Abdal Hakim Murad – 2018 Ramadan Moments 7
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Cambridge Muslim College,
training the next generation of Muslim thinkers.
Well, the journey is coming to an end.
And,
it's time to look back and check out
the scenery, and to see
how far we've climbed in the mountain of
of Ramadan. There is a sense of going
up.
It's an upward path.
So where are we? And what's the view?
Are we nearer to heaven,
or have we just lost a bit of
weight?
The experience
of Ramadan, as we said in the first
of these lectures, is of entering a different
zone
of going into a space that doesn't feel
like one's normal comfort zone.
If you've ever been scuba diving, you may
recall that strange feeling that you're in this
new space, but the rules of how to
comport yourself are different. And you know that
even though this is an amazing space, it's
not really your habitat. You can't just reach
out, eat something, or just relax. You have
to be on your guard. And in Ramadan
with these new rules that surround us, it's
a little bit like that.
It's a little bit also like the experience
of
the poor in a sense. Because Ramadan is
a state of it's an ascetical state, a
state of destitution. It's tajreed. It's fakr.
And as we walk down the high street,
we see that we're excluded from all kinds
of places. We can't go into Starbucks for
that frappuccino on a hot day.
You can't just stop and have a pizza.
You're kind of excluded from dunya
in a
very absolute way. So you peer in and
watch everybody
treating themselves rather like the homeless and the
poor who can't afford it. You're kind of
with them as it were. There's a sense
of solidarity
with those who are a bit excluded.
And this idea of fucker is really important
in Islam.
Because some of the earliest verses of the
holy Quran are about social inequality and injustice
and bad distribution of
of of God's gifts. It's something
about which we are to feel
passionately. And in Ramadan, even whatever the state
of our bank balances might be. And here
in the west, we have so much.
We do
occupy to some extent the state of those
who are
hungry, destitute,
refugees, for whom Dunya is not really a
comfort zone, but full of challenges. And I
think that's a kind of solidarity that is
very prophetic. The holy prophet
didn't just preach about the poor, but he
was of the poor.
And no
would spend the night in his house,
which is a fairly challenging idea when you
think, oh, I'm not sure if I've got
enough
to cover my expenses for the next financial
year. Every night was the end of his
financial year. If there was a coin in
the house, he'd go up and find somebody
to give it to. That was his Tawakkul.
So we're we're thrown into that kind of
ascetical and and and prophetic space. And this
is an age of gigantic inequality. So it's
appropriate that Ramadan ends
with another piece of charity. Yet another. There's
a much in Islam, the Hajj,
kind of culminates with feed the the the
the poor and and and the desperate, and
that's what the nahr is about. You give
the meat to to the poor, most of
it.
And Ramadan also ends with this little zakat.
The zakat al fit at which we think,
well, what's the significance of that? We've done
so much this month,
and we're supposed to give what £5
or £10 or something. What is that? But
actually
the intention
is there,
and also it does make a difference.
If you give £5 to an Islamic charity,
at some point somebody is gonna have more
to eat.
Okay. They cream off so much in admin
and so forth. You have to be careful
which charity you pick.
But, it does make a difference. Somewhere in
the world,
there is somebody who has a meal.
And the meal ultimately will make them think
about the solidarity of the. And it's like
a gift. All of these and
this that comes from this such generous
effulgence. It's kind of gifts of the holy
prophets.
Some refugee in some camp somewhere.
He fled Burma or Syria or wherever it
might be. There's food in his plate.
His child is fed
and it comes from the holy prophet
because without him and these beautiful institutions
none of this would exist.
It'd just be the Red Cross and accountancy,
and the kind of sterile international secular aid
thing. But this is a gift from the
holy prophet. It comes from his hand, and
we are
part of that process. So, the zakat al
fitrah is important. It's it's it's a kind
of purification.
He is told
take from their wealth a sadaqa
which will purify and cleanse them.
Now Ramadan is all about purification,
not just about getting rid of some of
that excess flab. That's a kind of symbol
of what it's really doing to our souls.
