Islam Blog

This may seem like a very basic question to many. However, I’ve been pondering over this the past few days and I was trying to think of some of the (unfortunately) many reasons why Muslims don’t pray. The first thing that comes to my mind is that we can’t forget our loved ones when it comes to prayer. If you truly love someone, then you wouldn’t want them to go down a destructive path. So, first I’d ask myself, ‘Am I truly concerned about those Muslims who don’t pray? Especially those I love. Once the answer to this question is a strong ‘Yes,’ you should proceed with giving naseehah or advice. Being sure of and purifying your intention is most important as it will afford strength to your words.

Now, in most cases, you’ll need to start from the basics. I would first ask the question, ‘Why don’t you pray?’ The answer they give will determine where this discussion will head. Some possible reasons I can think of are Ignorance, Carelessness, or Defiance. It could be one of these or all of them or something different all together. The way you tackle this will depend on the reason. If it’s defiance, then we need to start at the real basics of ‘Do you believe in Allah , the Qur’an, the commands of Allah in the Qur’an’ and so forth. If it’s ignorance, an explanation of the ruling should suffice. If it’s carelessness, then warning against the consequences and educating them about the virtue of salah should help. As I said, the approach will depend on the reason.

Another point to note is that this ’soft’ approach can only be applied to those not under our guardianship. For those under our guardianship, or our ‘flock,’ the ‘hard’ approach coupled with some softness is necessary. This is because every person will be questioned about those in his/her charge. A man about his wife and children, a woman about her children. So here you need to cut down defiance with sternness.

The basic idea here is, don’t neglect those who you can advise, take care of those under your care. I would recommend that you read the ‘Ruling on one who neglects prayer’ in the Islam Basics section of this site.

If you’re careless about prayer, then get your act together. No point telling others do something you aren’t doing yourself.