Salat
All I was doing was smoking weed and fornicating.
Wallahi, I didn't give a care in the world. All I cared about was the next bluntn I'm going to take a drag on and the next femaled I'm going to fiddle with. Life consisted of idle matters for me, the same routine on and on. My grades in my first year of college was really poor and I had to be put on academic probation. And then I started getting into arguments with this man over silly stuff. Life was not looking very bright for me at all. Then one day I went to a close by neighborhood store called "Princess Market" to buy what I always buy, cheesesteak platter. I went inside the store and I went up to the counter to make my order. I saw this boy, which I later on found out his name was Salah. Salah was looking at his phone and had a huge smile on his face. Then when I asked him what he was smiling about he showed me the screen on his phone. Salah was watching a podcast about something Islamic. And then he said "Allah is great, isn't he brother?" I looked at him and told him that I wasn't Muslim. I've never really been the religious type. Whether or not God Exist did not really matter to me.
The wide smile that was across Salah's face instantly faded away and his mouth dropped. There was a long pause, then Salah rushed to the room in the back and came back a few seconds later. He was holding a green and black Qu'ran. He handed it to me and said "please brother, read" I was reluctant at first. Even though I love reading I didn't necesarrily like reading religious texts, I always found them to be boring. But I didn't want to seem rude to Salah so I took the Qur'an and promised him I would read it, even though I knew I wasn't.
I bought my cheesesteak platter and I went home and began eating, I was very ravenous. When I finished eating I laid down on my bed and started to stare to the ceiling, and while I was starring I drifted off to sleep. In my slumber I had a dream, well it wasn't really a dream. I don't know what it was really but for some reason all I could remember in the dream was seeing Salah. I woke up. what was that all about I began thinking? I had never had a dream like that or whatever it was. Then I started thinking about Salah. I started thinking about the book he gave me to read. I had told him that I was going to read it but intuitively I knew I wasn't. But I started thinking "hey why not, after all he did hook my cheesesteak up." I had placed it high above my closet in a space above all other things. Salah had told me once he gave me the Qu'ran to not mistreat it in any way and to always keep it in a high place. He told me that disrespecting that Qur'an will result in blasphemy
So I did just that, I placed the Qur'an in a high place and treated it with high respect. Because even though at the time I wasn't really sure about whether or not God existed, I was sure of one thing. If He does exist He is super powerful and He is absolutely Omnipotent. I began to read it, as I was reading the first few pages I realized something strange was happening to me. Tears was coming out of my eyes. I was absolutely bemused. What the heck is going on I was thinking? Now this wasn't the first time this had happened to me, normally when I'm laying down in an awkward position or so tears begin to fall out my eyes. But this wasn't the case, I was in an upright position, sitting up. Which really shocked me. So as I continued reading I began to be very interested in it. As I was reading it I learned that God in fact has Existence and He does not really ask us for much, He just asks that we be Muslims and do the obligations and avoid the sins. I was very much into it, and before I knew it I had finished almost a quarter of it. So that same day I quickly came out my room with the Qur'an in my hand and rushed to Princess Market to look for Salah.
He had gone home, the other guy who works at the store told me that Salah had gone home for the day and he won't be coming back till the next day. I was so bummed out. But nonetheless, he was going to be there the next day and I was going to see him. The next day comes and I rush over to Princess to talk to Salah. I see him and I rush over to him and tell him how much I love the Qur'an and wish to learn more. Salah was very happy for me. He told me the first step is to say my Shahada, he told me to come to the store the next day, Friday and I will go to the Mosque with him to say my Shahada. The next day comes and I go to the Mosque with Salah and his family members. We went to the Mosque and the Imam there told me to say the Shahada and I did.
I WAS NOW A MUSLIM
Salah then told me I have to start praying, it is imperative, and if I don't than I'm sinful. I certainly did not want to fall into sin so I decided to begin praying. But I didn't know any Surah or even how to pray and the movements. So I checked out some youtube videos to learn all the conditions and integrals of Salat, and after many hours I finally got it down. But still, I did not know the obligatory Surahs to say for the prayer like Surah Al-Fatiha and Tashahhud. So what I would do is I would take a pencil and paper and write out the whole Surahs and look at them while I was praying. And I would do that until I memorized them all and no longer needed the paper.
Two months later, after Salah took me to the Mosque and I said my Shahada and became a Muslim, I suffered a brain injury and had to be rushed to the hospital to undergo emergency surgery, and I was in a coma and had to have a feeding tube placed in my stomach and I was in the hospital for in patient for nearly two months. My eyesight, balance, speech ability, was all depleted and gone from about 90% functional to about 25%. My balance was really bad, I was unable to walk and had to be in a wheelchair. When I was in the hospital for in patient I would still pray, every night I would tell the nurse stationed where I'm at that I had to go make Wudu and pray. Even though I was only praying once a day I was still doing it. At times I would find it extremely difficult to pray because I was in the bed and the pain on my back that I would get would be unbearable.
Salah
I cannot stop praying now. I don't know why I'm so bent towards praying but I just know in my heart that it's very important. What Salat does is it puts order into my life. No matter what I do I always make sure my five prayers come first, and anyone that I miss I always make it up. My favorite prayer is Fajr. Though I love all 5.
Just this winter that just passed I remeber one day I was walking home, and it was really cold and the wind was really blowing hard. I was rushing home, I woudl've ran if the brain injury I suffered didn't stop me. But I was rushing home really fast, speedwalking even. But the reason I was rushing to go home was not because it was really cold and I wanted to escape the frigid temperature. The reason I was rushing home was because I had to hurry up and go pray Asr before the time passes.
BACK TO ALLAH