Salah

Salah - Its "the" pillar of our deen simply because its the only we got to do 5 times daily; simply because its the first thing we will be asked about by our Lord; simply because when the people of Jannah will ask people of jahannum what put you there - they will say we didn't pray. Allah has told us it prevents us from "fahsh" (immodest things) and to seek help from Salah. Allah has told us innumerable times to establish Salah. So its a biggie.
Seeing how important Salah is, its not unnatural that its a norm in today's society to label a person who prays 5 times a day as "religious". So here's the tricky part about salah, how many people do you know who pray regularly and have so for years, but nothing from their daily lives has changed, even one bit.  With the amount of people praying regularly, we shouldn't see as much "fahsh" in the society as we do, but we do. The problem is though we pray regularly, we dont understand its significance, we dont give its rightful rank, we dont believe it will change us.
People! as important as Salah is - it means nothing if you have not made a connection with Allah SWT in it. It is nothing, if you dont know what you are saying and who you are standing in front of. Its nothing if your day to day life is not changed from it. You cannot reap its many benefits unless you know what benefits to reap from it!
 If you pray, and i hope you do; but arent able to make the necessary changes in your life that you know you must - reassess the quality of your salah. Chances are there's something missing there. Dont ever think you pray "enough" or "well enough" - remember Iblees was elevated in ranks to that of angels and then became the accursed.
Our salah is in constant need of improvement, only and only then will we see an improvement in ourselves. Theres an old programming term GIGO - Garbage In Garbage Out. Apply that to your ibadah, the more ikhlas and effort that goes into the salah - the better the results. Consider why you rush your salah. What are the reasons you delay your salah or dont pay attention to tahara or the salah itself? eliminate those weeds, like your life depends on it - because it does!
The munafiq of Madina harbored a hate for Islam and Muslims, yet what was one act they diligently performed - Salah! Why? They knew if they didnt come to jama'a, people will know they are not true muslims. SubhanAllah! But what was wrong with their Salah? They were not sincere, as we arent now. Our salah can easily be compared to that of the munafiq because we drag ourselves to the prayer mat; but thats the extent our sincerity reaches.
Whether its hijab you are struggling with, gheebat, anger, tawakkul, discipline or even depression (not the medical kind) - all the solutions are in your Salah. Go back to the drawing board - no frills or fancy and take control of that next Salah that may be your last.
May Allah make me improve my Salah, may you benefit from my post. All good is from Allah and all evil and hurtful things are from my nafs.

State of your Iman

Alhamdolillah we are in the beautiful and merciful month of Ramadan, to which no parable exists! Also, this is a time we strive to do more good than we do in other months (partially cuz the shaytans are tied up!). For a lot of us, that means establishing salah SubhanAllah. Salah, prayer or namaz is a basic pillar of Islam and we only regulate it during Ramadan (if even that)?
What is a pillar? In this dunya, we see many buildings being constructed SubhanAllah - what is the purpose of a pillar? It is part of the foundation of any structure, without which you cannot build and if you somehow do manage to - the structure will not survive. So when one learned Salah was a basic "pillar" of Islam; one can well imagine the state of one's Iman (structure) if they havent established Salah. I will not go into details of why i keep saying established - thats Inshallah another post :))
Also think about this - for those of you who are feeling very smug that "i pray regularly, i'm good"... Salah is a pillar, meaning that you need to build a structure now that you got the pillars down. What would you say if you saw just pillars standing in the middle of nowhere? Would it be something like "What a great building/structure?" OR "Whats this about now? people leaving their work half-done"
So thats exactly what your iman looks like If you are practicing the 5 pillars but not using the strength of those pillars to further you iman - Half-done. Its time to look at what more you can do in the way of Allah, in the way of the deen of our beloved Prophet Muhammad SAW.
For those who dont pray (ps: praying a couple times a day or sometimes, is considered not praying); Wallahi the people of the deeper levels of hell fire will be asked, what did you do to end up here? They will say we were not among those who established salah. Allahu Akbar - May Allah help us to save ourselves from hellfire.