘Come to Prayer, Come to Success.’ How can you ask Allah
for success when you are not responding to His right upon you?”
Why are we late for salah?
When I started looking deeper into myself and asked myself why am I ALWAYS late for salah, it boiled down to 3 spiritual reasons and 3 practical reasons:Spiritual reasons
- Lack of understanding of who Allah is: My lateness for salah was, unfortunately, a sign that I had not understood who Allah is. I failed to comprehend His Power and Majesty. You probably have heard the cliche’ example of “If you are invited by the King or the President or the Prime Minister of a country, would you not attend in your best manners, best clothes, and very early? How come when Allah , the King of kings, invites us for salah, we do not take this invitation seriously?” I will go a bit deeper than this and say, ‘If we truly have faith in the unseen and have faith in the Messenger
of Allah telling us that Allah wants us to meet Him 5 times every day in our salah, then we should take salah more seriously.’ - Lack of appreciation of the gift of salah: It always fascinates me how salah is the ONLY OBLIGATION that was revealed to Prophet Muhammad in the Heavens during the Israa and Mir’aj journey. Every other obligation was revealed here on earth. It is as if Allah is sending the message that salah is so important that He wants to gift it personally to Prophet Muhamad and his Ummah. When we are late for salah, what does that tell us about our appreciation of this gift from Allah ?
- Lack of knowledge of the relation between salah and rizq (sustenance) : The number one excuse people (including myself) use for being late for salah is that they are chasing after their sustenance. You hear excuses such as “I have a meeting…”, “I have an important call…”, “I have a lecture…” etc. What we fail to realise is that by delaying our salah and taking salah so lightly, the barakah is being removed from our sustenance even if we make material gain during the period we miss salah. Allah Ar-Razzaq says in the Qur’an:
was asked: “What did Messenger of Allah 
