مدونة السعة

“كل عمل ابن آدم له إلا الصيام فإنه لي وأنا أجزي به” – حديث قدسي

Ramadan starts either tonight or tomorrow, and I pray that it would start tonight. Nobody knows whether they are going to make it till tomorrow or not so the closer Ramadan is, the more likely I am to catch it. In fact, Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) encouraged us to ask God to make us live till Ramadan, for it is the most blessed among all months. It is the time of the year when God’s Mercy is manifest the most for those who are seeking it.

We are told that everything in the world is a manifestation of one of God’s Attributes. All existents are signposts that point towards God for whoever reflects upon them properly. “We will show them Our signs in the horizons and within themselves until it becomes clear to them that it is the truth.” [Qur’an 41:53]

They say that all of God’s Attributes derive from his Supreme Attribute – Mercy. Existence as we know and are most familiar with is governed by space and time, so God has created places that point most powerfully at Him as well as times that have the same function. It is commonly recognized that different places are more beautiful or majestic than others. The same applies to time even though it might not be as evident as in the case of space.

Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) tells us that different times have different bestowments from God, and he advises us to situate ourselves properly in positions where we can receive the most of such bestowments (inna li-rabbikum fi ayyami dahrikum nafahat-in ala fata’arradu laha). One of these times is unquestionably Ramadan. A regular prayer in Ramadan counts as seventy prayers in any other month. Ramadan also has laylat al-qadr that God describes as better than one thousand months. It contains as much opportunities of knowledge, closeness and contentment of God as are present in one thousand months.

Imam Ahmad Sirhindi, a great scholar and Sufi from the Indian subcontinent says that there is an analogy in the fact that the Qur’an was descended upon the Prophet in Ramadan. He says that each Ramadan, the Holy Qur’an descends once more. The Prophet was described by his wife Sayyida Aisha as a “walking Qur’an”. As followers of the Prophet (PBUH), we strive towards being walking Qur’ans as well. Ramadan is when Allah causes the Qur’an to descend upon the hearts of the believers and it is in Ramadan that they get the greatest chance to internally fuse with the meanings of the Qur’an and become closer to what the Prophet (PBUH) embodied. Sirhindi suggests that this might be the reason why Ramadan is called the month of the Qur’an. He says that being in a state of presence with God in Ramadan determines your presence with Him for the whole year. Again, God allows us to gain in one month what could be gained in a whole year. Of course, God’s Mercy is infinite and it is not limited to Ramadan, but Ramadan happens to be the time that God chose for bestowing the most upon his worshippers.

Another important blessing in Ramadan is that the devils get chained. This is something that needs more reflection. Imam Abu Hamid al-Ghazali, who is also a great Persian scholar and Sufi tells us more about that. God has created within us two main faculties: desire and anger. It is through these two faculties that life in this world is maintained. Without the passion of eating and drinking, we would starve and die and without the passion of sex, we would cease to pro-create so the human race would ultimately vanish. As for anger, God created it in us in order to fight injustice, and protect ourselves and others from external threats. However, we observe in the world how excess in each of these faculties is causing trouble, conflict and imbalance in the world. It is through excess use of these faculties that Satan achieves his goals.

The struggle that we go through in Ramadan has twofold significance, one finite and worldly and the other infinite and heavenly. In Ramadan, we are obliged to control the strongest of passions and are strongly encouraged to avoid anger. Fasting is an exercise of self-control that should result in gaining mastery of our inner faculties, in order not to use them excessively, hence, achieving victory over Satan. Ghazali says that “the spirit of fasting is the weakening of the powers that Satan use as means to leading towards evil.” The self-mastery that should result from abiding by the prophetic instructions of avoiding excess food even after Maghrib, avoiding lying, backbiting and making fun of others that is the key to eliminating evil from the world. The evil that results from some people’s love of possession of that which does not belong to them, leading to the disasters that we can most obviously see in the world on different levels, starting from households to global politics.

But this is only the finite worldly benefit of proper fasting, and I emphasize the word proper. There is an infinite, more sacred benefit as well. Fasting opens to us the doors to Paradise. The Prophet (PBUH) advised his wife Sayyida Aisha to “knock upon the doors of Paradise” through hunger. Ghazali tells us that hunger makes us weak, reminding us of our original weakness.  This knowledge of our weakness constitutes a part of the self-knowledge which in all authentic religions is the path towards ultimate knowledge, absolute knowledge, the knowledge of God. Hunger, according to Ghazali, weakens the body, our constituent that belongs to the physical world, allowing us access to our other counterpart, the soul, which belongs to the unseen world (‘alam al-ghayb or ‘alam al-malakut). Someone who has done proper fasting thus becomes ready for laylat al-qadr where a glimpse of the unseen world is revealed, a glimpse that could change our lives eternally.

This is the essence Ramadan. These are the opportunities that we are about to witness. May God allow us all to situate ourselves properly, even if slightly. A very little step of ours towards God is rewarded by multiples of steps from Him towards us. “Whoever walks towards me, I run towards him.”