Alhamdulillah Allah has granted me,family and friends another chance to enjoy this holiest month of all once again.Emm well in my case,it's for the 20th time already as according to my age,yippie..alhamdulillah,praise be to Allah the Most Gracious and the Most Merciful
But unfortunately(well not really ehhe) I couldn't enjoy my first week of Ramdhan because of menstruation.
So yeah Technically I'm in the month of Ramadhan already but practically,I'm not doing much of anything relate dto Ramadhan,yet :D
It's ok,in another few days,I'd be enjoying like other muslims do,insyaAllah.
So dear diary,this is kinf of a beneficial article i'd like to share,food for my own soul.So let's check this out ;)
By : Yasmin Mogahed
We are going to talk about a very important topic; the month of Ramadan and how to really prepare ourselves for Ramadan in the context of training our nafs (inner self)...
On Heart & Spirituality
|
To begin the topic of training the nafsand the topic of how we should enter Ramadan, we have to really start from the beginning, and the beginning goes back to the essential question of what is our purpose?
What is our purpose of existence?
This is a question that has been asked by people, philosophers basically, from the beginning of time; Why are we here? What is our purpose? Why were we put in this world? And what we are intended to accomplish?
Essence of Worship
While this is an issue that has been discussed by many philosophers., Allah, exalted is He, has actually given us the answer to this question, a very clear answer. He tells us in the Quran:
{I created the jinn and humankind only that they might worship Me.} (Adh-Dhariyat 51; 5)
So Allah explains in this ayah that He has not created jinn and human beings except for one single purpose: to fulfill worship to Allah. So the reason why we exist, the reason why we were created is for this one singular purpose.
The construction of this ayah is important as you notice the ayah begins with a negation, it says that Allah doesn’t just say that He created mankind for this purpose. But rather Allah says that He has NOT created mankind for any other purpose. So you begin by negating any other purpose for which we were created. And then Allah, exalted is He, says this one single purpose.
| worship means living every second of our life in this universe in such a way that our intent is in accordance with the intent of our creator |
In order to understand this ayah we really have to be able to define the concept of ubudiyah ‘worshipping’. We have heard probably this ayah many times, but the question is what really is the meaning of worshipping.
When Allah says that our purpose is worship, this worship can be defined as living our life in such a way; living in this universe and every second of our life in such a way that our intent is in accordance with the intent of our Creator. So what that means is that my focus is the same as what God wants it to be, my intent and my goals are as God wants them to be: there is an accordance between my intent and that of my Creator.
When I live my life so that internally and externally we have the same focus, and that’s my goal, which is the same as what God’s goal is for me, then that is worship.
When you really actualize worshipping, the consequence of that proper worshipping when I’m in line with my Creator is something extremely profound; and that is salam(peace). When I am in a state of worshipping God, the consequence is that I attain peace. And that peace begins inside of myself, and when I have that peace inside of myself, then I can actualize peace outside of myself.
If you look at one of the attributes of Allah it is Al-Salam: Allah is The Peace. And in a hadith of the Prophet, peace be upon him, one of his du’a he would say, ‘Allah You are the source of peace and from You comes peace”
In Search of Inner Peace
Now if you think about this concept of God being the source of peace, what that means is that there is no other way to get peace except by seeking this source. Allah tells us in the Qur’an:
{And Allah summons to the abode of peace, and leads whom He will to a straight path.} (Yunus 10: 25)
Allah tells us that He is calling us to the home of Salam (peace). If you think for a second about this metaphor. Imagine that someone is in the middle of a desert and they are desperate for water and there is only one source of water in that desert. Now think about what would happen if you are far away from that source of water. If you are far from that source of water, are you ever going to quench your thirst? And if you far from that source of water, are you ever going to be able to give water to others?
| if we are not near God Who is the source of peace we can never ever attain peace |
The only way you can quench that thirst is by being near to that source. So by being nearer than I am to that source of water, the more that I can quench my thirst, and the more that I can give to others. But if we are not close to the source of water we can never quench our thirst.
