Zaynab Ansari – Seeking Allah Through Service Fasting for Love #Fast4Love
AI: Summary ©
The speakers discuss the concept of working towards Allah through service, being of service to one another, and purifying one's anger and frustration. They suggest taking a shift in approach to one's environment and seeking out one's neighbor's behavior. The importance of fasting during the month of dashare is emphasized, along with volunteer activities and sponsorship. The speakers emphasize the need for a diverse range of services, including sponsorship, reaching out to neighbors, and picking up and delivering dates.
AI: Summary ©
Miss Middehir Rahimaneur Rahim, Assalamu alaikum Warhamatullah
Wa Barakatuh. My name is Zainab Ansari, and
I was invited to participate in the webinar
Fasting for Love.
This is an initiative of seekers guidance, and
my topic is seeking Allah through service. And
I'm happy to speak to this topic because,
really, I believe that Ramadan is really all
about 2 things, the actual physical fast and
then the intention behind the fast, and really
sort of the environment that arises as a
result.
When one fasts,
one's entire being is completely oriented towards Allah
ta'ala.
And when one feels pangs of hunger, one
cannot help but really feel a sense of
empathy for those around one, especially those less
fortunate.
I really think that Ramadan is about being
of service being of service to Allah to
Allah and then being of service to the
slaves of Allah.
As our beloved prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam said,
that as long as we continue to be
in the service of one another, Allah ta'ala
continues to help us. And we need to
keep that in mind as we go about
our fasting day.
Ramadan
from morning till night is really an act
of Ibadah, as we well know. It is
the outward Ibadah of abstaining from food and
drink, but it's also the inward Ibadah
of turning to Allah, of purifying our intention
and understanding that
any type of anger that arises, any type
of sort of frustration that we feel as
a result of fasting, what we need to
do is channel those feelings
and leverage them and understand that if I'm
feeling a bit snappish or frustrated,
I need to keep in mind that at
the end of my fasting day, I will
have a refrigerator full of food, but my
neighbor might not be so fortunate.
So what I would encourage all of us
to do starting with myself is to
change things up a bit in Ramadan.
Have a shift so that Ramadan is not
solely about a very inward act of worship,
but kind of you kind of combine the
inward and the outward in that experience of
fasting. So
take a step towards your neighbor's house. Check
on that person. Make sure he or she
is doing well.
Sign up
to sponsor iftars at your local masjid.
Visit that person who is sick.
Make sure that you kind of reach outside
of yourself.
It's very easy for many of us to
turn inward during the month of Ramadan because
of the kind of very
strenuous activity of fasting. Right? So we want
to kind of retreat to the interiority of
our homes into the masjid. We want to
be with our Quran with our mushaaf reciting
all day long. We want to make our
dhikr. Right? We we want to read. We
want to contemplate.
And that is part and parcel of fasting.
At the same time, though, like I said,
we wanna be able to reach outside of
ourselves.
So take the month of Ramadan to maybe
perform an act of service you might not
ordinarily do, and actually make a point of
surrounding yourself with food. It's good discipline, and
it's good for your willpower. So volunteer, for
example, you know, at a shelter where you're
feeding people. Obviously, these are people who are
not fasting, but they're still poor people. And
remember, Ramadan is the time to really think
about those who are poor. Those sadly for
whom poverty is a permanent condition. They need
to see the Muslim community in Ramadan. So
we need to be at places, for example,
like soup kitchens.
Muslims need to be out, for example,
you know, on those days when for when
when the community is feeding the homeless, when
the community is providing sort of hygiene products
and clothing, we need to be part of
that. Ramadan is a great time, for example,
to do a clothing drive to kind of
look in your closets and garage and see
what kinds of items are in good condition
you can donate. There are so many things
that the community can do. It's a great
time to think about involving your children in
a service project,
and you can do this with children of
all ages even from the very smallest
to your high school students. So Ramadan needs
to be a time to be of service,
in service to the larger community, to the
Muslims around us, as well as to those
from other backgrounds.
So I would encourage you to look around
at the various opportunities
for service. They're they're abound at the masjid,
like I said, in the form of sponsoring
iftaars,
in the form of reaching out to neighbors,
in the form of joining
the local kind of like feeding group,
at your at, for example, in your in
your community, in your urban area. There are
so many things you can do. Another thing
though that I wanna emphasize though is that
for those who say
don't have the ability to really kind of
step outside into those particular venues, Something that
you can do is as simple as, say,
as as as as look around you and
say, look. I might not be able to
kind of con to contribute on a really
large scale, but I know, for example, I
can easily pick up an extra box of
dates. I can pick up an extra gallon
of water when I go shopping. Right? I
can get some bags to go with that,
and I can go home. I can bag
up my dates. I can take the water,
and I can go and I can deliver
this to this really busy student, for example,
who I know might be, say, studying
and is and might need some extra funds
and might not have anything to break his
fast with. I can give these dates to
this person, for example. I can cook a
meal, and I can take it to this
really busy mom who I know maybe just
had a baby and could use some extra
assistance during this month of Ramadan. So there
are so many things that we can do
to serve our community and really it isn't
through service. It really is it's through service
that we become close to Allah Subhanahu Wa
Ta'ala. As you know, there's a very famous
hadith Qudsi
where,
you have this dialogue. Right? As you know,
hadith Qudsi is like a dialogue between God
Most High and the Prophet, peace be upon
him. This particular one is reported by Abu
Hurayrah, may Allah be pleased with him, who
said that
the prophet, peace and blessings be upon him,
said that on the day of judgment, God
the exalted will say to this to this
to the son of Adam. He'll say, oh,
son of Adam, I was sick and you
did not visit me. And the response of
the son of Adam of the human being
will be, how can I visit you? You
are the lord of the worlds. And then
Allah ta'ala, God most high, will say in
response,
a servant of mine, my slave so and
so was sick, and you did not visit
him. And if you had visited him, you
you would have found me with him.
And then Allah Ta'ala will say,
I was hungry and you did not feed
me. And the human being will be surprised
and he will say, how can I feed
you? You are the master of the universe.
And Allah Ta'ala will say, my servant was
hungry and you did not feed him. If
you had gone to feed him, you would
have found me with him. And then finally,
Allah Ta'ala will say,
I was thirsty and you did not give
me to drink. And the son of Adam
will say,
You Rabbi alamin, you are the Lord of
the worlds. How can I give you to
drink? And Allah ta'ala, God most high, will
say, my servant was thirsty and you did
not give him to drink, but if you
had given him to drink, you would have
found me right there by his side. So
it is traditions like this that really kind
of attest to that ethic of service that
exists within the Islamic tradition. So I would
encourage all of you to look around at
the opportunities large and small for service.
They start at home. They always start at
home, but they must necessarily radiate out to
your larger community, to your neighbors, to your
Masjid community, to your school community, to your
work community, and to the surroundings,
where you might find that
that person that you thought was really well
off might actually suffer from food insecurity, and
Ramadan is a great time to think about
helping this person out. So thank you so
much. Please keep me in your du'a. Assalamu
Alaikum.