So we are healthier inwardly as well as
outwardly,
more attentive, more in the zone.
But, as a result of that, there's also
the purification of our assets, which is really
important. And many of us give our our
generals a catch during the month of Ramadan.
And there's that amazing sense that,
as it were, I've got rid of the
the excess, the fermentation,
the the bubbles on the top, and the
rest is inshallah pure for me, and there'll
be more blessings for me in that. So
that's an important lesson, and this is a
world of extreme inequality.
And just a little bit given by those
Islamic charities in those needy places does make
a big difference. I've been to
Mali,
one of the poorest countries on Earth.
And you do see there sort of children
with legs like matchsticks.
And one gift from Islamic charity of a
plate
of
of of or something is a is a
miracle for them. And they know that it
comes with the and comes ultimately from from
us.
So don't underestimate
any act that's given with with intention.
So we have this detachment, this solidarity with
the poor and the hungry, because hunger is
the most obvious and extreme consequence of
of of poverty. If people are hungry, then
then they they really are poor.
But it's also to do with
the the purity of
intention, and also humility. Because Ramadan, kind of,
breaks us in a certain way. It's difficult
really to to be
arrogant and swanky and throw your weight around
in the fasting month. And Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala does not like
kibr, pride.
They say it's the worst of the 7
deadly sins.
Why? Because it can't coexist with the fear
of God. If you're proud, then you're competing
with the one who alone is, and what
a kabir,
which is an outrage as well as being
illogical.
So what the pride is broken in in
Ramadan and our usual kind of vaulting of
our own capacities a little bit limited. We're
aware of our vulnerability, our dependence on
the the the risk.
And this humility is the key at the
end of Ramadan
to what in a sense Ramadan is really
about, which is relationship with God and with
the prayer. There's a lot of praying as
well in Ramadan. People say Ramadan the month
of fasting here. Month of fasting, it's also
the month of the Quran.
It's also the month of of Zakat and
and Sadaqa, and the Islamic charities experience it
as a kind of bumper time of the
year.
But it's also the time of prayer, of
duaq, of,
of kind of upping our game in terms
of really getting into a a correct state
of.
And that kind of goes together with it
because,
in prayer, humility is is essential. You have
to have a sense of the, the majesty
of the one you're standing in front of.
And that's difficult if you're kind of standing
there in a kind of well fed, greasy,
complacent sense
of your own
self satisfaction. You can't really pray properly in
that state. You have to be a bit
broken.
And with the brokenhearted.
So this this withness,
comes about when we are a little bit
crushed.
So it's a good time for prayers.
It's a good time. Often Muslims find that
the prayers are on time and at the
beginning of the time more easily in Ramadan
than at other times, but the attentiveness
is really essential.
And we know from from the Hadith,
man has nothing of his power except what
he's paying attention to.
So in Ramadan,
because of our humility and our sense of
neediness and dependence on our creator,
we are
more in the prayer.
And we throw away these 5 daily gifts
so frequently. The most time for the prayer,
I can fit it in after I've watched
this show or after I've met my boss,
etcetera. The prayer can kinda get fitted in
with the other things that in practice we
consider to be more urgent in our lives,
which is
unfortunate, if you think about it. But in
Ramadan, we have the opportunity really to make
those prayers alive.
So
attentiveness
is essential, and the
the absence of pride is vital for that.
It's impossible
to speak to God sincerely
if you have pride in your heart.
There's a
we began with the idea that Ramadan is
like going up a mountain, and it is
sunnah to guard mountains. There's lots of hadiths
and the holy prophet, Ali, so that someone
went hiking with his Sahaba. And some of
the the wonders and miracles were seen up
in the mountains. It did as a sunnah.
And one reason for that I think is
that if you're in a environment in the
natural world where Dunya is a little bit
less
fruitful and capacious, and maybe the wind is
blowing and there's a bit of snow, and
you feel a bit more vulnerable. There is
a sense of of dependence on on the
crater in those environments.
