—and the remaining days will be like our days. The Companions asked, “Messenger of Allah, during that day which is like a year, will the prayer of a single ordinary day suffice us?” He replied, “No. Calculate its length and pray accordingly.” This provides the clearest proof that, praise be to Allah, nothing in the Book or the Sunnah is truly ambiguous or without a solution. What does exist is a shortfall in some people’s understanding—they cannot grasp the answer—or a person’s own negligence: he does not seek, reflect, or review, and so the matter appears confusing to him.
In reality, there is nothing in the Qur’an or the Sunnah—praise be to Allah—whose meaning is obscure without its clarification likewise being found in the Qur’an or the Sunnah, either stated from the outset or given in response to a question posed by the Companions, may Allah be pleased with them. Allah is the One who grants success.
- Abu Hurayrah, may Allah be pleased with him, reported that the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, said: “A man’s prayer in congregation surpasses his prayer in his house and his prayer in the marketplace by twenty-odd degrees. That is because when one of them performs ablution well, then goes to the mosque with nothing impelling him except the prayer—wanting only the prayer—he does not take a single step without a rank being raised for him by it and a sin being erased from him by it until he enters the mosque. Once he has entered, he is regarded as being in prayer so long as the prayer itself keeps him waiting there, and the angels continue to supplicate for him as long as he remains in the place where he prayed, saying, ‘O Allah, have mercy on him. O Allah, forgive him. O Allah, accept his repentance,’ so long as he does not harm anyone there and does not break his state of purity.” (Agreed upon)