Bismillāhir-Rahmānir-Rahīm
South Africa - Capetown
25/06/15 Shaykh Kamaluddin Ahmed db
If every single sinner was to ask forgiveness for every single sin they have done in this month; Allāh swts forgiveness can encompass them in this month.
The first ten days is rahmah (mercy) - for a person already practising and refraining from sin, they can gain the tawfīq to continue doing these good actions even after Ramadān.
The person who shows up in Ramadān, who is 50-50. They are mostly good, but sometimes they misbehave. Mostly they are pious, but sometimes they get angry, sometimes they cast lustful glances. They are a mix person. But they felt in Ramadān, they want to change themselves. They make the intention to become a good person all the time - for them, all they have to do is spend ten days like this and on the 11th day, Allāh swt will start forgiving them.
And then there is a third kind of person - this person also shows up. This person is so away from Allāh swt; they are involved in MAJOR sin. Maybe they lie regularly, they do every sin possible. But they also heard he adhān on the first night of Ramadān, and they also made a niyyah that Yā Allāh, its Ramadān - and they start fasting and praying. If they had died prior to Ramadān, they would’ve gone to Jahannam. But they make this intention, and they live the first 20 days without doing sin and being virtuous, Allāh swt takes them out from the list of people who are destined from Jahannam.
Jannah is on sale in Ramadān. 20 days you have piety, you have taqwa, you fast, you refrain from lustful glances, you are virtuous - in this 20 day package, you can get the certificate of Jannah.
But this means you have to value your time! Some people just change their timetable of eating. Thats it. Everything else remains the same. This person gets the reward for the fardh fats, but they don’t change. They don’t become a different person. They have the same amount of anger. They have the same amount of lust. They go back from Ramadān being the same old, same old person. We don’t want to repeat that again.
We want another level of fast. You make a conscious effort to stay from all sin for all 24 hours. Ramadān is when you PRACTISE taqwa - you can practise the feeling of staying away from sin. In the west, you have rehabilitation, retreats, counselling, anger management programs etc - why? To reform a person. Allāhu Akbar. Can you imagine in the corporate world that someone goes for a 30 day retreat and they come back the same person?
Ramadān is the retreat for taqwa; it is the intensive course to gain taqwa. Our intention is just to refrain from food, and just to this extra prayer after ‘Ishā. Your mission is taqwa, your dream is taqwa - you’re meant to be dreaming sleeping taqwa.
The third level of fast is to refrain from food, drink, marital relations, sin and additionally, ghaflah - ghaflah means those halāl things which are 100% permissible to do but they have no bearing on your relationship with Allāh swt. Another way in Qur’ān to describe this is ‘laghw’ - laghw means surfing, twitter, idle time spent there - it doesn’t develop you as a person. Recreation, entertainment, hobbies, leisure, pleasure - these distract you from being the friend of Allāh swt. Extra means extraneous; extraneous means superfluous; superfluous means ghaflah. We are caught up in so much idle that we don’t have time for dhikr and ‘ilm. Besides Ramadān, how much Qur’ān do you recite. People say ‘i am busy!’ - but they aren’t too busy to read their whatsapp, to check their emails. Even if an unknown person rings them, they pick up…because they are curious. You have time to pick up a call from an unknown creation, and you don’t have time to talk to your Creator? We even click the links on messages we get from random people. We have the wrong attitude - you have to make time. You do it in Ramadān - Allāh swt is training us, He is showing us that if you want it, you will make time for it. You have to trim other things from your life - the butcher trims the fat (charbi) from the meat; trim the ghaflah from your life.
Wa la takun min al-ghāfilīn - and don’t you dare be from those people who forget Allāh swt. It might be extra cooking, sewing, gardening etc - extra is ghaflah. When you have 10-15 mins free in this month, we pray Qur’ān. Usually, when we have no messages to read and we have 10 mins free, we read our old messages. SubhānAllāh. Usually, if a young man goes ten minutes early to the masjid because he didn’t know the time, he gets annoyed that why didn’t they tell me they changed the Jamāt time. But in the month of Ramadān, we want to spend our extra time to Allāh swt.
Fa-ithā faragta fansab - wa ilā rabbika fargab - when you have free time, turns towards your lord in yearning, longing, love, passion…show that I’m missing Allāh swt. In this month, we know where we stopped reading Qur’ān. That’s called taqwa. When you fast from ghaflah, you gain this taqwa. Make du’ā that Allāh, keep me like this afterwards. I like the ‘Ramadān me’ oh Allāh, allow me to stay like this after too. Make your time more valuable, more valuable, more valuable. Spend every moment like its gold. Tell people you cannot talk to them right now as its Ramadān - this is the moment I’m renovating and repairing my heart! You are too busy to meet people whilst your house is getting renovated, in the same way, feel this Ramadān that you are renovating yourself.
When you feel hunger, you feel need. Ya ayyuhan-nās, antumul fuqarā ilallāh - oh people, you are needy for Allāh swt. In this month, we are reminded how much we need Allāh swt. Feel compassion and empathy for those who have this need all year round. We will only know what hunger is when we have water only for both iftār and suhūr for a few days, not by the way we break our fast - that’s not feeling hunger!
Someone asked that is it dates/zamzam we should break your fast with iftār? It is sunnah to tie yourself with stones (3 stones) to feel relief when you are hungry - try that sunnah! We need to feel what the widows, orphan etc felt like.
The sahāba felt the sunnah, they lived the sunnah. In Ramadān, revive the sunnah; revive the sunnah in your families, revive the sunnah in your community...to the extent people say, I want to be JUST like you.
May Allāh swt bless each every one of us in this month! He swt has melted our hearts just in these few days, imagine how much we can attain by the end of it - but this year, we want to make an intention we keep what we attain after Ramadān too. May Allāh swt accept us all Aameen ya rabbal aa'lameen.
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