And
I was
hiking in in the mountains in Bosnia a
few months ago. Some friends took me up
there, the Dinaric Alps, and it really is
high.
And,
we went to a village called,
which I hadn't been to before, which is
famous for having Bosnia's oldest mosque. And there's
a beautiful, very simple structure, simple stone
minaret. And the place is kind of cold
and blasted, and there's a cafe which only
serves
bread and
cream.
That's the tradition. So way up out of
the the tourist track. And near this village,
there is a rock formation that looks just
like a dragon.
And of course, there's a legend attaching to
this. And the villagers will say, oh, yeah.
That You know, we used to have a
none of the mosque. This little old mosque.
And,
a long time ago,
the villagers said that they their sheep were
being eaten by a dragon.
And they didn't know what to do with
this dragon. And so they went to the
imam of the mosque, the saying, a what
can we do?
And he said, well, I guess I'm gonna
have to be the one to go off
and confront the dragon, but I haven't got
a magic bow and arrow. This isn't the
hobbit.
It just goes off into the the mountains,
with Dua. He says, I'll confront the dragon
just with Dua with prayers.
And you pray for me, he says to
the villagers.
So he goes off into the mountains,
and he meets this dragon.
And when the dragon sees him, the dragon
turns to stone,
of course.
And the Hujar goes back to the village
And they say, oh, you must be such
a great imam.
Your can turn these scary creatures to stone.
And he says, no. It was because of
your
So the question is and you're sitting at
the coffee house and eating up written cream
and they tell you the story.
The question is, who was right? Was it
the
or was it the
villagers?
And the answer is, it was neither.
The reason why gave him this miracle
was that he was so convinced that it
couldn't possibly be his prayers that had any
effect, but must be those of the simple
villagers.
Because of that humility,
Allah
brought about this miracle, this wonder.
I kind of like that story because it's
a reminder that nothing really happens for us
in religion. It doesn't become real until we
overcome this this dragon within the serpent, this
black snake, the the ego.
I was in Anatolia a while back, and
some American Muslims
were mystified that by this,
it's very old Seljuk mosque.
There's 2 very stylized squiggly things that look
a bit like snakes.
I thought,
why they got back snakes next to the
mihrab?
The reason for those snakes, and it's you
get it in some mosques there, is to
remind the imam
of the poison that is in the ego.
So when he's standing there, he might be
leading the aid prayer or the Jummah prayer.
And there's 10,000 people behind him and there's
this big shot imam with his big turban.
He sees the snakes and he is this
sincere or is it not? And it helps
him to be a little bit broken, and
recognize that the reality of the prayer is
what Allah
experiences from from that person's heart. Not what
everybody thinks the Imam is up to. So
Ramadan is something that gives us the most
important thing, which is to break the ego,
to snap the nafs
as much as possible, and to help us
to see things more religiously and more authentically.
To to tread gently upon the earth.
And this is, you know, the greatest gift
because it's a prophetic
tradition.
So Ramadan coming to an end, may Allah
make it not just a time of fasting,
but a time of sadaqa, a time of
zakat, a time of prayer, a time of
Quran, a time of the completeness of Islam,
and a time also of mercy. Because it's
only through our own humility that we can
really look at others with with mercy and
empathy.
And this is a world in which
so much of that is lacking.
Today,
president Trump is meeting with the head of
North Korea. 2 giant planetary sized egos
colliding, and a lot of ordinary people's survival
depends on the clash of those weapons. It's
not
not
consoling.
But religion gives us this gift and these
technologies,
spiritual technologies such as this blessed month, which
has just passed.
Accept our fasting, and accept our Quran, and
accept our prayers, and our taraweeh, and accept
our good akhlaq, and overlook all of the
opportunities which we have let go to waste
in this month. And, inshallah,
bring us and you and your families and
all the Muslims
safely and prosperously
and piously to the Ramadan inshallah.
Cambridge Muslim College, training the next generation of
Muslim thinkers.