Similarly, if we are not near God, who is the source of peace, we can never ever attain peace. And the nearer I am to that source, the more I will have of it. So the nearer I am to the source of water the more water I will have, and the nearer I am to the source of peace the more peace that I will have.
And again it’s important to understand obviously in this life this is not a physical nearness. Rather, this is a nearness of our heart, of our soul to Allah, exalted is He... And that heart, not the physical organ, is the part of the human being that connects to God in this life before the next life. In order to attain this nearness to the source of water; to the source of peace, there are two things which we must do; there are two requirements in order to attain nearness to this source of peace. And Allah (SWT) tells us about those in the following ayah:
{He it is Who has sent among the unlettered ones a messenger of their own, to recite unto them His revelations and to make them grow, and to teach them the Scripture and wisdom, though heretofore they were indeed in error manifest.} (Al-Jumu’ah 62: 2)
God is saying here that it is He who has sent among the unlettered an apostle from among themselves, the Prophet, peace be upon him, for a certain purpose; to rehearse on them His signs, and in order to purify them and to instruct them in scripture and in manifest wisdom.
If you notice here there are two components mentioned in this ayah. The first is knowledge. Allah (SWT) says that He sent the messenger in order to give then knowledge and in order to purify them, and that before that they were in manifest error. And so the two components in order to be able to attain the peace of Allah (SWT) are knowledge and purification, purification of the inner self.
So if we are going to begin to undertake this journey to the source of peace, we have to undergo this process of tazkiyah, the purification of the soul...
(Cont..)
The two components in order to attain the peace of Allah is knowledge and purification; purification of the inner self.
So if we are to begin to undertake this journey to the nearness to the source of peace, God, we have to undergo the process of tazkiyah(purification).
Purify Your Heart
- Ramadan, the Qur’an, and Us |
Even if we look at the word Shari’ah, it literally means a path to the source of water. So God is giving us Shari’ah in order to reach that source of water and that source of peace. If we follow that path of Allah, that’s the only way we are going to achieve the true source of peace.
This brings us to the idea of what does all of this have to do with fasting? What has all of this have to do with Ramadan? Allah gives us Ramadan in order to aid us in this process. The way in which this happens is that we know that we have basically two things or entities that prevent us from seeking Allah.
There two blocks keep us from being good, from seeking that path to the source of peace. The first is Satan, which we know is our external enemy, and he is the source of this outer whispering that happens in our mind and in our heart. The second block is the nafs, self.
Nafs is the inner inclinations. That’s my own self, my inner inclination to do that. All of us want to seek God, but we are human beings and we have inner ailments. Sometimes we get angry, sometimes we feel hatred, selfishness, arrogance, prejudice, and fear. These are all inner ailments which prevent me from attaining that peace by being near to the source of peace, God.
And so in order to seek and reach that source of peace, I have to clean myself of those inner ailments. That is the process of tazkiyah (purification) of the nafs. That’s the process of training and purifying the self. The Prophet, peace be upon him, said:
“When Ramadan begins, the gates of Paradise are opened and the gates of Hell are closed, and the devils are chained.” (Sahih Al-Bukhari)
| Ramadan is a time when I have to face my nafs, because it’s just me and my nafs. Satan is not involved anymore |
So this makes us kind of stop and reflect. A lot of times we hear this hadith and we think, well ok we are going to go into Ramadan, then we will become angels as now Satan is chained up and we are able to be angels. But we find that still we are not angels. Ramadan comes and we still are making mistakes, we are still sinning, we are still falling into error. So the question is why? Why is it that we continue to do that?
If you think about when you were in school, doing an experiment and trying to nearer down the cause to something; in order to nearer down the cause to a particular event you have to eliminate other possible causes in order to see if it affects the event.
