This series explores ways to attain forgiveness. Part one explored some of these opportunities to get rid of our sins. In this article we see how prayers can also wipes out our sins.

Through this series you will notice that ways of forgiveness are so many and diverse in terms of their types and times.

In other words, if you are really interested in living a constantly clean life, you can do it. If  you wish to have the stains of sins removed from your records promptly, the task is easy. The ways to achieve that are numerous.

Before moving further to discuss more forgiveness means, one point needs to be emphasized here. Although the ways to Allah’s pardon are paved and the access to it is made easy, many of us fail to take advantage of them.

That is a symptom of the ghaflah (heedlessness) ailment which turns the human into an aimless machine that only cares about the joys of the world and neglects the true, everlasting life.

So, no matter how easy to get the blessing of forgiveness, without taking the matter seriously and paying heed to the importance of being forgiven; without realizing the dangerous threat of sins and, thus, working diligently to get rid of them, you will most likely lose those forgiveness opportunities. In such a case you need to be alarmed because you might be not sufficiently qualified to be pardoned.

5 Daily Prayers: Packages of forgiveness


Now, let’s get back to our topic. This article will focus on Salah and its related activities. It is amazing how many opportunities of forgiveness are available to us on daily bases through Prayers. At every stage of Salah, there is a chance of forgiveness: Wudu’, walking to the Masjid, praying and repeating the After-Salah dhikr (Allah’s remembrance)

1. Wudu’: Washing up Body and Soul 

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`Abdullah As-Sunabihi reported that the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) said:

“When the believing servant performs Wudu’and rinses his mouth, his sins come out from his mouth.

When he sniffs water into his nose and blows it out, his sins come out from his nose.

When he washes his face, his sins come out from his face, even from beneath his eyelashes.

When he washes his hands, his sins come out from his hands, even from beneath his fingernails.

When he wipes his head, his sins come out from his head, even from his ears.

When washes his feet, his sins come from his feet, even from beneath his toenails.

Then his walking to the Masjid and his Salah will earn extra merit for him.” (An-Nasa’i and authenticated by Al-Albani)

2. Walking to the Masjid: Steps to Forgiveness


Abu Hurairah (may Allah be pleased with him) narrated that the Prophet said:

“When one of you performs ablution and does it well, then he comes to the mosque for no other purpose than prayer, he does not take one step but Allah raises him in status one degree thereby, and takes away one of his sins, until he enters the mosque.

When he enters the mosque he is in a state of prayer so long as he is waiting for the prayer.’” (Ibn Majah and authenticated by Al-Albani)

3. Prayers: Guaranteed Purification


Abu Hurairah narrated that the Prophet said:

“Do you think that if there was a river by the door of any one of you, and he bathed in it five times each day, would there be any trace of dirt left on him?”

They said: “No trace of dirt would be left on him.”

The Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) commented: “That is the likeness of the five daily prayers. By means of them, Allah erases sins.” (Al-Bukhari and Muslim)

4. After-Salah Dhikr: Endless Opportunities

Prayer Is Better Than Sleep

Abu Hurairah reported that the Prophet said:

He who repeats after every prayer:

Subhan Allah (Allah is free from imperfection) thirty-three times,

Al-hamdu lillah (praise be to Allah) thirty-three times,

Allahu Akbar (Allah is Greatest) thirty-three times;

and completes the hundred with:

La ilaha illallahu, wahdahu la sharika lahu, lahul-mulku wa lahul-hamdu, wa Huwa `ala kulli shai’in qadir

(There is no true god except Allah. He is One and He has no partner. His is the sovereignty and His is the praise, and He is Omnipotent)

will have all his sins pardoned even if they may be as large as the foam on the surface of the sea. (Muslim)

5. An Open Door for Forgiveness


Zaid ibn Khalid al-Juhani (may Allah be pleased with him) reported that the Messenger of Allah said:

He who performs wudu’ well, and then offers two rak`ahs of prayers during which (he is so attentive that) he does not forget (anything in it), will be forgiven all his past sins. (Abu Dawud and classified as Hasan by Al-Albani)

Finally, to gain the above reward, we need to focus on the quality of our prayers and the acts of worship preceding/succeeding it. To remove a difficult stain, you need a powerful and effective detergent. To maximize your prayer’s power, you need to perform it in the best possible way in terms of concentration, humbleness and sincerity. Paying due attention to that will gain you continuous cleanliness throughout your life insha Allah.

