Ramadan

Hajj Mustafa Ali al-Haydari

Posted Oct 29, 2002      •Permalink      • Printer-Friendly Version
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We have all come from before endless time, passing through this experience and returning to endless time. Allah in His own description of Himself declares that nothing in this creation increases Him nor does it decrease Him by any measure of perceived creation or destruction. He sends souls to the Fire and He is not affected. He sends souls to the Garden and He is not affected. He is Himself, fulfilled and needs nothing.

By His Love He manifested this creation to be known and worshiped. He gathered the Arwah (spirits) of all creatures and asked if He is not their Lord. All the Arwah answered “yes!” This is the pre-creational imprinting stamped on every created thing. 

Each Ruh (spirit) is cloaked with nafs (soul) and through the heart (mirror) reflects the world around us. Face the mirror-heart towards what nourishes the primal imprint and command to ‘know the Lord” and it will shine with the light of that realization. Face the mirror-heart towards that which distracts it from the pre-creational affirmation, and it will languish in darkness and distraction. The heart is so vast by its nature, you may spend an eternity filling it with the pleasures and distractions of this world, yet still never be content. The heart was made to contain only the Light of Allah, therefore, it is truly “the heart of the matter”; the focal point to which Allah makes himself known.

Allah in His overflowing and immeasurable bounty gifted mankind with the means to fulfill His intention, establishing His Khalifa in this world.

Islam is the provided means and clear universal articulation of the path to fulfill His Love to be known and worshiped.

In this coming month of Ramadan, Allah has spread the table wide for nourishing both the inner and outer.  He provides the means to realizing His omnipresence and complete engulfing of our entire affair.

Allah created the world on a dual foundation that permeates every experience and possibility.

As we develop as human beings. There are basic energy centered facets of our nature that compound and play a major role in our lives. They are based on the universal law of duality. This universal dynamic expresses itself in our human experience in many ways. The essential way we experience the dual nature of things is through repulsion and attraction.

From even before we are born, we experience repulsion and attraction. We are cramped; we move. We are tired; we sleep. We are hungry; we seek food. As we develop from birth to childhood these wants and their resolution complexify into a fully developed personality we call “I”, or me. Each one of us develops in different ways, but the basic foundation is the same for us all.  For many of us, the way that these basic attractions and repulsions were met, resulted in the pollution of the prime imprinting to discover His Lordship. So we ate, repulsed by hunger, seeking fulfillment (attraction) to food that may or may not have been the best for us. This is where the wisdom teachings of Islam are needed to bring about the best choices. But as children and later as adults we aren’t always given the best, nor do we choose the best. It is as a long result of these errant exposures and choices that effect the development of our selves, its health or sickness.

Ramadan is the cure for these developments. It addresses the basic energies behind most of what motivates us. These are sleep, food, and sex.

In the blessed month of Ramadan, we are awakened when we would sleep. We eat at unaccustomed times, and we curtail our sexual desires until permitted, by the wisdom teachings of Ramadan. All these basic energy centers are affected, making it possible for old and negative patterns to be broken and transformed. Fasting through the month of Ramadan makes it possible to realign these basic energies, giving way to a new and realized approach to the health and well being of the Soul.

The natural result of curtailing these basic energies is that it makes us more sensitive, capable of more readily perceiving the subtle nature of our being. Fasting from the engagement of these powerful primal energies frees us to direct our focus on the true purpose of heart and being. It is as though we are removed from the bodily needs, bringing forth a focus on the needs of the soul. It is a in a way a mythal of the meaning of La illa ha il Allah, there is no God but God. Denial of one (La illa ha) brings about the realization of the truth (il Allah). Close down the path to the appetites of the nafs and the pathways of nourishing light are opened. From constriction comes expansion, and it is in the practice of fasting that we are raised to a higher state of consciousness.

Ramadan is a great gift and if entered into with the intention to fast for Allah alone, the reward will be for what you intend.

Wa Salaam

Hajj Mustafa Ali al-Haydari
Nuradeen Community Project
Editor www.nuradeen.com

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