Rosina-Fawzia Al-Rawi - The call of ALLAH

The Qur’an prepares our soul and our spirit to the forthcoming endless journey, to our return to Him.

Our beloved Prophet Muhammad describes it as follows: “There are two pleasures for the fasting person, one at the time of breaking his fast, and the other at the time when he will meet his Lord (on Judgement Day); then he will be pleased because of his fasting.” 7

The Qur’an is the miracle which Allah has bestowed upon us through His Messenger . We read and hear about the miracles of the Prophets, Allah’s peace be with them, but we are the only ones who are now holding the miracle of the Qur’an in our hands and can now drink from it. What an honour, and what a responsibility!

May your pure hands hold the Qur’an, may your loving lips touch it and may your whole being drink from this spring.

Thus fasting helps us in this process of mastering our self. When we are being asked to leave everything that distracts us and everything that nourishes us from the outside, to a certain extent we find ourselves forced to look inside for our longing.

We start our journey by turning inwards, fasting from the creation and turning to the Creator.

It is at the beginning of our fast that we can feel most strongly Allah’s mercy and help.

When our hearts open, we experience Allah’s mercy and our plea for forgiveness grows.

Forgiveness helps us enter the next, deeper state of consciousness, and free all our senses from everything which does not bring us closer to Allah.

O ALLAH, TAKE US CLOSER TO THE BEST WE CAN BE. LET MY SPIRIT GROW FROM SELF-CENTREDNESS UNTIL IT CAN EMBRACE ALL OF YOUR CREATION IN MERCY, FORGIVENESS AND DELIGHT.

The next level of fasting is to see to it that our thoughts are not fed by our ego, nafs.

It is fasting from arrogance and complacency so as to experience how completely we depend upon Him.

This helps us free ourselves from the fires because fire arises when we put up resistance, when we are afraid to let go and to surrender in deep trust and devotion.

“God is enough for us; and how excellent a guardian is He!” (3:173)

May Allah raise us above the state which the beloved of Allah was concerned about and described as follows: “How few are those who truly fast and how many those who (merely) go hungry.” 8

When humility touches our nafs and shakes the walls of resistance, we overcome isolation and are ready to enter Allah’s kingdom of mercy and peace. Experiencing our humility and Allah’s love opens our hearts and makes them more generous towards those in need. Allah puts generosity, serenity and peace in our hearts. The worries of the past vanish, the fear of the future leaves us and we remain in the moment, in the presence of the Divine:

“Now, verily, it is We who have created man, and We know what his innermost self whispers within him: for We are closer to him than his neck-vein. ” (50:16)

May our hearts always be in Allah’s hands, may our deeds always express our love, and may our thoughts and words be filled with the beauty that He, praised be His magnificence, subḥāna hū wa ta’ala, has put in us.

This book is meant to bring support and inspiration to all those who are on the path to Allah, all the sincere seekers and all those who fast out of love. May Allah accept our fast, for we all drink from His eternal mercy, raḥma, to which we turn in deep hope and wakeful fear.

“And hold fast, all together, unto the bond with God, and do not draw apart from one another. And remember the blessings which God has bestowed upon you: […].” (3:103)

1 stday 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.