In Islamic tradition, Muslims perform five formal prayers at specified times each day. For people who miss a prayer for any reason, the tradition allows the prayer to be made up at a later time; without it automatically counting as a sin that cannot be rectified.

The schedule of Muslim prayer is generous and flexible. Five prayers must be performed during various periods of time throughout the day; the time needed to perform each prayer is minimal. Yet many Muslims miss one or more prayers on some days, sometimes for unavoidable reasons; but sometimes due to negligence or forgetfulness.

One should try to pray within the specified times. There is wisdom in the Islamic prayer schedule, which sets periods to “take a break” and remember Allah’s blessings and to seek his guidance.

The Scheduled Prayers for Muslims


Here are the five daily prayers scheduled for Muslims:

Fajr: The predawn prayer, to be performed in the period just before dawn breaks.

Dhuhr: The midday prayer, which starts after the sun passes its zenith and lasts almost 20 minutes.

Asr: The afternoon prayer, which starts when the shadow of an object is the same length as the object itself.

Maghrib: The sunset prayer, which begins when the sun sets and lasts till the red light has left the sky in the west.

Isha’: The night prayer, which starts when the red light is gone from the western sky. The preferred time for Isha’ to start is before midnight, halfway between sunset and sunrise.

The Procedure if a Prayer is Missed


If a prayer is missed, it is common practice among Muslims to make it up as soon as it is remembered or as soon as they are able to do so. This is known as Qada. For example, if one misses the noon prayer because of a work meeting that could not be interrupted, one should pray as soon as the meeting is over. If the next prayer time has already come, one should first perform the prayer that was missed and immediately after reciting the “on time” prayer.

A missed prayer is a serious event for Muslims, and not one that should be dismissed as inconsequential. Practicing Muslims are expected to acknowledge every missed prayer and to make it up according to accepted practice. While it is understood that there are times when prayer is missed for unavoidable reasons, it is regarded as a sin if one misses prayers regularly without a valid reason— for example, constantly oversleeping the pre-dawn prayer.

However, in Islam, the door to repentance is always open. The first step is to make up the missed prayer as soon as possible. One is expected to repent any delay due to negligence or forgetfulness and is encouraged to commit to developing a habit of performing the prayers within their prescribed time frame.

Other Prayers


Other prayers, called du’a, are described as personal prayers. They may be performed for specific purposes: to request forgiveness from Allah if one has sinned, for example, or to ask Allah to heal someone who is sick. They may be performed at any time and in any language, though one may choose a particular prayer common to the Islamic tradition.

Today we engage in prayer but a lot of us are guilty of just picking the ground like a little bird. We just pick the ground a few times and we are out! What did you do brother? I don’t know!

You ask people who have reverted to Islam, they will tell you: “I don’t understand this prayer.” Because nobody has ever tried to understand the words you are saying.

Understand Your Prayer


I challenge you and I call upon you very strongly to make an effort to understand the words you are saying in Salah; your life will change.

Come on, we are living for 30, 40, 50 years… how can I not yet know the words of Salah? That is an embarrassment!

I am standing in front of my maker, I know the words in Arabic but I haven’t understood their meanings, and I’ve been reading Salah for the last 40…

Close your business for one week and go and learn the meanings of prayer. It is far more profitable than whatever you would make for that week.

And this is a challenge.

This is why we are not happy, this is why we take a look at the smallest pinprick that we have on our toes and we become depressed, because we haven’t understood prayer and Allah says:

Oh you who believe seek assistance through bearing patience and through your prayer. Allah is indeed with those who bear patience.

How will we be able to seek assistance through prayer when we don’t even know the words we are uttering? We don’t know the meanings of what we are saying in prayer.

Read Also: 5 Tips That Helped Me Connect with Allah in Prayer


Believe me, I have asked the question to many Muslims brothers: “Do you know the meanings of the words you are reading in Salah?” And the majority said, “No.”

