Difficulty in calling people for salat

[Samiun]

, recently I become frustrated with my salat. I've been missing many fajr prayers lately and I know this is one of those 'down' periods which we may all have. However, I also discovered that I became very individualistic in performing salat. Not in the prayer room, but with my room-mates at an accomodation. I find it very hard to call them and heavy. I feel that I am not good enough to call them to prayer if I myself am not performing it on time. I completely forget about calling others to prayer because I was very focused on perfecting my salat(on time and hardly miss fajr). But then a few weeks ago it dawned at me at an Islamic class when the lecturer told us that we would be also sinning if we had woke up for fajr but we didn't wake the other guy up. It's such a depressing thought, I force myself to live with it everyday. All advise and suggestions are welcomed

[Ahmad H]

Your lecturer was correct. Just follow what he said and you'll be fine. When you remember to pray, you're going to do it anyway. So just call your friends to prayer. If they are too lazy, just tell them the time you will start praying, and tell them to be ready to join you. Leave them to worry about themselves. If you made your effort, then don't force them. They will eventually feel guilty that they did not join you on time and did congregational prayer. The limit you should wait should be that they join you and be ready close to the end of the prayer time if you really want to give them a chance to join. That way, you can't be blamed, hopefully. Allah knows best. If you leave them with all the chances possible, then you did well. Remember, no one carries anyone else's burden on the Day of Resurrection.

[Samiun]

Your lecturer was correct. Just follow what he said and you'll be fine. When you remember to pray, you're going to do it anyway. So just call your friends to prayer. If they are too lazy, just tell them the time you will start praying, and tell them to be ready to join you. Leave them to worry about themselves. If you made your effort, then don't force them. They will eventually feel guilty that they did not join you on time and did congregational prayer. The limit you should wait should be that they join you and be ready close to the end of the prayer time if you really want to give them a chance to join. That way, you can't be blamed, hopefully. Allah knows best. If you leave them with all the chances possible, then you did well. Remember, no one carries anyone else's burden on the Day of Resurrection.

Jazkallahkhaira for the response bro. Bro may I know if I can get the hadeeth on that I seem to have read it a while ago but I don't remember where. I just met with an awesome da'ee yesterday and he said that it's okay if you had done an effort to call him to prayer so long as you don't force him to do it.

[Muhaba]

Before you proceed with pulling the blanket off your roommate at 4 AM and telling him to get up for the fajr salat, do the following:

If your roommate prays regularly and on time (is serious about praying) but doesn't wake up for salatulfajr, ask him if he'd like that you wake him up for fajr. Tell him you wake up and you'd like to wake him up. Hopefully he'll accept. (or if you're good friends, tell him you'll be waking him up for fajr). At least he'll be prepared. Then proceed to wake him up. If he doesn't wake up, try a few times but then let him go that day. When he wakes up later, ask him about it. and the next day retry to wake him up. Hopefully in time, he'll start getting up.

If your roommate does pray regularly but tells you not to wake him up for fajr, or if your roommates don't pray regularly, then you'll have to proceed differently. You'll first have to tell them about the importance of praying regularly and you'll have to call them to the other prayers. Only when they have started praying the other prayers regularly can you proceed to waking them up. This is because people do all sort of things in sleep and you don't want your roommates to get aggressive!

If your roommates absolutely refuse to pray regularly (in word or action), then try to change your accommodation. If that is not possible, then you'll have to stop being friends with them. By that, I mean you'll have to limit your conversations and interactions with them to on the necessary actions and not chat etc. If they ask, you can tell them it's because they aren't praying. Continue to preach to them from time to time. Eventually you may find that they are intolerable and you have to change your accommodation in order to keep your own faith. Otherwise if you continue to befriend such people, you risk becoming like them.

[Muhaba]

The limit you should wait should be that they join you and be ready close to the end of the prayer time if you really want to give them a chance to join.

I do not agree that you should leave the prayer to the end of its time for your friends' sake. What you should do is set a limit (about 1/2 of other prayers, a few minutes for Maghrib prayer) and if they don't join you, then pray on your own. You can do the iqamah and pray aloud if you want them to be affected by it and join you in the prayer. The reson I don't agree with leaving the prayer to the last time is because at that time, something urgent might happen that might delay you and you'll lose the prayer altogether. So it's best to pray well in advance.

[greenhill]

This is something I have faced too and have never really thought of it as an issue, until now. I now realise that there have been these niggling feelings in the past.

On the fajr matter, I take it that you live with fairly dutiful muslims. Perhaps one way would be to 'enrol' their support. Ask them if they would like to help each other on these matters. Like, reminding each other of prayer times when together, and would they like to be woken up for fajr? etc. After all islam is about community. Your room mates are your immediate community.