Searching For The Love of Allah In The Month of Ramadan

SEARCHING FOR THE LOVE OF ALLAH IN THE MONTH OF RAMADHAN
Dr. Amini Amir Abdullah
21st August 2009

Time has changed so fast, leaving us behind. Ramadhan comes and we are so happy every time Ramadhan arrives because we are going to perform the obligation of fasting as one of the pillars of Islam. According to some ulama’, the worship of fasting has been made as an obligation on Monday the 2nd of the month of Sya’aban, 2nd year of Hijrah.

Fasting has a lot of wisdom for those who perform it. Every aspects of Syariah has it own wisdoms and goals. For sure fasting also has it own effects on human beings. The wisdom of fasting is to achieve taqwa. By fasting, Muslims can lessens their desires especially the desire of stomach and mute sexual appetite. This will control oneself from committing sins and wrongdoings. By fasting, Muslim can educate and train their souls and self to become sincere and avoid any abominations and leading life to Iman (faith).

We are encouraged to perform fasting in the month of Ramadhan because we can control our soul from selfishness and increase our will power and patience. We are encouraged to reduce our time of sleeping during the month of Ramadhan so that we can stay up at night and do a lot of deeds such as midnight prayer (Qiamullail), doing zikr, tasbih and tahmid and other worship such as Quran reading, tarawih and witr prayer as well as studying. Whoever performs the night prayer during Ramadhan sincerely, without any doubt, he will be forgiven his previous sins. Among good positive moral values which can be achieved during the month of Ramadhan are:

To control unlimited desires and lusts. One good moral attitude and values can be manifested through strong iman and obedient to Allah s.w.t. Depriving the body of foods and drinks during the month of Ramadhan helps its defense and enhance mechanism. Every part of our body should be controlled from committing sins as well as doing sexual intercourse during daytime in the month of Ramadhan.
By fasting, human beings can develop their soul to become generous and like to give charity and sadaqah. The Prophet s.a.w. was more generous during the month of Ramadhan. Exchanging foods and giving charity are good practice during the month of Ramadhan as well as organizing ceremony for fast breaking. We should prolong this good practice not only in the month of Ramadhan but other month as well.
All human deeds with full sincerity either general worships or specific worships will gain more accumulative rewards from Allah during the month of Ramadhan and human beings will be protected from syaitan.

Let us make the month of Ramadhan as a medium of educating our self and soul to concentrate more on worship and familiarizing our soul with piety and faith of Allah.

The Meaning of Ramadan

The Meaning of Ramadan

By
Dr. Amini Amir Abdullah
28th August 2009

The month of Ramadan in which was revealed also the Qur'an, a guidance for mankind, and clear proofs of the guidance is the most honored month. Allah desires for mankind easiness; He desires not hardship for them.

The significance of Ramadan lies on its training, practice and morals. We experienced spiritual training such as controlling our desire, enhancing our feeling of togetherness and fairness, training on leaving destructive manners and others. The most significance was the training to know ourselves truly either we are among those who are really renowned by Allah or vice versa.

Fasting is a means of restraining and controlling the nafs (inner soul), so that contentment (ridha), and all the other blessings of this great discipline may be experienced. We should know ourselves and not to be cheated by our desire and lust. We spent too much on foods and drinks before fast breaking but we can only fill our stomach only with half of them and thus we committed overspending and this is not encouraged by Islam.

Allah emphasizes that fasting can develop piety of Allah and control over our bad desire. Bad desire can divert our faith from the path of Allah. Bad desire also can make a good person becoming bad person and commit many vices and thus damaging the whole life. Ramadan gives the Muslims a very vital experience on handling and controlling our bad desire especially the greediness of eating and drinking.

Our life needs Allah’s guidance. Without His guidance, our life will not turn into peace and safe. A Muslim who gains Allah’s guidance will able to develop his faith and piety. With iman and taqwa, human being can discipline himself in obeying Allah’s will power and relationship with other creatures. We should preserve our faith because our faith will determine our future in the Hereafter. May Ramadan educates us to become a discipline, obedience and pious person.

Let us increase our piety by obeying all Allah’s commands and avoiding all His prohibitions. With taqwa (piety), one can achieve unity and harmony. As we know, in the month of Ramadan, all Muslims will perform fasting because it is an obligation. It is a must to all Muslims to perform fastings. The performance of fasting shows unity in one sense among the Muslims. Bond of faith can be seen in the deeds of fasting. We unite together to perform the obligation of fasting. We should feel the feelings of togetherness while performing fasting. We share the same hardship with those who experienced unfortunate life all over the world. Islam encourages the development of positive values among the Muslims. By fasting, the Muslim can gain many positive values such as equality and unity.