Maryam Amir – When Ramadan is a battle
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The speaker discusses the concept of worship and how it can lead to distraction from one's spiritual focus. They stress the importance of having a strong presence in one's life and protecting one's health and family. The rainbow of God is seen as a way to find joy and connect with the Prophet sallha, and testing and trials are necessary in order to determine if a person is experiencing the types of tests or trials they are experiencing.
AI: Summary ©
Smell him Alhamdulillah here up with the alamin in Ramadan. We
often feel like we should be able to focus fully on worship. And for
us, oftentimes, worship means ritual, worship, Salah and Quran,
terawiya, suyam, vikir, dua, all of these beautiful, heart,
touching, soul, nourishing acts. Many times we think of Ramadan as
an opportunity to isolate ourselves religiously, not
religiously, but spiritually, and the sense of we should be able to
just remove all barriers of concentration and only focus on
bringing our dua to Allah and whispering to him and weeping to
him and building that intimate connection with him. And all of
that is completely true, of course, for anyone who has become
a parent
after maybe having spent their college years in the masjid, or
having spent some time being able to give this full focus, and then
becoming parents and realizing that Subhanallah, you have
absolutely no control over your time if you get five minutes to
make A private dua with focus. It's probably because they
shockingly went to bed early and you actually have the energy to do
it. You want to read more Quran, but every time you try, they're
calling you, or you want to be able to focus on teh jut, but
you're exhausted and you may not even be able to pray. Pray more
than the obligation if they're young children, particular, so
that shift of experiencing Ramadan in that very sweet, personal,
vulnerable, intimate way, really changes. Having had this
expectation that Ramadan is going to be about one on one focus, and
having experienced that to then shift and having Ramadan be all
about a different type of worship. That's the worship of caring for
others. That's the worship of removing the burden from someone
else. Your children, when you change their diaper or take them
to, you know, play at the park or whatever it is, the Allah rewards
you in different ways, and that those different ways don't always
feel as sweet. And so this idea, and of course, it tastes sweet in
the sense of you're building relationships with your children,
but it may not taste as sweet in terms of you building your faith,
but this concept of isolating oneself in Ramadan, of making
Ramadan a time of just focused worship, we need to also ask
ourselves, have we seen that in the life of the prophet sallallahu
alayhi wa sallam in every moment of Ramadan? Because Absolutely, we
learn from the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam and the
Companions, that there were times that they just focused in the art
tikkaf, that they just focused in the masjid, that they had this
focused worship. But there were other times that Allah made this
month a month of extreme difficulty, a month of trial, a
month of triumph, yes, but also a month of loss. When the battle of
Badr took place, it was in the month of Ramadan, the Prophet
sallallahu, alayhi wa sallam left, and he knew that his daughter,
rakay, or the Allahu anha, was sick. Athman ruled the Allahu Anhu
did not participate in bedr because he was left with his wife,
Rudi Allahu anha, nursing her and taking care of her. The Prophet
sallallahu, alayhi wa sallam went for Badr with the companions. And
of course, the circumstances of Badr in the way that it happened
wasn't the same as another
battle in which there were these huge preparations and everyone
knew they were going into this huge battle. They faced those who
were against the Muslims and felt their numbers were so small, their
their provision, their tools, were not equipped for this enormous
battle. And this is something that we really can take away in
Ramadan, that even though they were not prepared for a battle of
this magnitude, they faced it anyway. They faced it with trust
in Allah. They faced it with intense that the Prophet
sallallahu alayhi, he was, said that made intense, intense,
intense before bedr, they faced it knowing that they were fighting
for the sake of the truth. Now today, we may have trials and
tests, and sometimes we wonder why we are given them, but there are
circumstances in which we may not feel prepared, but Allah wills
that they have.
It in a particular time of our lives, and in that particular
time, our biggest worship is not to walk away from the battlefield
and say, I'd rather just go to the masjid, because Allah, Allah to
love me more in the masjid. Of course, Allah loves when you go to
the masjid. But what if you have someone who you love, who is sick
and they are hospitalized. Should you leave them because it's
Ramadan when you know that your presence brings them peace and
comfort, when you know that your presence as an advocate for their
medical rights is critical, when you know that they need to see
you,
is this not your own type of struggle, your own type of fight
in the month in which better bed took place.
