Beyond Ramadan: Cultivating Sustained Spiritual Growth

Opening

The Crisis of Spiritual Stagnation

If there is a business or a corporation where they were reviewing their annual profits and losses and then they looked at their spreadsheet and then they came upon a horrifying realization — that not just in the past year, the past five years, the past ten years — they realized that they've had some profit but they've had some losses to counteract that profit. So that means that overall their net gain or their net growth is nothing, it's zero.

So wherever they are right now, they're at that same place — not only five years ago, not only last year, but five years ago and even maybe ten years ago. Now they're looking at all their competitors and they're seeing that their competitors are maybe where they were five or ten years ago, but now they're far ahead of them. So this realization goes through the mind of whoever is looking at those spreadsheets.

Then they call an emergency meeting and then they start telling everyone that we have a major problem. Our company has not grown at all in all these years that we've been together. We're just stagnant.

So then now the next thing that would happen is that people would begin to just look back to see what the cause of this is. Now all of us can perhaps relate to this, whether we're working for a company like that or not, but the situation at least might sound familiar. We recognize that this would be a cause for alarm within the company, and people would definitely try to pinpoint what the cause is for why they're stagnant like this.

So just like that, many of us might find ourselves — myself first and foremost — going through a similar crisis. And just like a company would call an emergency meeting, similarly we need to call a meeting for ourselves and just introspect to say: what is going on here?

So year after year Ramadan comes, and if we're to track our spirituality and our connection to Allah Ta'ala, we see that it might be wherever it is, then Ramadan comes and then we get a boost in Ramadan — so we go up. Then usually what happens is after Ramadan we kind of just fall down again. Then time continues, the next Ramadan comes, we go up again, and then we kind of just fall down again. If we're to put spirituality on the Y-axis and time on the X-axis, year after year it's kind of the same cycle.

Then if we compare where we are right now to maybe five years ago, ten years ago — for many of us, and again myself first and foremost — we see that we're kind of at the same place. There wasn't really much growth at all. So just like this would be a cause of crisis for a company, similarly there should be an internal cause of crisis if we feel that this situation applies to us.

The Fundamental Misunderstanding: Ramadan as a "Bonus Round"

Now just like the company would introspect and say what is the cause of this, it's up to us to ask ourselves the same question. And for many of us — myself again first and foremost — what we might be able to pinpoint this problem to is the fundamental issue of how our perspective is towards Ramadan.

So many of us might approach Ramadan as a bonus round. Allah Ta'ala multiplies good deeds, we're able to get a lot more than what we could normally get. We know Fara'id are multiplied, Sadaqah is multiplied, Nawafil are multiplied, so we just try to get as much as we can. Sort of like a bonus round in an old 90s video game where all these coins are there and you're just trying to get as many as you can.

So if that is our approach, then at some point we begin to feel satiated — that well, I did get a lot of good deeds, now what am I supposed to do? I've even heard somebody — it was in the last few days of Ramadan — someone said, "Oh, why don't we go to the masjid for Taraweeh?" And he said, "Yeah, you know, they already made a long dua the other day, so it's probably already forgiven. So what's the point now? I'm already forgiven."

So then this kind of leads to complacency. If we think that Ramadan is a time to get as many points as we can, and then we get a lot, then we say, "Okay, well, what more is there to get? I already got a lot, so I think I'm good enough for now, at least until next year."

The True Purpose of Ramadan: Taqwa

Maybe this is perhaps a fundamental misunderstanding in how we should approach Ramadan. Because when Allah Ta'ala speaks about Ramadan in the Quran, Allah says:

"O you who believe, fasting has been prescribed upon you as it was prescribed upon those before you, so that you may attain taqwa." So this is the way in which Allah Ta'ala talks about Ramadan. Allah doesn't say we prescribe fasting upon you so that you can increase your good deeds — لَعَلَّكُمْ تَزِيدُونَ عَمَلًا. Okay, maybe that's part of it too, but that's not the extent of it.

Ramadan is to increase our connection with Allah — to develop this new, heightened connection with Allah. Let's understand this through how Allah speaks about it in the Quran. There's basically only one place where Allah speaks about Ramadan in the Quran primarily.

The Three Pillars of Ramadan

First: Fasting

The first thing Allah speaks about regarding Ramadan is fasting:

Second: The Quran

The next thing Allah speaks about is:

Ramadan is the month in which the Quran was revealed. So two main things Allah speaks about, and these are what we know. Fasting is part of Ramadan. We also know that in Ramadan, we try to increase our Quran recitation — we come to the masjid at nighttime, we listen to the recitation of the Quran.

