Zaynab Ansari – Seeking Allah Through Service Fasting for Love #Fast4Love

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.