In this case, when Ramadan comes, God is removing the other factor, which is Satan. So anything that I do in Ramadan I now know it’s not from Satan. I can’t blame Satan because now Satan is chained up. Now I can only blame my own nafs. So Ramadan is a time when we really learn about the nafs. Ramadan is a time when I have to face my nafs, because it’s just me and my nafs. Satan is not involved anymore. So Ramadan is the time when I encounter my own self, and if I do wrong there’s no one else to blame.
True Freedom
This brings us to something I want we take away from this talk, which is true freedom. We live in a society where they teach you that freedom is freedom of the self. But this is actually absolutely untrue. It's the opposite. True freedom is freedom from the self, not freedom of the self.
Write this down:
To be truly liberated is to be free from the chains of my own self. That is true freedom.
And freedom of the self is actually the opposite, because when my nafs is free, and my nafs is in control of me, then I am actually a slave. I’m not free at all. So when people say things like follow your heart they really mean follow your nafs. The reason for that is that sometimes when the nafs becomes so strong, it takes over the heart. And now the nafs is in charge, it is in control. And so when you become enslaved to your nafs, that’s not freedom. That’s actually slavery. And indulging the self does something else; it disengages you from the freedom of exalting in more knowledge and more nearness to God.
Now, what is all that still have to do with fasting?
I want you to think for a second: if we are so busy in loving to eat, for example, and that is what we do most of the time, what happens when our focus is on the physical pleasure, which includes the physical appetite basically?
When my focus is on the physical appetite of feeding my physical body then that means my focus is not on the spiritual aspect; the heart and the soul. All I’m thinking about is what am I going to eat, what am I going to drink, and what am I going to cook. So what I do is I’m seeking comfort in food.
At some point a lot of us can relate to this; when we are really feeling stressed out and really sad we go to food, we seek comfort in food, like stereotyped chocolate, ice-cream. A lot of women know that. But the idea here is that there’s some truth to this concept that we do seek to gain some sort of pleasure through food, physical pleasure giving in to the physical needs of the body.
Why Fast?
| by fasting what we realize is that we can find happiness in something other than the physical world |
When we take away the focus from the physical need, now your focus is free - free to be directed to the spiritual need, towards the need of the heart and of the soul. And by fasting what we realize is that we can find happiness in something other than the physical world. That is extremely profound, that I can find pleasure and fulfillment in something other than the physical material world. By leaving food and drink and intimate relations, I’m finding that there’s another whole world when I can find truer, deeper and realer fulfillment and happiness that has nothing to do with the physical needs or the physical pleasure.
The other aspect is that when I disengage from focusing on food, or in general the physical appetite or the physical pleasure, now I’m able to engage intellectually with God. Now I can focus on the deeper source of truth in my life. If my whole focus is having fun and indulging in all these different types of entertainment then when am I really going to be engaged intellectually?
So what fasting does is it liberates me from my addictions. Fasting is intended to liberate us, as Allah disengages us from our addiction to food and drink so that we can realize that life is beyond the physical needs, and that there’s joy and pleasure and happiness that is not physical and is not material. So I don’t think that the physical nourishment is the means to pleasure and happiness.
And you will notice the same with salah (prayer), when five times a day I have to interrupt what I’m doing which is usually mundane or limited or material, and I have to interrupt that in order that I don’t become dependent or addicted to that thing.
By interrupting whatever it is I’m doing in my life throughout the day and going to pray, I’m cutting myself off from it, and by doing that I’m preventing myself from becoming addicted, dependent or a prisoner to what it is that I need to do daily. So obviously I have to go to work, interact with people, and I have to do things of the worldly life (dunya). Obviously we live in this world and we must live in it, but the question is how to live in the dunya without becoming addicted, attached, and a prisoner to it.
Allah exactly gives us the prescription to be able to live in the dunya without being drowned by it, without being addicted to it, without being a prisoner to it. And in case of salah, by breaking away five times a day I’m disengaging from the dunya in a way that I can refocus on what is eternal...
