Читать книгу The call of ALLAH - Rosina-Fawzia Al-Rawi - Страница 12

1^st day of Ramadan

ṢIYĀM

FASTING

Our beloved Prophet Muhammad said: “By Him in whose hands is my soul, the unpleasant smell coming from the mouth of a fasting person is better in the sight of Allah than the smell of musk.”⁹

Ramadan is the month during which Allah calls us to continue and perfect our spiritual development. By calling upon us to give up things which are usually allowed, He gives us an opportunity to strengthen our will.

The month of Ramadan starts with letting go. It is a process which leads us from doing into non-doing, and where we surrender to the peaceful flow of contemplation and self-knowledge:

I THANK YOU AND I ENTRUST MYSELF TO YOU. LET ME FEEL YOUR GUIDANCE IN MY HEART, LET ME SEE YOUR MERCY IN EVERYTHING. STRENGTHEN MY FAITH AND FREE ME FROM THE ILLUSIONS OF SEPARATION AND COMPLACENCY!

It is not easy for the ego, nafs, to renounce habits; it irritates and troubles us, and shows us the extent to which we can be disturbed when our needs are not being fulfilled.

We are often slaves to our attachment to our desires and to our needs. Allah calls upon us to leave those things aside which burden us and prevent us from being truly free.

Letting go of those things because such is Allah’s wish, surrendering to relinquishing our habits – if we are ready to leave everything and to allow for devotion bathed in trust, taslīm, then a liberation process can begin.

Ramadan is the month of intimate dialogue with Allah. It is to break the shell of the mundane world in order to find a new direction. It is the time to transcend forgetfulness and distraction, and to live again consciously the meaning of our existence.

It is to become sensitive again to all the blessings Allah has bestowed upon us. It is to step out of that prison we have built for ourselves and go beyond those lower human qualities which keep us in chains.

Discipline and abstaining from mundane, material food and pleasures – drink, food and sex –, laying them off like we remove a garment enables us to stand in front of Allah, the One, in all our weakness, and to recognise that Allah is Aṣ-Ṣamad, the Absolute, to whom all creatures turn to seek help.

When Allah sets boundaries for us, they are not meant to restrict our freedom, but to enable us to pause and step out of the treadmill of our secular world in order to relativise things in our life.

It is the time to focus on our relationship with ourself and with our fellow human beings, with our environment, and above all on our relationship with Allah, the All-Merciful, Ar-Raḥmān. Such is the cornerstone of true surrender.

Fasting is not mere renouncing, fasting is also creating – in our life and within ourselves – a space of awareness open to the mercy and the blessings of Allah.

When we let go of the ego’s lower wishes, we discover that the key to the door of our self-made prison had always been in our hands.

ALLAH, FILL MY HEART WITH TRUST, GRANT ME SURRENDER AND GUIDE ME TO YOU.

PRACTICE SUGGESTED FOR TODAY

Decide to take five minutes at the end of every hour to repeat Allah with all your heart, aloud if you are at home, silently if you are outside.

You will find it helpful to set an alarm on your phone or on your alarm clock every 55 minutes.

A teacher once told his students: “Keep knocking on Allah’s door and never stop, for in His mercy, Allah will finally open His doors to those who sincerely seek Him.”

The mystic Rabia Al-Adawiyya heard him as she was passing the mosque, and asked: “Was Allah’s door ever closed?”

DID YOU KNOW…

The first ādhān (literally: announcement) in the history of Islam came to ʿAbd Allah ibn Zaid as an inspiration in a dream, approved by the Prophet and called for the first time by Bilal al-Habashi in 623, shortly after the exodus, hijra, from Mecca. For the Shi‘ites, the angel Gabriel was ordered by Allah to come to the Prophet with the call for prayer. The Prophet then appointed Bilal as the first muezzin.