Why I miss Ramadhaan

It’s already half way into the month of Shawaal and still I’m sad that Ramadhaan is gone. It seems that it just came and went so quickly, like a breath of fresh air, a momentary breeze and then it was just gone. I’m not complaining about these days, Alhamdulillah (Praise be to Allah) these days are good too and there’s always the opportunity for worship but somehow Ramadhaan is just special, and no matter how hard you may try after Ramadhaan there’s just no way of getting the same feeling.

Ramadhaan is filled with peace and blessings and it’s as if you can feel the Mercy of Allah most Glorious all around. People seem to be more patient and more giving, time seems to have more blessings and even though you eat so much less, you somehow are able to do so much more.

People may see this month as a month of restriction- where Muslims are stifled and forced to go through difficulty, but it is so far from that. In fact, Ramadhaan is a month where human beings are given a glimpse into their true potential. Where the restrictions that we usually place upon ourselves are lifted. Where we realise that the material things of this world, such as food, are actually the things that hold us back and which stifle our spirituality and productivity.

Somehow you are able to perform extra Salaah, recite extra Quraan, make extra duaa (prayers) and still achieve all your work for the day. It’s like this is a reminder that when we let go of the worldy things with the intention of pleasing Allah Almighty, then Allah raises us and shows us that we are actually spiritual beings with huge potential. This is why those who are closest to Allah Almighty (like Prophets (peace be upon them), saints and so on) were able to achieve so many miracles and amazing things in their lifetime- they could do things that we could only dream of because they gave up this world and its glamour, to achieve closeness to Allah Almighty, all Glorious.

Ramadhaan comes to wake us up, to revitalise us, to cleanse us and to make us more aware, and although this vigour and enthusiasm lasts for a while after Ramadhaan, a few months down the line it’s gone again and we need another Ramadhaan to remind us once more.

For me Ramadhaan is a beautiful time. I see people who are willing to give and help as much as possible. I see people who are caring and loving, patient and content. People are just naturally better and this makes so much sense when you realise that this is as a result of people whose main concern is connecting with their Lord. When people are constantly conscious of their Creator then they generally tend to be concerned about bettering themselves as well as uplifting others.

So the most special thing about Ramadhaan is our constant connection to Allah Almighty. It’s like we give up the world to focus on Allah for twenty nine or thirty days. Everything else can take a back seat, we think, because our time is for Allah. Ramadhaan lasts for one month, what a glorious month! But can you imagine how much we could achieve if all our days were like the days of Ramadhaan, can you imagine what amazing people the world would be filled with?

“But then Ramadhaan wouldn't be special”, I hear you responding. And of course I cannot disagree, every day could never be like Ramadhaan because we would definitely lose momentum and get bored. Human beings have a low attention span after all.

So all we can do is try our hardest to better ourselves for the rest of the year, so that Inshaa-Allah if we live to see another beautiful month of Ramadhaan, then we will be better people and thus our month will be more amazing than it was this year.

I guess it’s time to let go of Ramadhaan, but I pray that we never let go of the goodness that we have received in the Blessed month. 

Image from here

HOPE

So now that the Blessed month of Ramadhaan is over (way too quickly), I have a little more time to do extra things, like blogging. I hope that everyone has been well over the past month and I hope that Ramadhaan brought many blessings and a lot of peace to all of you. (Inshaa-Allah I plan to do a post on Ramadhaan soon, but we’ll have to wait for that J

Anyway… As regular readers of this blog would’ve noticed (since it’s blatantly obvious) I have decided to change my blog template after a very long while. I was comfortable with my old template and it took me so long to find something I was happy with that I decided it was way too much effort to change it. See, I have to complicate life by insisting on things being symbolic and meaningful (instead of just choosing something because it looks nice, or for the fun of it). In any case, after searching some other sites for templates I got irritated and decided to see what blogger has to offer and there it was, the template I’ve chosen now, RAIN- This was perfect and I’ll tell you why!

Rain symbolises growth, the beginning of new things… but perhaps the most of all, it symbolises HOPE! Hope for a brighter tomorrow, for new life, for clean air, a clean slate, hope for many things- The perfection of rain water, emerging from dark grey clouds, translucent drops of perfection- SubhanAllah (Glory be to Allah), if rain doesn’t remind us that anything is possible, then what does?

This Ramadhaan I’ve been hearing about hope a lot, even today while listening to a lecture by Mufti Menk, I was reminded about hope once more. Mufti Menk spoke about how Allah Almighty wants people to be hopeful and that people should always have hope in Allah, because without hope faith can quickly disappear.

