Ramadan Mubarak, everyone! Isn't this feeling unlike any other? The time of year when we stroll the rain-soaked streets with Qur’an in our ears and pray for hours on end, ending only until our hearts are content, until we are content. The fleeting feeling, knowing tomorrow we will once again seek His mercy, just as we did today.
The time of year when we put our dunya on pause, we focus solely on ibadah — the sole worship of Allah ﷻ.
The time of year when we fast, from the break of dawn until the dusk of night, 30 days no less. Which is no small feat, of course, but perhaps Ramadan has become just that: a month merely made up of fasting, a month of counting down the clock and doing anything and everything to make that slow, stubborn clock go faster.
But why? You and I both know what the treasure chest of a month Ramadan is, and has always been. Good deeds, even the smallest of such, being rewarded seventyfold, a single night of Ramadan being better than a thousand months (Laylat al-Qadr), fasting potentially being 700 times more in reward than any other month of the year — et cetera, et cetera.
So why is it then that Ramadan has, for so many of us, been made merely into a month of fasting and very little more?
Why Ramadan Is More than Just a Month of Fasting
Ramadan is the ninth and holiest month of the Islamic Hijri calendar; it is also the month in which the first verses of the Qur’an were revealed to the Prophet Muhammad in the Cave of Hira, atop the pagan Meccans. Although the Prophet's initial reaction to revelation was one of shock and surprise — that he had been chosen as a prophet to convey the message of God — with time, shock turned into reason, and his sheer surprisement gave way to a profound sense of responsibility… prophethood was certainly upon him ﷺ.
And with that, the foundation of both Islam and the holy month of Ramadan was laid bare. An entire month where the expectation was that there would be an abstinence from food, drink, marital intercourse, sinful speech, anger and argumentation, heedlessness, worldly excess, spiritual negligence, and so much more. Some for just during the day, others to be abstained altogether. But why? That would mean that, ideally, all forms of fitnah, every trial, temptation, tribulation, would vanish entirely, leaving there nothing but free time and zero distraction.
But that, my friends, is precisely the point: with the dunya on lock and key, abstinence from food and drink, and the Shaitan chained up with the key nowhere to be found… ibadah is all that there is left. Fasting is, of course, ibadah, but it's a type of ibadah, a type of worship that should lead to other forms of worship. And if that's not the case, if fasting feels more like a chore than a duty — a duty to draw closer to Allah — then hey, it's all good: there's still another 25 days left of this blessed month. Make use of that, in shaa Allah.
Jazak Allah khair for your time and attention throughout!
Faithfully, STN.
PS: We can all waste time; I myself am no better example than any of you, that's for sure. But the raft inevitably closes in, and every hour wasted on anything other than Allah is an hour that could instead have been used solely in the remembrance of Allah. Because only in the remembrance of Allah ﷻ do hearts find peace.