(Cont..)
When we focus on what is eternal, the inner self (nafs) doesn’t get used to being in a state of focus on material things, the mundane and the worldly things.
If you think about a situation when you never took a break, you were just involved in your life, you are in your job or dealing with people, or whatever it is you are doing, and you never take a break to just stop and look inward. What happens if you do that?
Increasing in Spirituality
|
What happens is that my whole world is going to become about what is happening outside my self. That starts to define my whole world. So whatever is happening in my life outside of me defines me. And so what ends up happening then is that I go up and down with the ups and downs in my environment.
Anyone who’s lived in this life for longer than three minutes realizes that life is nothing but ups and downs, nothing but change and inconstancy. So, if I am all about what is happening outside of myself in life, it's external, then what will happen is that internally I will never have peace, constancy, stillness because all of my focus is on what is happening outside of myself, in the mundane, in my dunya (worldly life). But if I stop five times a day, following the prescription God is giving us, then what I am doing, when I break away five times a day -praying properly with focus of heart and mind, then what I'm doing is that I'm pulling myself away from the focus external, and refocusing internal.
Then I am looking at the things that are not seen; the things which I wouldn’t otherwise notice if I didn’t stop to take that break. So Allah (SWT) gives us, out of His mercy, this prescription for how to be successful while still living in the dunya, but not letting the nafs take over, not letting the dunya take over.
What Fasting Really Stands For
| It’s kind of like I am starving my body but feeding my soul when I fast. |
In the case of siyam (fasting) I’m disconnecting from the physical world. Hunger is a physical need, and eating is a physical satiation. So what I do is I cut off the physical satiation, and instead I fill myself with what is spiritual. I'm feeding my soul. It’s kind of like I am starving my body but feeding my soul when I fast.
This is how God put us in this world, but He didn’t leave us. God, exalted is He, gave us exactly the prescription of how to be successful in this life. And fasting is a huge part of that. When I don’t break away from the physical needs of dunya, what ends up happening internally is that my heart starts to die, because all of my attachments are material; because all my attachments are to the dunya which is constantly changing and fading way. And so my heart starts to die and I start to develop more inner illness, more diseases in my heart.
Siyam is an opportunity to liberate myself from these attachments, and, therefore, the addiction to what is not lasting, to what is not ultimate. If you look at the society that we live in, all of the focus is on the physical being. All of the focus is on physical pleasure and material things, things that I can feel and touch. But here is the thing: no one can argue that I am not just a physical being, right?
There’s more to me than just my physical self. And the reason why I know that is because, for example, we feel pain and it may have nothing to do with our body. Our body may be completely well, and there is nothing hurting it, yet we still feel pain. What is it that’s feeling that pain?
It is something other than the physical being. There’s another non-physical part of me. I also feel joy, and again it’s not something I feel in my physical body. So how can you possibly follow a philosophy of life that’s just about the physical- eating, sleeping, drinking and being married in the physical sense?! This is denying a very important component of my being, which is the non-physical component.
Then the question is how do I feed that non-physical component? How do I feed my soul?
Guess what: chances are you are not going to see that on commercials on TV. The commercials on TV don’t talk about feeding your soul, about being more honest, more sincere or connecting to God. They are just about the physical world, as I was just a physical creature.
When Ramadan comes fasting liberates me from all of that. I begin to know that there really is life beyond the physical realm, and there is joy beyond material joy. One of the consequences of this is that I start to feel more kindness and compassion towards the people who don’t have what I have. So when I'm fasting, I am voluntarily keeping myself from food and water and any other kind of drink. But there are people who involuntarily have to keep themselves from food and drink, and that’s because they don’t have the means to buy food and drink. So by doing this, I’m also able to feel more compassion towards the poor and towards those who don’t have a home to come back to for Iftar, and these large large extravagant dinners that we have to break our fast, which really misses the point of what Ramadan and what Siyam is really supposed to do.