Now these two things work in tandem. In our bodies, we can say that we have two opposing forces — we have our soul, our رُوْح, and then we have our نَفْس, our inner carnal self. By fasting, what we're doing is that we're subduing our نَفْس.

You can imagine it as two big balloons that are in the backseat of your car. If you want to blow one of the balloons up more, but the other one is already big, there's not going to be room for you to blow up the other balloon. What you're going to have to do is obviously deflate one of them in order to inflate the other. So we're subduing our نَفْس — deflating that balloon. Then at the same time, we're trying to elevate our soul by feeding our soul the best food for it, which is the Quran. So we're reciting Quran, listening to the Quran, reflecting and pondering on the Quran, and in doing that we are elevating our soul.

So simultaneously we're doing these two things — we're subduing our نَفْس, and that creates space for our soul to grow. We're growing our soul. Now if we do this, then we're in a prime position to take advantage of that and begin to reap the benefits. But how do we do that?

Third: Du'a

There's a third thing that Allah speaks about as well, and it's a very interesting placement. Because Allah — right before it, the ayah is about fasting, and right after it, the ayah is about fasting:

On the nights of fasting, certain things are made permissible for you. So fasting, fasting — but in the middle there's something that's starkly different. Allah says in the middle of all those verses of fasting:

"And when My slave asks of Me, indeed I am very near. I respond to the one who calls upon Me when he calls upon Me, so let him seek a response from Me and call upon Me, so that they can be rightly guided." لَعَلَّهُمْ يَرْشُدُونَ.

Now this is a general verse — theoretically it could have been placed anywhere else in the Quran. But Allah specifically placed it in the ayat of fasting. So what that tells us is that Ramadan is not just the month of fasting, nor is it just the month of Quran. In addition to that, Ramadan is also the month of du'a. Just like we try to increase our fasting in Ramadan and we increase our Quran, the third thing that we need to increase is our du'a.

Du'a: The Essence of Worship

Just like fasting subdues our نَفْس and creates space for our soul to grow, and the Quran feeds and elevates our soul — all the pieces are now in place for us to harvest the seeds of that, and to really convert that potential energy into kinetic energy. And the way that we can do that is by seeking to foster a connection with Allah Ta'ala. A connection with anything only comes through conversation.

Now we can understand this through an example. Let's say there's a friend that we haven't seen in years — a very close friend. Then we come across them randomly. We're so happy to see them, we just start talking. It's not planned. Then we look at our watches and we realize that a whole hour, maybe even two hours, passed by. We didn't pre-plan a single word of what the conversation would be about. Nevertheless, the conversation just flows. Whatever we need to talk about, it just comes to us. We have a great time and we don't even see where the time went.

Contrast that with another situation. Let's say there's a relative coming from overseas that you've never met before. Or you're at a wedding at a table with a bunch of people that you don't know, and it's very awkward. Or you have to take out a client for work who's come from some other place. Then you're thinking: what am I supposed to talk to them about? You say, "Okay, maybe I'll talk about this thing, maybe I'll talk about that thing." Then you mention that one thing — maybe the weather. They acknowledge it, then you say, "Oh no, I ran out of my conversation points, and now it's done." There's an awkward silence. Then maybe you talk about something else — maybe gas prices. They acknowledge that and maybe that's done too, and then another awkward silence. You're desperately thinking of what to say.

Then after all that time, whenever the meeting is done, you say, "I'm so glad that's over because that was really awkward — there were so many awkward silences." So why is it that in that interaction, it's punctuated by awkward silences? But with a friend that we haven't seen in a long time, the conversation just flows — we don't even plan what we're going to say, but the conversation just happens. The difference is that we have a connection with one and we don't have a connection with the other. And that connection was most likely built through interaction, and more importantly through conversation.

Similarly, if we put our hands up in du'a and we don't know what to say, we make du'a for maybe two minutes, then we run out of things to say, and we put our hands down because our du'a is finished. Our du'a is punctuated by silences. That means that our connection with Allah Ta'ala — and I speak to myself first and foremost — maybe needs some work.

So now our task, if we really want to reap the benefits of Ramadan, is that we seek to solidify this connection with Allah Ta'ala. The best way to do so is through du'a. There's a hadith that says:

"Du'a is the essence (marrow) of worship." (Sunan al-Tirmidhi, Hadith 3371)

Why? Because ibadah is really about fostering a connection with Allah. And the best way to foster a connection with anyone is simply through conversation. And the most direct, easy way to have that conversation with Allah Ta'ala is by making du'a.

