The Benefit of Consistency and Preservation of Voluntary Prayers Alongside the Obligatory Ones

The Shaykh : ... And when we remember that But these praying people, as came in another authentic hadith, their prayer is not free from deficiency, either in quantity or in quality, either in quantity or in quality. Either they neglect something of its obligatory acts, failing to perform it at its times, or they preserve it and perform it at its times, but they fall short in its quality. Both types of deficiency are not free from humanity in general, though individuals among them differ. If—and I hope I am precise in my statement, if, and I do not say "if it were"—if among these people there is one who preserves the performance of the prayers at their times and does not neglect any of the prayers at all, they are all not free from neglecting something of its attributes and qualities. If that is the case, then here comes his statement (peace and blessings be upon him): Where did the other half go? Behind the crops, behind the livestock, behind the trade, behind the engineering, and so on. And this is inevitable because he is a human being. And our Lord (Mighty and Majestic), when He described the believers, among the first of their attributes He said: So who among us can judge today that in his prayer he obtains the reward completely, one hundred percent, one hundred? No one. Who among us can say about himself today that he is humble in his prayer? "Humble" as a necessary attribute, whereas "humble" meaning he became humble, then no one of us is free, if Allah wills, from becoming humble in some prayer and on some day. But that it be a necessary attribute for him, that he is humble in his prayer, that is, as they used to say in the past: "rarer than red sulfur." If this is the nature of humanity in general, that their prayer is deficient, by what is this deficiency made up? By the voluntary prayers. And there is no doubt that these prayers will be like the obligatory ones, meaning they will have deficiency in them, but what is in them of perfection is added to the deficiency that occurred in the obligatory prayer. And from here it becomes clear to you the importance of his statement (peace and blessings be upon him) when he says that Allah (Mighty and Majestic) says to the angels: So the intended meaning of this, finally, is that it is obligatory for the Muslim to make his habit the habit of that Bedouin who said: That is because that Bedouin, first, was upon the fitrah, and second, the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) testified for him by saying: , As for us today, we do not have such a testimony to be said about us as was said about that Bedouin, or as was said about Hatib ibn Balta'ah: We are not there. And therefore, we must pay attention, in the expression of those—and I seek refuge in Allah from their expression, and I do not say "from those"—we must pay attention to the kernel and the husk, because the husk was not legislated in vain, just as it was not created in vain, but rather to preserve the kernel .