It is true that Ramadan is the greatest habit breaker; it dishevels hairs, destroys our wake-sleep patterns and tries our patience. And that is one of the reasons that we love it.
Indeed our Sheikhs constantly remind us that true test of whether our fasts have been accepted is if our changed better habits persist past the month’s end.
Then it is an easy step for us to think that Ramadan is all about breaking bad habits, and nurturing better newer habits.
It is as if it has become just another annual resolution committer: that we commit to becoming better selves and when we fail in keeping to those resolutions then we have lost that Ramadan.
For that blessed opportunity has both come and gone.
But when you immerse yourself in the texts of Islam removed from our modern experience of multiple life coaches, then that is just not true.
It is often said that you do not really know the value of a thing until you loose it.
But true knowledge of a thing is deeper than even that, that we know water because it quenches our thirst, and we know the worth of food because it calms our hunger pangs, and blesses us both with vigour and energy.
That therefore true knowable knowledge really affects us physically, and changes us.
And in essence fulfils our deepest needs.
Maybe part of Ramadan is to remind us of this simple truth.
For the true miracle of Ramadan is the opportunity it gives us to move closer to God. How it enervates us all with energy. The energy to sacrifice.
Recall that it is in Ramadan that God opens the gates of His Mercy.
That after the verse in Baqara that mentions the fast in Ramadan, that He says that He responds to our supplications and is close to us.
That in the last third of these nights that He descends and brings Himself closer to us.
This is the opportunity that awaits us, and then God has also blessed us with the knowledge of how to become close to Him.
It is reported in a Sahih Hadith that the ways to God are first through the fardh; the ordained prayers, paying the poor due, and fasting the prescribed fasts; and then through the Sunnah and then the Nafl prayers and acts.
Indeed Ramadan is the month of the Quran.
And the Quran is God’s speech and the greatest of Dhikrs (remembrances).
So busy your lips with Quran and with the Tasbih (Glorifying God).
Busy your bones with the nafl Salaat.
Busy your hands with helping others.
And busy your brains in contemplation.
And God, himself, is the greatest of Knowledges and belief in Him is the most transformative of powers.
Therefore do not focus on your habits, but focus your efforts on becoming closer to God and let Him be the One to transform you in the most beautiful of ways.
And it is through this means that you will become closer to Him, and also come to know Him better. For He himself is the mover of hearts, the giver of bounties unlooked for.
How marvellous is the Most Gracious, that He created the whole Cosmos in truth with the finest of details and nourishes each part of it in due measure.
And He created simply that He might be known. (Hadith Qudsi - an Nawawi).
And then He provided us with intellect and sense that we might come to know Him.
And sent a Messenger (saw) to us that we might come to know the ways of becoming closer to Him.
So do not let this opportunity pass you by.
For this is month to exhaust yourself in prayers, and dhikr, and the Quran.
And God is the One that loves for you to be happy, and so He does not burden you but instead blesses you with an opportunity.
And that is a reward which is certain, InshaAllah.
And even if bad habits do return, do not feel you have failed - for God is the One that loves to forgive, for those that repent and draw closer to Him.
Allah is one, and there is no God but He.
He is the greatest of principles, the most Just, and True, the ever Doer of Good. The Most Beautiful, and the Keeper of the Most Beautiful of things.
And we believe in Him, His angels, His books (that He sent down), His messengers and prophets (and we make no distinction between any of them for they were all His servants, sent by Him to bring us news from the unseen), Heaven and Hell which are certain, and Qadr’Allah that with Him belongs the decree of all things.
And these are from the unseen World, and by God’s Infinite Grace we have believed in them and know them to be both true and real.
*“Indeed in the remembrance of Allah do hearts find Peace.”*
IAl-Quran
No comments:
Post a Comment