So as I said, Ramadan is about three things that work together. Fasting — we're subduing our نَفْس. Quran — recitation of it, pondering over it, understanding it — we're elevating our soul. Those two things work in tandem. When we subdue our نَفْس, we allow space for our soul to grow. Then all the pieces are in place for us to utilize that energy to establish a connection with Allah Ta'ala. Now that connection comes through the next thing that Allah Ta'ala mentions in that sequence of verses:

Because if we make du'a, then through that we are establishing that connection with Allah Ta'ala.

A Practical Method: Building Your Du'a

I'll just end with this. I have a friend that I hadn't seen in a long time, and when I met him I asked how things were going. He mentioned that things are very good. He said that the main thing he started to do differently — that he wasn't doing before — is that he makes du'a for half an hour in one sitting. He doesn't stop.

I asked him, "How do you manage to do that? Don't you run out of things to say?" He said, "No — what I did was I started to make du'a for five minutes a day. And I would tell myself that I'm not allowed to put down my hands. I would run out of things in two or three minutes, but then I would force myself to continue because I had set a five-minute mark. Then I was able to meet that mark. The next week, I increased it to 10 minutes. The next week, I increased it to 15 minutes. Before I knew it, I was making du'a for half an hour in one sitting without even realizing where the time went. I would think that only five minutes had passed. And what I realized is that I was establishing — or strengthening — that connection with Allah Ta'ala."

Just like we have a connection with a good friend and we can just speak on and on without realizing where the time went, similarly we want to establish that connection with Allah Ta'ala.

Conclusion: A Call to Action Before Ramadan

So just like Ramadan is the month of fasting, and the month of Quran, Ramadan is additionally the month of du'a. If we want to strengthen our connection with Allah Ta'ala and really reap the benefits of Ramadan, then we should try to set a trend from now — we have maybe five or six weeks left. From today, we're going to seek to make du'a for at least five minutes in one sitting. We can work on that. Maybe the next week, we can bring it up to 10 minutes. If we can get to a higher mark — 20 minutes, 30 minutes — when Ramadan starts, inshallah we will hit the ground running, and then we can hope to actualize the benefits of Ramadan.

We ask that Allah Ta'ala give us tawfiq.

Second Khutbah

Allah says: "O you who believe, fear Allah as He should be feared, and do not die except in a state of submission."

And the Prophet, upon him be peace and blessings, said: "The most merciful of my ummah towards my ummah is Abu Bakr; the firmest in the command of Allah is Umar; the most modest is Uthman; and the most knowledgeable of them is Ali. And Fatimah is the leader of the women of Paradise, and al-Hasan and al-Husayn are the leaders of the youth of Paradise, and Hamzah is the lion of Allah and the lion of His Messenger — may Allah be pleased with all of them."

O servants of Allah, may Allah have mercy upon you — indeed Allah commands justice, excellence, and giving to one's kinsfolk, and He forbids indecency, wrongdoing, and oppression. He admonishes you so that you may take heed.

Remember Allah Ta'ala and He will remember you, and supplicate to Him and He will respond to you, and the remembrance of Allah Ta'ala is the greatest — and Allah knows what you do.

Announcements

Please pass the donation boxes from left to right. There is no curb parking, and please also do not park in the condo's lot.

There is a Road to Ramadan series — Ramadan Reflections of Our Pious Predecessors — tonight after Salatul Isha with Mawlana Farhan Sharif.

In about two weeks, we will have our no-tech retreat — our digital detox retreat — with a guest scholar, Mawlana Zakaria Patel from Toronto. This is on the weekend of February 17th and 18th, so please try to take advantage of the program in the company of the ulama.

The Tafhim Weekend Islamic Studies program is continuing and spring enrollment is open — please check the website.

We have weekly programs continuing: Team Fajr tomorrow after Fajr at 6:15, Tuesday Tafsir, weekly Salawat and Khatira after Isha on Thursdays. There are sisters' programs as well — including an online weekly Tafsir in Urdu on Thursdays from 12 to 1 p.m. You can register at masjidds.org/rsvp to receive the link. There is a monthly dars on the first Sunday of every month for sisters, and there is an upcoming youth girls program for girls 13 and over on February 3rd, Saturday, from 1:15 to 4 p.m. The activities include an art workshop, games, and inspirational speakers for youth.

And of course we continue to acknowledge and make du'a for our brethren around the world — our brothers and sisters who are suffering — and ask that Allah alleviate their suffering. Please always remember them in your du'as.

The mother of Abdullah Muhammad is in the ICU, so please make du'a for her recovery.