When are we going to change that? How can the condition of the Ummah change when you are so many years old you have studied your PhD, you have so many degrees and you are not interested in trying to understand the words that Allah has made incumbent upon you to repeat so many times a day.

And we just fulfill prayer without knowing what we did. We enter the Mosque, we exit it in a spiritual condition lower than when we went in…

Because to us we had our cigarettes in our pockets and we went to the Mosque so we can smoke with our friends, and backbite about the rest of the community…

That is our visit to the house of Allah nowadays in some instances.

The solution to the disasters we face today is connected to your prayer.

Allah says:

Seek assistance through patience and through Salah. (Quran 2:153)

Ahmed (his Muslim name) is originally from East Timor, a small country in Southeast Asia that gained its independence from Indonesia in 2002. He embraced Islam after a strange incident during a serious illness.

We Were Catholic

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I was born and grew up in East Timor, a small island East of Indonesia. This island was a Portuguese colony. Therefore, most people followed the former colonizers in the Catholic religion. My family is Catholic as well.

The economic situation in my home country has always been rather unstable. And I left home early to earn a livelihood. I lived in Jakarta, the Indonesian capital, and also stayed in other parts of Indonesia. One day I received a good offer to work in a town in South Sumatra.

My Muslim Friend Prayed for Me


I went to South Sumatra and started working there. I shared a room with a Muslim fellow worker. We got along well. He was a kind person and we became friends.

Indonesians usually do not have a problem with people with a different religion than their own. Sometimes, my room-mate would perform his prayer in the room. And after the prayer he would make dua mentioning my name.

He regularly read the Quranic chapter of Ya-Sin. After reading it, he would also mention my name. He did this every time and eventually I wanted to know why he always mentioned my name after his prayer.

“You are my friend and fellow human. I want the best for you. That is why I pray for you.”

I was touched by his explanation. And it opened my heart to try and learn about Islam.

I Started Reading Chapter Ya-Sin

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When my room-mate was not home, I would take his little Ya-Sin booklet and read the transliteration in Latin script. I liked it and I continued reading it regularly. After reading I would make supplication as I learned in Sunday school when I still lived at home in East Timor.

A Serious Illness


Then, one day I become seriously ill. I had a high fever and felt very weak. I could barely walk from my room to sit on the small terrace in front of it.

My friend had left to pray in the mosque. I sat in a reclining chair in front of our room. It was the time for the after-sunset-prayer. The call for prayer had started. I was awake and pondered my difficult health situation.

A Strange Incident


All of a sudden, I heard an old man’s voice near my right ear: “Get up and hurry to where the call for prayer comes from. There you will find peace and tranquility.”

I looked to my right side but nobody was there. Then I heard an old woman’s voice near my left ear saying: “Listen to what the grandfather said. Get up and go.”

I looked to my left but nobody was there. I started feeling nervous and became a bit frightened. Then the old man’s voice appeared again: “Go, my son. You are healed.”

After these words I got up. And I am telling the truth, I felt my illness was gone. And I ran to the mosque and joined the prayer. I never left a prayer since then. Alhamdulilah. This is now twenty years ago.

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Meeting the Family


When I went home for the first time after being away for ten years, my family was overjoyed. They organized a big gathering and slaughtered a pig as a sign of thanksgiving as is the custom in East Timor.

That is when I had to tell my family that I became Muslim. And therefore could not join them in eating the pig. I told them that I don’t care what they say or if they want to kill me because I had found the truth.

They were furious. And I had to run away. I hid in the mosque until after the evening prayer. Then I returned home, I went to my room and locked the door. In the morning, I told them again that I don’t care. That I will not change my religion.

My mother calmed everybody down, especially my older and younger brothers who felt they needed to defend our family’s honor.

She asked if I was happy. I told her yes. Then we hugged. And everybody else followed her peacemaking. Alhamdulillah.

Studying Islam


After embracing Islam, I left work for six months and studied full time in a traditional Islamic boarding school, where I learned all the important basics and how to read Quran. I also got married. And my wife has been one of my teachers in Islam.