When Doing The Opposite
| there’s a deeper joy, a deeper and realer fulfillment than just eating, sleeping and drinking. |
So we find that there’s such an emphasis on this idea of having extravagant Iftars, and on what we are going to eat. We put so much money into having very fancy food and deserts. But this again completely misses the point. The whole point of Ramadan is not just for us to be hungry and thirsty. The whole point of siyam is to show thenafs, the individual that there’s more to life than the physical world. There’s more to life than the material pleasure and joy, that there’s a deeper joy, a deeper and realer fulfillment than just eating, sleeping and drinking.
So we have to have the correct focus on why it is that Allah (SWT) told us to fast. When Allah talks about fasting in the Quran, He gives a reason why fasting was prescribed. And so when we fast all day and indulge in food at the end of the day, now we feel drowsy and our mind is almost asleep. When we go to the Salah (prayer) after the fast we feel almost unable to focus on Salah. We feel as if the mind is sluggish. What we’ve done now is that because we’ve eaten so much our minds become clouded and extremely tired.
If we look at the Sunnah of the Prophet, peace be upon him, he used to break his fast with dates and water and then go to Salah; to just break his fast on something small, pray Maghreb and then come back and eat. But what filling the stomach does is it nums the mind. And that's one of the reasons why when someone is feeling depressed, down or anxious they do seek food, because, Subhan Allah, there’s something about food that when you go to food and you feed yourself there’s a sort of numness that happens. It’s a sort of anesthesia. This is something that food can do when you over-indulge in it. So keeping in mind that the focus of Ramadan is not what we are going to eat for Iftar, not how many different dishes we are going to serve or eat.
The focus is exactly the opposite...
(Cont..)
Now, what does God say about fasting in the Qur’an?
God’s Mercy & Ramadan
|
{O you who believe! Fasting is prescribed to you as it was prescribed to those before you, that ye may (learn) self-restraint.} (Al-Baqarah 2; 183)
So the purpose of fasting for me is to attain taqwa.
So what is taqwa?
Taqwa drives from the Arabic word ‘waqa’, ‘waqi’, which literally means to protect or to shield. It also comes from the word ‘itaqa’ which means to protect oneself. So, taqwa is a noun derived from this meaning and what it means is to shield or protect oneself.
The question is what are we shielding or protecting ourselves from through fasting?
Through fasting we are protecting ourselves from a lot of things. First and foremost, we are protecting ourselves from the displeasure and the Wrath of God; we are protecting ourselves from the distance of Allah. We also are protecting ourselves from excessively indulging of the nafs (inner self), and we are protecting ourselves from Satan.
A Shield of Mercy
Through fasting I’m building my spiritual and moral strength in order to be able to take on my nafs
|
So fasting is almost like a shield, an invisible shield surrounding me. When I’m fasting, now I’m focusing on the spiritual. Now the focus is on you; the spiritual and moral energies instead of your physical energies. As a result of that, now I’m building my spiritual and moral strength in order to be able to take on my nafs, in order to be able to oppose and train my nafs. So, to summarize, by fasting and by shielding myself from the displeasure of God and from what the nafs wants, that physical association which includes food, I’m strengthening my spiritual and moral strength.
You can have a heavy weight champion but this person is unable to fight their ownnafs. So they have all physical strength but they have no inner strength. What fasting does is using moral and spiritual strength so that you’ll have the ability to fight your nafs. It makes your path to doing good easier for you. You may have experienced this, when you are fasting you feel it’s easier to do more worship, be more strict in your prayer, easier to read more Quran, to go the masjid. When you are fasting you are starving your body, and you are feeding your soul. You disengage your focus from the physical world in order to engage your focus on the inner spiritual one.
