Advice from Imaam Ahmad...

“It has been reported in a Hadith that when the slave begins to pray, Allah turns His Countenance towards him and He does not turn away from him until he finishes, or turns to the right and left.

It is mentioned in the Hadith that so long as the slave remains in prayer, he retains three qualities,

a) piety which is bestowed on him from the clouds in the sky to the parting in his hair,

b) angels surround him from around his feet to the clouds in the sky, and

c) a caller calls out, ‘If the slave knew in Whom he is confiding, he would never leave.’

So may Allah, the Almighty and All-Powerful, have mercy on the one who approaches prayer in submission, meekness and humility to Him, in fear and submissiveness, desiring (to please Him), dreading (His Anger), anxious and hopeful (of His reward), devoting most of his attention in prayer to his Lord, his confidence to Him and his standing before Him, his sitting, his bowing and his prostrating, for the purpose of which he empties his heart and strives to perform the obligatory acts which He has enjoined upon him, not knowing if he will offer another prayer after that one, or if he will die while he stands before his Lord, the All-Mighty and All-Powerful again, sad and pitiful, hoping that it will be accepted and fearing that it may be rejected. If He accepts it, he will be happy, and if He rejects it, he will be wretched.

What is of greater importance to you - o, my brother - in this prayer and in the rest of your deeds and those things that cause you worry, sadness, fear or apprehension and the other things which Allah has made incumbent upon you? You do not know if a prayer will ever be accepted from you, yet in spite of this, you laugh and you are careless. Yet camels will not benefit you when the certainty (death) comes to you. You are heading to the fire and certainty that you will come out of it has not come to you. So who has more right to your tears and long sadness than you, that Allah may accept it from you? Then, in addition to this, you do not know whether or not you will wake up in the morning when you go to sleep at night, nor whether you will see another evening when you wake up in the morning, after which you will be given the tidings of Paradise or you will be given the tidings of the Fire.

I have only reminded you - o my brother - of this danger. It will be useless of you to be happy with family or wealth. Your long disregard and carelessness in this important matter and your diversion from it is a most amazing thing, while you are being driven on harshly (to your destiny) with every day and night - indeed, every hour and every blink of the eye.

So expect that your time may come, o my brother, and do not be disregardful of this great danger which hangs over you, for sooner or later you must taste death. It may descend upon you in your home, in the morning or the evening; its advent is the easiest thing, upon which it will be as if you have been removed from all of your world and robbed of it. Then you will go on to either Paradise or to the Fire and all the events of your life will be ended, stories finished, everything you wanted to do until the moment of death is over.

Have you not heard, o my brother, the words of the righteous slave, ‘I am amazed how the one who would flee from the Fire sleeps, and I am amazed how the one who would seek Paradise sleeps’?”

[From Imam Ahmad’s ٍRisaalat as-Salaah, pp 18-19]