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When I was a kid, basketball was my refuge.

I'd go outside, I'd shoot for several hours, and just pretend that nothing else in the world existed.

Now as an adult, it's still somewhat my refuge sometimes

when I can play in a game and be forced to isolate myself in the experience of playing a game,

because when you're in the midst of it, you're not allowed to think about anything else,

because if you do, you might just drop the ball. I was thinking about this idea of

chishur in sports and chishur in something that we are doing and how it relates to chishur in

salaah, to have deep stillness in prayer and deep presence in prayer. And I was reflecting on this

hadith of the prophet, sallu, where, ari-u-salam, where he mentions

ari-a-s-sala-a-slam that he loves his wives and that he loves perfume or cologne, sweet smells.

But he says that the coolness of my eyes was placed in my sala.

And if you think about the two things that the Prophet's Sala-San mentioned first. You enjoy the attention of a relationship.

You're able to immerse yourself in a relationship and devote yourself to it and find an

experience of joy through it. And when it comes to sweet smells, well, it overcomes your senses

so that you're not able to be overwhelmed by the senses of anything else

or by the perception of anything else.

A sweet smell means so much.

But what happens when both your attention and your senses are overwhelmed by Allah

subhanna-ta-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-through the experience of sala?

And you find refuge in it, and you find uplift in it and you find upliftment and you find

something that nourishes your soul like nothing else. It doesn't just distract you, but it actually

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