Naima B. Robert – A Sisters Ramadan Season 3 Episode 1 6 Essential Relationships Relationship Allah taala
AI: Summary ©
The sister of Hipsyna Aloni has joined the series of A priority of Islam and explains her frustration with her husband's lack of behavior and lack of behavior. She emphasizes the importance of acceptance and balancing fear and hope in their relationship with Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. The speakers stress the importance of fasting, praying, reading the Quran, and spending one's time with Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. They stress the importance of renewing intentions, slowing down, taking oneself to account, and pressing the reset button to reset one's habit.
AI: Summary ©
Welcome to season 3 of A Sister's Ramadan.
I am your sister Naima B. Robert and
I am honored that you have joined me
today. Alhamdulillah,
Alhamdulillah,
Alhamdulillah.
We have been blessed with another Ramadan.
Allahu Akbar. Now as I mentioned in the
promo to this series, I lost my husband
of 15 years very suddenly and that loss
led me to a few important realizations.
So
one of those realizations was
we don't know what we've got
until it's gone.
So let's take a moment and be real.
How many times have you complained about
making hosul, waking up for fajr, making up
fasts in Ramadan
or listening to your parents say the same
thing again and again, getting your husband that
cup of tea for the 3rd time in
the night,
changing the wet bedsheets again,
serving those in laws, or coming to your
sister's rescue and listening to another 1 hour
marathon again.
Being patient with the aunties at the Masjid.
Dealing with the people.
The truth is this,
we take the people in our lives for
granted.
We're quick to complain when they don't behave
as we would like and we are slow
to appreciate their presence.
This Ramadan,
I would like us to change that and
in order to help you and I to
change this habit that we have as human
beings,
I would like to take you on a
4 step process.
This 4 step process is
step 1,
renewing our intentions,
step 2,
slowing
down,
step 3, taking ourselves to account,
and step 4,
pressing the reset button.
Now I will be explaining
exactly how we take those 4 steps, but
Insha'Allah,
they will help us to use this Ramadan
to improve our relationship with Allah Subhanahu Wa
Ta'ala with ourselves
and with those around us. So over the
next 4 weeks I'll be covering 6 different
relationships
and we'll be looking at how Islam teaches
us to honor and nurture every single one
of them. And in today's show, we will
be looking at our relationship
with Allah Subhanu wa Ta'ala.
I would like to start off
this first episode
by recalling with you the story of Hajar
alaihis salam.
Now we're all familiar with this story
about this amazing woman who has given so
much to the Muslim Ummah and to our
Islamic heritage
but today I'd like to focus on specific
aspect of Hajar
and that was
her relationship with Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
So we all know the story, Prophet Ibrahim
alaihi salam takes her and her baby out
to the desert and leaves her there and
he walks away, leaving he's walking away and
she says to him, you know, will you
leave us here when there is no one,
when we have nothing? And then she says,
has Allah
ordered you to do this?
And he says, yes.
And that is the end of the story
as far as Hajar is concerned.
Then she knows at that point Allah will
never forsake us.
She is all of a sudden calm, she's
collected, she no longer is anxious or scared
or panicked and she lets her husband leave
her in the desert. Now
this is not something that most of us
will experience obviously,
but
put yourself in her shoes.
Would any of us have the level of
Iman
and Tawakkul,
true reliance on Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala,
true trust in His plan for us to
be able to accept this color, to accept
this situation?
Very few of us would, but SubhanAllah,
this is the transformational
nature
of the belief in Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
In our knowing of him by his names,
by his attributes, and this is something that
has changed the trajectory of human beings
throughout history, SubhanAllah.
And what I'd like us to do, every
one of us, is just to ask ourselves
for a moment.
Do I have that level of trust in
my Lord?
Do I have that level of confidence
in my rub?
Am I as firm in my tawhid,
in my tawakkul, in my iman
to be able to accept whatever situation Allah
Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala sends my way?
If not, we have some questions to ask
ourselves,
and I would like to dig a little
bit deeper into this relationship.
This relationship that we have with our Lord,
with the Lord of all the worlds, the
one who created every single one of us
and has planned our trajectory for every single
one of us.
Let's look at the submission.
Now Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala says in the
Quran,
whoever submits his whole self to Allah
and is a doer of good has grasped
indeed the most trustworthy handhold
and with Allah rests the end and the
decision of all affairs.
SubhanAllah.
So that submission to Allah, that is what
allows us to fulfill
the very purpose of our creation which is
to worship Him.
Another aspect of our relationship with Allah Subhanahu
Wa Ta'ala is acceptance.
We are all familiar with the Hadith and
Sahih Muslim.
Amazing is the affair of the believer.
Verily, all of his affair is good and
this is for not one except for the
believer.
If something of good befalls him, he is
grateful and that is good for him, and
if something of harm befalls him, he is
patient and that is also good for him.
So this acceptance in Allah's plan, Allah's decree
just as we saw with our mother Hajar
alaihis
salam.
Another aspect of our relationship with Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala is that we are balanced between
fear and hope.
That is where Iman resides.
Fear of Allah's punishment and hope in His
mercy and hope for His reward.