I find this so beautiful, and so reassuring. Imagine that the All Glorious Creator, who is Self Sufficient, expects us, weak human beings, to hope for Allah’s mercy, to hope that Allah will help us, to hope that things will be good if we turn to Allah. SubhanAllah! HOPE!!!

So today and all the days after this, let us remember to have HOPE. Let us hope that Allah will favour us and shower His special mercy on us, let us hope to be amongst the Ummah (community) of our Beloved Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) on the Day of Judgement, let us hope that Our prayers will be answered, and that we will have a good life and a good death and the best in the Hereafter. Let us hope for anything that we want to, because Allah Almighty is generous and there are no ends to Allah’s bounties and there is no impossibilities for Allah! SubhanAllah!!!

LET US HAVE HOPE IN ALLAH, LET THE BEAUTIFUL RAIN BE A REMINDER FOR US THAT THERE CAN ALWAYS BE NEW BEGINNINGS, THAT COMPLETE BEAUTY CAN EMERGE FROM DARKNESS, THAT HOPE CAN SUSTAIN US, BECAUSE AFTER ALL, ALLAH ALMIGHTY SAYS SOMETHING TO THE EFFECT THAT – ‘I AM AS MY SERVANT THINKS I AM’, SO LET US THINK OF ALLAH ALMIGHTY AS THE MOST GENEROUS, THE MOST MERCIFUL AND THE ONE WHO CAN MAKE ANYTHING HAPPEN FOR US, AND INSHAA-ALLAH WE WILL SEE THAT WHEN WE HAVE HOPE IN ALLAH, THEN TRULY, THE SKY IS NOT THE LIMIT!

MAY WE ALWAYS BE OF THOSE WHO CONTINUE TO HAVE HOPE, INSHAA-ALLAH AMEEN! 

Image from here

Blessed Ramadhaan

May Almighty Allah give us all the opportunity to make the best of this Blessed Month, Inshaa-Allah.

May we be of those who are pardoned, those who have mercy showered upon us and those who receive the multitude of blessings from the Most Merciful Creator.

And may Allah Almighty accept all of our prayers and our efforts, Inshaa-Allah, Ameen!!!

Wishing you all the best

Everything could mean Nothing

Recently some events have happened to make me really reflect on life, its meaning and what it’s all supposed to be about. Last Sunday a young woman passed away after being in a week long coma. She had suffered from kidney problems for a while and her sister passed away some years previously in the same way. How does this have anything to do with me? Well, she married a family member of mine, a month ago!

So naturally this was extremely heart-breaking- a young woman who just got married is usually thought to have her whole life ahead of her. She probably didn’t even get to pack all her wedding gifts away and she was probably still getting used to the idea of being a wife. Three weeks of marriage and then she collapsed and went in to a coma. This had a deep effect on me, at first I thought it’s because of the romantic in me clinging on to the tragic love story (sounds very “A Walk to Remember, doesn’t it”?). But then I realised that it’s because it reminded me!

 

I was reminded in such a drastic and blatant way that everything in this life means nothing. Everything has to come to an end and all the things of this world are trivial when you consider our actual purpose for living.

There are millions of people who grapple with this very thing. What is our purpose for living? People spend years trying to figure this out. As Muslims we are fortunate, because Alhamdullillah (Praise be to Allah) we know the answer to this question, we’ve known it since we were little children, and although we constantly have to re-understand it, the fact is that we still know it. OUR PURPOSE ON THIS EARTH IS TO WORSHIP THE CREATOR, ALLAH ALMIGHTY!!!

 

It’s that’s simple really, our purpose is not to work, get rich, become famous or well known, and neither is it to get married. It’s not even to have children or do good work or whatever else we may think is important. No, all these other things is a means to the end, nothing more, and the end is our return to Allah, and that’s all there is to it!

Now we can become angry, we can wonder about the reasons behind things happening, we can believe that life is rather unfair and that bad things seem to happen to good people, and so on. But if we use this line of thinking then we surely do not understand the TRUE PURPOSE OF OUR LIVES.

While people mourn the loss of a young woman, and others around the world mourn the loss of their loved ones- we need to understand that those people have only gone through the transition that we all have to go through one day, it may be sooner or later, but our death is the only thing in the world that is certain. And who says that death is a bad thing anyway- Indeed if we love this transitory world then we will fear death and hate to leave the world. But then again, if we love this world then also we have not understood the true purpose of life.