The other aspect about Ramadan, which is extremely important, is that Ramadan is about mercy. Allah’s mercy always encompasses everything. He says: {and My mercy embraces all things,} (Al-‘A’raf 7; 156) Yet there are certain times that God is nearer to us than in other times. One of those times is in sajdah (prostration). Insajdah we are closer to Allah. Similarly, when we are near to the Ka`bah, God has made that we get closer to Him in that physical state. God has also done that with Ramadan.
During Ramadan the entire universe is closer to the Mercy of God, exalted is He. This is a gesture from God in order to bring us back to Him, in order for us to take advantage of His mercy and to really change ourselves; to really go through Ramadan and come out changed. We do not need Ramadan to be just about fasting, or to be only about hunger or thirst. Though to realize the purpose of fasting; the very purpose that I have to stop worrying about my physical needs, and worry, instead, about the spiritual needs of my heart, of my soul, this is number one need.
There’s only one thing that feeds the heart and that is God. There’s nothing else that is going to feed your heart. So where I am able to empty out all the other focus, now I can focus on what really is going to feed me. This is what fasting and Ramadan is all about. So we have to make sure that we do not let Ramadan and fasting just be about leaving food and drink, about just being hungry and thirsty, and that we see the inner purpose of Ramadan, and go through Ramadan and come out different.
Ramadan is a purifier of our nafs, because in Ramadan you will encounter your nafs, because in Ramadan the satans are chained; it is just you and your own self. During Ramadan this mercy is optimized, there’s a change in the universe when this mercy is so close to us. Allah (SWT) is the owner of mercy. The Prophet, peace be upon him, tells us: "Ramadan is a month whose beginning is Mercy, whose middle is Forgiveness and whose end is freedom from the fire."
So God gives us this month in order to lift us up and in order to bring us back to His forgiveness and to liberate us from Jahannam (the Hell Fire).
Begin Now
| make this Ramadan about inner transformation, about inner purification, about building my connection with God |
So as the Prophet said: "The reward of deeds depends upon the intentions and every person will get the reward according to what he has intended." (Al-Bukhari). Our deep intention now should be not to make this Ramadan just about being hungry and thirsty, and, instead, make this Ramadan about inner transformation, about inner purification, about building my connection with God and seeking His mercy, because God’s mercy is so close to us in Ramadan.
The Prophet tells us: "Whoever established prayers on the night of Qadr out of sincere faith and hoping for a reward from Allah, then all his previous sins will be forgiven; and whoever fasts in the month of Ramadan out of sincere faith, and hoping for a reward from Allah, then all his previous sins will be forgiven."
So you and I have the opportunity to have our sins forgiven. Imagine that?
We have the opportunity, but what we really need to do is to realize why we are fasting, going to Ramadan with the proper focus and the proper intention and ask Allah (SWT) to make it easy on us and to allow us to come out of Ramadan completely purified and changed.
We really need to know the fact that after Ramadan is over you are still changed. See if we are going to Ramadan and if we change things about ourselves and as soon as Ramadan is over we go back to the way we were before, then we really haven’t changed. Ramadan then didn’t fulfill its purpose, which is to purify, change and elevate us. That change has to be lasting. So what we want to do is to take Ramadan as a fuel to bring us back to God. So let’s take the intention to continue our good habits even after Ramadan is over. We hope In-Shaa Allah that Ramadan allows us to rise above ourselves and our nafs. This is the only path to peace.
Another practical tip that is really going to help us be able to fulfill the purpose of Ramadan is qiyam, the Salah that is right before fajr (dawn). When we talked earlier about the nearness to God, one of these times is this time of qiyam. Allah tells us that during this time He descends to the nearest heaven, in the time just before fajr, and He asks us who is calling on Me to answer their call, who is seeking my forgiveness so I can forgive them.
So if we really want to benefit from Ramadan, we should be very careful not to lose this opportunity at this blessed time asking God for His forgiveness, making tawbah(repentence) and making du’a. This is the very time to make du’a and to connect to God, exalted is He.
well,before I end here ,here's my fav pick for this holiest month :)
MAY ALLAH BLESS,AMEEN
