By Abdullahi Jamaa
And you are just about to start the final ten days.
Imagine the regret that overwhelms your mind when you know you wasted all of your previous fasts. That you achieved nothing except hunger and thirst. That for thirty days you did not turn a single page of the Quran. That for thirty nights you did not perform a single night of prayer.
This is a sign of someone settling for a low-life of spiritual inefficiency. Someone not using the power and motivation of Ramadan to improve himself. Someone who throws away his life as if it is not for a purpose. Someone letting important days run without having any agenda.
At 30, 40 or 50 years of age how many unproductive fasts did you witness. Allah has made it easy for you. With the devil chained to protect you from evil temptations and wishful desires there is no excuse to remain a bleak deadbeat.
Wasting Ramadan is tantamount to ruining one’s faith and severing relations with Allah; a deviation from what the noble month stands for. It is indecorous losing out a prized season and turning it upside down with little or no accomplishments.
When you don’t take a break from your old bad habits it means you are missing the bold purpose of worshiping. When you don’t cultivate habits that raise your status and forego the ones that pull you down, it means you decided to hold onto the dirty rope of evil.
The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) said:
“The feet of a son of Adam will not move [from before his Lord] on the Day of Judgment until he is asked … about his lifetime, what he spent it on” (Tirmidhi).
Garden of fasting
In the garden of fasting, devotion is the only food that feeds our body and soul. Devotion removes the malady of idleness and heals indolence. It is the best discipline for the believer at all times with or without Ramadan.
What is the point of having an empty stomach without deeds? Fasting without praying on time, without engaging in recommended deeds, without protecting your tongue, eyes and ears is a loss making spiritual business. What can one achieve with only an empty belly, idle attitude and procrastination?
Every time when one fails to honour the month of Ramadan with the right approach and affirmation; one is headed for a massive failure. Although Allah always forgives us when we come to Him with a repentant heart, we may still face the consequences of our self-willed negligence.
Allah wants us to have enough opportunities in form of His boundless blessing. Ramadan is one such opportunity of following His directions and thereby avoiding the pitfalls of rebellion. Do not carry yourself like a heavy stone
The messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) said:
“The best people are those whose life is long and whose deeds are good” (Tirmidhi).
A wasted day in Ramadan is just another day of hunger and thirst. Fasting from food and water while indulging in sinful acts and evil thoughts is a spiritual transgression. A fasting day where time was not spent in a particular useful way is a lost day.
When we have nothing to show for our time: no achievements, no righteous deeds and there is no any item in our to-do list that has been crossed off; Ramadan becomes just an empty ritual where both the body and the heart are starved.
Long empty hours of fasting, laying around in front of television, trapped by irrational mistakes and self-indulgence of wishful worldly luxury while missing out on the mercy and forgiveness of the noble month is regrettably a monumental defeat.
We have fallen short of our targets every passing Ramadan, we abstain from only food and drink just for the sake of removing the obligation from our shoulders, carrying ourselves like a heavy stone and sadly we eye for Janah with this kind of sluggish attitude.
Are you wishing for another regret this Ramadan? How about your meeting with Allah on the day of judgment when every tiny deed counts? Allah gave you an opportunity to seize an ideal chance for reforms and retrospect.
One of our pious predecessors said:
“O’ son of Adam, verily, you have only three days: Yesterday, and it has forsaken you; tomorrow, and it is yet to arrive; and today, so fear Allah and obey Him in it.”
Use time efficiently and concentrate all of your efforts on achieving something in every single day of Ramadan.
Imam Ibn Jawzi said: “Whoever knows the fruits of laziness will avoid it and whoever is aware of the fruits of hard work will endure the hardships of the path.”
This article is a chapter from the book: My Ramadan.
**********
Abdullahi jamaa is a Muslim writer|blogger. The founder of www.smartmuslim.co.ke an online magazine for professional Muslims. Twitter: @abdullahijamaa