If we understand the true purpose of life then we will easily understand that everything in this world means nothing. If we do not use the means to make a good end for ourselves, that is, if we do not direct everything in our lives towards Allah then truly everything in the world will mean nothing.

 

So as sad as it is and as much as we mourn, the lessons cannot be ignored. This young woman was given the gift of marriage before she passed away, but this gift was not meant to last forever, and now she has passed to a place that means everything and we just hope that all the gifts she had being given has helped her to have achieved a good status in the hereafter.

 

In the end of the day, the things we place so much emphasis on in this world will actually mean nothing in the hereafter. We are told that on the Day of Judgement our time on this Earth will seem like half a day, imagine that, all the worrying, the stress, the sleepless nights and constant obsessive thoughts about things, everything in this world will mean so little! If we do not use this world as a means to achieve a good end, then we will be of the losers, so instead of obsessing about anything at all in this world, perhaps we should start obsessing about the hereafter and what our position will be then!

 

May Almighty Allah guide us, grant us understanding, forgive us and help us!

And May Allah grant this young woman the highest stages of Paradise, Inshaa-Allah!

The good, the bad and the ugly…

 

I’ve always thought that people are all inherently good; that everyone, no matter how bad their actions may be, has the ability to change and become good. After all, it’s the actions that are bad right, not particularly the people. Sometimes I think that my understanding of the world is naïve, that I’m viewing things through rose coloured glasses so everything looks better than what it really is. I’d like to see myself as someone who is hopeful towards humanity, who can see the good in people when they themselves are unable to see it; who can hope that bad actions can be reformed and that people can turn towards good. I suppose this is why its difficult for me to accept people so blatantly harming others and not seeming to care at all, especially when these others are young children.

 

There are many ways that people harm others, but today I’m particularly talking about those people who sell drugs to innocent (or not so innocent anymore) school children. Drugs is becoming an even huger problem in our society. Recently we heard that children at our local schools are selling drugs and forcing other children to sell it as well. Now taking drugs is one evil thing on its own, but selling it is bad on another level completely. When you take it you are harming yourself, and of course those who love you. But how can anyone have the heart to sell drugs? Selling drugs harms so many people and it’s so completely selfish. I don’t know how dark and twisted people have to be to do this? Preying on young children, getting them addicted and then using them to sell the stuff… honestly this is pure evil!

 

But worse than the average street dealer is the ‘big guys’ in the industry. Those who manufacture the drugs and those who introduced drugs into society in the first place. These guys are in it only for the money and they are not stupid enough to ever take it, because they know the effects all too well. For these guys people’s lives seem to mean nothing and they obviously couldn’t care less who is being harmed. Their kind of “bad” is even worse because they use illusion to make their drugs look good and they portray the picture of innocence, blaming poor social conditions on drug abuse, to deflect from the reality.

 

It’s very sad when you see what drugs does to a person. No I stand to be corrected, very sad is an understatement, it’s tragic! People with so much intelligence and potential waste their lives because of drugs. Here in Johannesburg the streets are full (and I’m not exaggerating at all), of young people who once had their whole lives ahead of them, but now spend their days trying to get a little money from begging, or helping people park their cars or whatever they can do. And these are still better off than those who’ve turned to crime to support their addiction.

 

The thing that makes me the angriest however, is when people on drugs believe that they are “cool” to be taking it. Like it somehow gives them some kind of validation, and proves their strength. This façade that they are living in really gets to me, I feel like giving them a slap and telling them to wake up and face reality. This is because I know that someday they will realise that they were far from “cool” and unfortunately most times that realisation comes too late.

 

I feel hopeless sometimes- hopeless to make any long lasting or significant change. There’s so little I can do and so much I want to do. As a counsellor I think the hardest thing is facing the reality that there’s not much you can do if people don’t want to help themselves. I’ve had numerous occasions when I tried all I could to help someone, to no avail. Because in the end of the day we are all responsible for own lives, and we cannot change the thinking of anyone. In the end only Allah Almighty can help people to change!

 

This doesn’t mean I can’t wish for the best though, it doesn’t mean I can’t dream about a time when our youth will live up to their potential and stop wasting their lives and the precious talents that Allah Almighty has given them. It doesn’t mean I can’t feel saddened or that I should just stop caring. Like I said, I’ve always believed that people are inherently good, I’d like to stick to that belief and hold on to hope, because after all we are the best of Allah’s creation!

 

May Almighty Allah help everyone to stay away from the bad and ugly things and to seek the good, to find happiness and peace in the good and to spread the good instead of the bad!

 

Image from here