Abu Hurayra radiAllahu anhu reports that the Prophet
SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam said, if a believer knew
the severity of Allah Ta'ala's punishment,
none would have hope in attaining Jannah
and if a disbeliever knew how merciful
Allah Ta'ala is,
no one would lose hope in attaining Jannah,
and this is in Sahih Muslim.
So that balance between fear and hope is
where our iman resides,
And then yet another aspect of this relationship
with Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala is love.
Our Lord says in the Quran, the translation
being, and yet among the people are those
who take other than Allah as equals to
Him.
They love them as they should love Allah,
but those who believe
are stronger in love for Allah.
Ibn Taymiyyah radiAllahu anhu said, their heart will
not find complete happiness
except by loving Allah
and striving towards what is dear to Him.
Again, Abu Hurayrah related the hadith where the
Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam said,
when Allah loves a slave,
He calls out to Jibril and says, I
love so and so, so love him. Then
Jibril loves him and after that Jibril announces
to the inhabitants of Jannah, of the heavens
that Allah loves so and so and they
then love him. And when the inhabitants of
the heavens, the angels love him that makes
the people on Earth love him.
So we have
so many
reminders
of the relationship that we are to cultivate
with Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala and
SubhanAllah, Ramadan
is the perfect
opportunity
for us to really lean into developing
the acceptance, developing the submission,
balancing between fear and hope and developing love
for Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
The month of Ramadan is the perfect
time
to start working on improving
our relationship with Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
Why? Because this is the month of worship
and we will all pretty much be doing
the fasting, praying, reading Quran, seeking knowledge. But
I'd like to invite you to take it
one step further.
Be intentional
about
fasting, praying, reading Quran,
making dua
with the intention
to
create that relationship with
Allah, to strengthen
that relationship.
So as you go through your day of
fasting, as you pray your
5 prayers, as you pray your sunnahs, as
you read the Quran, as you seek more
knowledge,
as you ask for forgiveness, as you feed
fasting people,
do all these things
seeking nearness to Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
Seeking closeness
to your Lord
to make that relationship stronger and to make
it a relationship on which you can base
your Tawakkul,
your sense of confidence
about what Allah Subhana Wa Ta'la has planned
for you.
Abu Hurayra radhiallahu anhu reported that the Prophet
SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam said, Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala
said, my servant draws not near to me
with anything
more loved than the religious duties I have
enjoined upon him, and my servant continues to
draw near to me with the superrogatory works
so that I shall love him.
When I love him,
I am his hearing with which he hears,
his seeing with which he sees,
his hand with which he strikes and his
foot with which he walks.
Were he to ask something of me, I
would surely give it to him, and were
he to seek refuge with me, I would
surely
grant it.
And I think we can all agree
that to have that
level of closeness with Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala
is something worth striving for. So a brief
reminder, my dear sister,
let's make sure that our external acts, the
fasting, the praying, reading Quran, the Dua, the
Istighfar,
the Sunnah prayers, abstaining from Haram, giving others
their rights, that those external deeds are done
for the sake of Allah
and then the internal
work
is also done for the sake of Allah.
Having Tawakkul,
having gratitude,
being thankful,
being patient,
being humble,
having
a sense of humility
about ourselves.
All of this
Insha'Allah Ta'ala will lead us to develop a
closer relationship with Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala, and
that for sure is something worth striving for.
So now, sis, over to you. This is
your task. Remember at the beginning of the
episode, I talked about those 4 the 4
step process that we were going to use
in order to develop our relationship.
Well, now is our chance to look at
how we can use Ramadan to develop our
relationship with Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
The 4 step process is this.
Firstly,
renew your intention.
2nd,
slow down.
So many times we are rushing against the
clock, getting our prayers done, getting our dua
done, ticking off the Quran. I'm inviting you
now to slow down.
Take one thing at a time and bring
your full presence
to this act of Ibadah that you're engaging
with.
Step number 3 is to take yourself to
account.
That means at the end of every day,
ask yourself, how did I do?
Was I intentional?
Was I humble today? Did I trust in
Allah's plan? Did I make dua sincerely?
Did I read Quran and pay attention to
the words that I was reading? Taking ourselves
to account is a very powerful habit and
one that I'd like you to practice this
month. And then the 4th step
is pressing the reset button.
What does pressing the reset button mean?
It means that
if you didn't do all that you wanted
to do, if you didn't achieve all you
set out to achieve,
that's okay.
Press the reset button and start afresh.
Pressing the reset button is like giving yourself
another chance.
And I think that we all should be
able to give ourselves
a 1000 second chances
to become better versions of ourselves and then
to improve our relationship with Allah Subhanahu Wa
Ta'ala.
So I hope that you benefited from what
I shared today. If you did Alhamdulillah,
please be sure to share the khair, Tell
others about the show and leave us a
comment and tell us your thoughts using hashtag
sisters Ramadan. And don't forget to tag Iman
channel and myself Naima b Robert, in any
post that you make on social media. Subhanak
Allahuma Rabbaniobi Hamdik. Ashhaduallahuila
ilahahelaend
I will see you in the next episode
Insha'Allah
where we're going to be looking at how
to develop your relationship
with yourself.