Suhaib Webb – How do we welcome ramadan in such horrible times
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Family. I want to wish each and every
one of you
a blessed Ramadan as well as to the
entire ummah of the prophet.
I wanna start this program every night in
the month of Ramadan or day depending on
where you are, sharing some small thoughts or
reflections
on a different set of topics as well
as answering the questions that you share in
the questions tab
on the swihayweb.com
website, the swiss website.
One of the questions that I've been getting
that I think it's very important we start
the month with is how do we celebrate
the month of Ramadan
with the backdrop of the genocide, the massacres,
and the murders, and the instability that's happening
generally in the Muslim world and specifically
in Gaza.
I think it's very important that we understand
what we are celebrating in the month of
Ramadan. We're not celebrating something in the shallow
sort of commodified way that we see, for
example, in many places in the world. What
we are celebrating is that Allah, who subhanahu
wa ta'ala, has given us the opportunity to
obey him, to worship Him and serve Him.
And that obedience and that worship and that
service can be turned into asking Allah
making wussida to Allah
to Allah with our good deeds to alleviate
the struggles and challenges that our brothers and
sisters in Gaza and Palestine
are facing.
Another way to think about this is that
we celebrate Allah's command and at the same
time we feel sad and upset with what's
happening in the world. Both of those can
go hand in hand together. Allahu subhanahu wa
ta'ala mentions in the Quran the companions of
the prophet salallahu alaihi wa sallam who were
very upset
at the loss of their brothers and sisters
in battle.
Do not think that those who have died
in the cause of Allah are dead.
They are actually alive.
Other parts of the Quran says,
says Actually those people have been killed. They're
actually in a state of joy.
The verses were sent as mentioned by Imam
Assiyuti because the Muslims were sad and upset
at the loss of their brothers and sisters.
So being sad and upset is a sign
of iman. To be in a state of
rage is certainly religious in this moment but
that should not take us away from also
saying
Thanks be to Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. Praise
be to Allah who guided us to worship
Him and obey Him. So that's what we
celebrate in the month of Ramadan.
Another way of framing this was mentioned by
the great writer Mustafa Saad Al Qarafi in
his text Wahel Qalam
where he says you should imagine your life
as a huge deep ocean
and you are the captain of the ship,
meaning your life. The metaphor is very beautiful.
You and I as captains of our ship
are not responsible for the waves, the depth
of the sea, the dangerous creatures, the weather.
All those things are beyond our control.
But our job are 3 things and he
mentions them. Number 1,
to keep the ship from capsizing.
And how do we protect our iman and
our lives from capsizing? We do not allow
the world to impact us in a way
that undermines
our servitude
and worship and devotion to Allah
Stay strong as you've been commanded and remember
that Ramadan comes in the 2nd year after
Hijra.
And that's where Uhid is going to happen.
That's where Badr is going to happen and
Uhid is going to happen. And Muslims were
killed. And there were tremendous losses that impacted
Muslims,
and other things.
But the Muslims continue to worship Allah and
stay consistent on the obedience of Allah. They
did not allow the challenges and difficulties of
the dunya
to take them away from the responsibility they
have to worship Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to
stay
balanced.
That's very important as the imam, iibrataa Allah,
says more or less in the hikam, do
not be impacted by the
be impacted by the. Don't be impacted by
the changes in the world. Be impacted by
the one who changes him. Do not be
impacted by the
to the extent that it undermines. Doesn't mean
that we shouldn't feel emotionally invested and and
upset. Of course, we should.
But not to the point that it undermines
our commitment to Allah and our commitment to
Ibad and our commitment to the obedience of
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. So he says don't
allow
the to capsize you but stay with
the the one who causes
the all things to happen. The second goal
of the boat is to stay strong and
firm. Allah
says that some of the most difficult challenging
times that the companions faced
When you meet your enemy,
stay strong.
To stay firm on our principles.
To stay firm on
staying on the side of those Palestinian brothers
and sisters, those Kashmiri brothers and sisters, the
Rohingya, our brothers and sisters in China, our
brothers and sisters all over the world
who are the objects of injustice to stay
firm
on our deen so that we can support
them.
And finally the last thing he says, the
goal of the boat is to reach
its
objective, its destination.
And for you and I as we traverse
this deep ocean of our destination is what?
Is Allah.
Fear the day where you will all return
back to Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. So we
have to make sure that we do not
allow the boat
to break down,
to sink, to capsize,
that we stay strong and balanced
so we can reach Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala
in the hereafter.
So that's how we move through this moment
in the month of Ramadan. We should
be careful about celebrating opulence and wasting food
and engaging in extravagance when we know
that there are people in the Ummah, specifically,
the neighbors of
for a dying of starvation.
We should be very careful of opulence and
waste.
We should be very careful of turning Ramadan
into an exhibition.
Ramadan is for Allah.
We ask Allah to bless you. I look
forward to sharing with you each and every
day here at Swiss. If you haven't signed
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