Rosina-Fawzia Al-Rawi - The call of ALLAH

Not knowing when, where or how the answer comes protects us from our own limited ideas. But knowing in our heart that the answer will come, transforms us into lovers.

Allah has put two things in our heart: longing and asking for help. And He calls us to Him by stimulating neediness and poverty in us, so that we open up to Him and understand: “We are closer to him than his neck-vein, warīd.” (50:16)

The word for neck-vein, warīd, comes from the root w-r-d which means to flow towards someone.

Allah bestows upon us everything useful for our life: air, food, everything we gain and all the basis of our livelihood.

At no other time do we notice how fast we become weak and needy as we do in Ramadan. After only a few hours without food and drink, our strength and concentration drop, we become slow, sensitive and thin-skinned.

In this vulnerable state, when our feelings pull us this way and that, between longing for surrender and constantly keeping an eye on the clock, hoping that the fast, the inner struggle finally comes to an end, Allah calls us and says: “Now, verily, it is We who have created man, and We know what his innermost self whispers within him: […].” (50:16)

Allah knows our struggle, He knows how the ego fights and in His endless love, He tells us, “I am here. Regardless of your state, no matter how many times you have failed, no matter how much you believe in your unworthiness, I am always here for you! Turn to Me with all your difficulties, all your weaknesses, all your wishes.”

The true aim of supplication is not for our wishes to be fulfilled. Rather it is to transform our human will so that it may unite with the Divine will.

If we keep opening our heart and our hands in trust and surrender, allowing trust and surrender to suffuse us, then we will begin to experience Allah’s loving care and to accept our fate as our own choice.

“Say: ‘Behold, my prayer, and [all] my acts of worship, and my living and my dying are for God [alone], the Sustainer of all the worlds, in whose divinity none has a share: for thus have I been bidden – and I shall [always] be foremost among those w ho surrender themselves unto Him.’ Say: ‘Am I, then to seek a sustainer other than God, when He is the Sustainer of all things?’ ” (6:162-164)

Find your task in this world, fulfil it as best you can and ask Allah for help. Open your hands in prayer so that the blessing can fall into them and you may catch it. And be open – that is all you have to do. For the meaning of our existence is to come closer to Allah, to love Him and in the end to worship Him.

PRACTICE SUGGESTED FOR TODAY

Let Yā Samī‘ Yā Ḥamīd accompany you throughout the day.

When we pray, we say:

sami‘a llāhu liman ḥamidāhu

Allah hears the praising of those who praise

in the sense that He accepts them, for whoever hears accepts.

DID YOU KNOW…

“And [tell them that] I have not created the invisible beings and men to any end other than that they may [know and] worship Me.” (51:56).

“To worship Me”, li-ya‘budūn, comes from the root ‘-b-d, which also means to make it possible for a way to be trodden, to smooth the way and make it easily passable.

Allah helps us and eases our path to Him through knowing, ma‘rifa, His existence and through our conscious willingness to attune our existence to His will and His plan.

The Messenger of Allah said: “One supplication of the Prophet Dawud (David), peacebe with him,was:

Allahumma innī as’aluka ḥubbaka, wa ḥubba man yuḥibbuka, wa-l-‘amala llaḏi yuballighunī ḥubbaka. Allahumma ij‘al ḥubbaka aḥabba ilayya min nafsī, wa ahlī wa min al-mā’i l-bāridi.

O Allah! I ask You for Your love and the love of those who love You,

and for deeds that will cause me to attain Your love.

O Allah! Make Your love more beloved to me than myself,

my family and cooling water. 18

The most frequent invocation was:

allahumma rabbanā ātinā fi d-dunya ḥasana wa fi-l-ākhira ḥasana wa qinā ‘adhāba n-nāri

O Allah! Give us in the world that which is good and in the hereafter

that which is good, and save us from the torment of hellfire. 19

7 thday of Ramadan

DHIKR

REMEMBRANCE

The Prophet said, “When you pass by the gardens of Paradise, then enjoy the abundance.” They asked: “And what are the gardens of Paradise?” He said: “The gatherings of remembrance, dhikr.”20

In its essence, dhikr means to give up our ego’s (nafs) wishes, demands and pictures, and to be with God. It is to keep the rope, ḥabl, between us and Allah always in our heart: “ And hold fast, all together, unto the bond (rope) with God, […].” (3:103)

Dhikr enables us to shake the foundations which separate us from our true self and to overcome our feeling of isolation which our nafs always wants to pass off as reality.

Dhikr grants us strength and protection, while softening our heart so that we become “like wool in God’s hands”. Dhikr enables us to step out of the sphere of isolation and into the all-encompassing space of love and peace.

In the Qur’an, Allah says, “and remembrance, dhikr, of God is indeed the greatest good” (29:45) and our beloved Prophet says “The purest by Allah, that which elevates us most, is the remembrance, dhikr, of Allah, the Sublime.”21

Fasting weakens our body so that the power and control of the ego, nafs, abates and we have a chance to get a deeper insight into ourself. Indeed our ego prevents us from experiencing our true self which is the unity of our being, harmony and contentment with Allah. Fasting shatters the shiny palace which we have taken such pains to build up. To a certain extent, fasting turns us into a ruin.

Yet ruins are much more exposed to the light, above all the light of humility, than the palace. In our weakness, we feel how deeply we depend on Allah and His great love for us. In our weakness, we feel His blessing. What a freedom, what a deep joy arises!

I AM NOT ALONE. I AM NOT ISOLATED. I AM NOT A LEAF MOVED BY THE

ARBITRARY WINDS OF LIFE. I HAVE ROOTS, I AM ROOTED IN ALLAH’S

ALMIGHTINESS, POWER AND LOVE. I SURRENDER. I GIVE IN AND I SURRENDER TO