Sometimes you may not feel ready for
the tests. None of us are ready for tests.
But sometimes Allah spinal Tada knows that this
has to happen in this time of your life for a reason, and sometimes
we can't know the reason. And I don't mean to imply that this has
anything to do with abuse. It's not about abuse. It's not about
someone else harming someone else's rights. But I'm talking
about the type of test or trial that someone sometimes goes
through, and then maybe 10 to 15 years later, they look back and
they say, subhanAllah, I had to go through that at that time in my
life to be able to get to this point in my life and in my
relationship with Allah. There was a sister who was talking about how
she had gotten really difficult news about the home that she had
been renting and they had to leave immediately, And subhanAllah Allah
facilitated for them, not only to move to a better place,
Alhamdulillah, that they wouldn't have even imagined before, but
also to have neighbors, neighbors who were so caring and who made
them feel safe and made them feel Welcome, and that was something
they had never experienced previously in their neighborhood.
So sometimes these notices come at a time that is unexpected and with
immense difficulty, but we never know what Allah, Spano to Allah,
has stored for us in the long run. That being said, the Battle of
bedr was a time in which the Companions actually got the glad
tidings of victory. The angels supported the companions. And did
you know that the angels support you? I talk about the angels a
lot, so perhaps you've heard me here speak about this, but the
angels are beings of light the heaven order to do certain acts,
and one of those acts is to protect you. It's to make dua for
you. It's to roam the Earth, looking for you, reciting the
Quran and the angels were ordered to go to the Prophet sallallahu
alayhi wa sallam, companions to the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa
sallam, and defend them and fight on their behalf. In better Did you
know that you can have angels fighting on your behalf?
Subhanallah, angels making dua for you, angels who are invested in
you in your protection, that this is a command from Allah, and when
we look at bedr, it was victory, Alhamdulillah, clear victory for
the Muslims, that joy and that celebration in Ramadan is
incredible.
The Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam came back to Medina to find
that his daughter, rokaya rodi Allahu anha, had not just passed
away, but she had already been buried. He didn't get to see her
body. Rodeo Aloha anha to say goodbye to her physical form. The
Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa salam went back to find she was already
back into the ground,
and the joy and the excitement of a victory like bed is tempered
Subhanallah tempered
with the immense loss and trial and tribulation and pain of losing
his daughter, Rodeo laho A sallallahu alayhi wa sallam lost
every child in his lifetime, and that faulty model the anha was
told that she would pass away by him, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam,
this was a prophecy that came true, that she was the next To
pass away of his kin, salua, they he was salam. He wasn't spared the
pain of her loss, even as he was passing away, sallAllahu, alayhi
wa sallam. But the news of Raqqa, urodiloha and his passing was in
Ramadan.
He lost his daughter in Ramadan, sallAllahu, alayhi wa sallam,
and I want to share that with you, because if you are going through
pain and loss, if you are struggling with Ramadan and mental
health, if you are navigating Ramadan and isolation or
depression, if you feel like you can't connect in this month
because emotionally, you just have so many other responsibilities, it
doesn't make you a.
Any less blessed. It doesn't mean that yo Ramadan is not one in
which Allah has not counted as so beloved to him. It means that
you're having yo Ramadan
like the Ramadan in which the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa
sallam lost his daughter, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, that
didn't make it any less of a Ramadan for the companions the
community of the Prophet. Peace be upon him. It didn't make it any
less of a Ramadan for the Prophet himself, sallAllahu, alayhi
wasallam, have hope in Allah, complete yur Ramadan with hope in
Him. It is worship to be optimistic in Allah, and being
optimistic looks like accepting that part of life is loss, and
that part of loss is a form of connection with him, with
vulnerability and pain and closest to him, in a way that sometimes
we may not ever, ever be able to understand, but we can take it to
Doha.
We can take all of that to Doha and the Allah loves to hear our
voices.
But.