Tazkirah Ramadhan #7

Credit to group wassap - IZZUDDINIAN'S 97/01

Assalamualaikum Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh. Alhamdulillah, today marks the seventh day of our blessed journey into the precious months of Ramadhan. Continuing the tradition of daily Ramadhan reminders (tazkirah) and in the spirit of English day of our group, I'm truly honoured to share some knowledge and thoughts on the special months of Ramadhan.

Before I begin, let me just state that my sharing today are mainly sourced from my all time favourite, Ustaz Nouman Ali Khan's (UNAK) lecture on the month of Ramadhan. I'll provide the link to the lecture below and I truly believe that we can all benefit from watching it.

From the first tazkirah of Ramadhan, our dear Mr President has shared with us of the wisdom of Ramadhan which is taqwa. As stated in the 183rd verse of Al-Baqarah; لعلكم تتقون - we fast so that we'll achieve taqwa. Taqwa is often defined as the fear of Allah, but UNAK mentions that it's derived from the word 'wiqoya' which means, protection. Thus Taqwa can be defined as seeking protection, or the ability to protect ourselves. So how does the month of Ramadhan help us in gaining the ability to protect ourselves? That is by becoming the training ground for us. During Ramadhan, we are actually training our heart to defy various urges in our lives. The urge of hunger from the tummy, the urge of thirst from our throat, the urge of nicotine fix from the brain. In fighting the urge, we're training our heart to be strong. To win the war, and Allah allows us to train in a controlled difficulties (no syaitan). So that we'll achieve Taqwa by the end of the month; our heart strong enough to defy any indecent urges of our body and mind.

Allow me to continue a bit longer than the usual length of our tazkirah. Please listen to the durus on the ayat 185 in the lecture because I'm going to skip that part, not because it's of less importance but because I truly feel that you need to hear it from UNAK. By the way, it's the only verse where the word Ramadhan is mentioned (I hope it'll trigger your interest).

Let me try to rephrase the lesson from ayat 186. In this verse, Allah guarantees that no one is beyond helping. No matter how disgusting and evil we think we are, irregardless of how disconnected we have been from Allah, all that is required is a single call (prayer) to Allah, then Allah is near (فإنى قريب). So who we are to punish ourselves and others around us by putting the 'hopeless' label when Allah guarantees that when we ask of him, he's always there for us. The word used here is "when" we ask of him, not "if", and Allah talks about this still within the verses regarding Ramadhan; The best months for us to get closer to Him, to repent and to seek His forgiveness. So let us grab this golden opportunity with what's left of this month to get even closer to Allah.

Before I ended the tazkirah today, allow me to add another advice. Let's us also take the opportunity of qiyamullail during Ramadhan to repetitively repent and seek for his forgiveness especially through the Taubah Prayer. For those like me who struggle everyday to refrain from commiting sins, let us take solace in his mercy. For those fortunate ones who rarely strays from the righteous path, repent & seek forgiveness nevertheless, for any shortcomings and imperfections. I once read on the virtue of Taubah, where it is said that chances are better for a sinner who keeps repenting (Taubah) every night, rather than a pious servants who feel superior (ujub / riya') of his good deeds thus never feel the need to ask for his sins to be forgiven. For he knows better, thus to him, and only him we rely on. Wallahua'lam.

*as promised, here is the link for the full lecture. It's a one hour plus lecture, which is the reason why I find it difficult to write a brief tazkirah (my bad). But please find some time to watch this. I hope that everyone will benefit from it, InsyaAllah.