The Most Powerful Night

In a blink of an eye, we are almost into the last ten nights of Ramadan which starts on Wednesday night inshaa Allah. Don’t leave too quickly, Ramadan 😢

During our last lesson on Al Ghazali Mysteries of Fasting for Children, I asked the children if they knew the significance of Nuzul Al Quran and Laylatul Qadr. I found out that not everyone knew the significance of these great nights or they got them mixed up. 

So I read this book to them, The Most Powerful Night, which is the latest addition to our Ramadan books. It is a story of a girl named Layla who learns about the most powerful night of Ramadan, the Laylatul Qadr, from her mother. Along with it, she learns about the significance of the night, why she should strive for it, and what she could do on the last ten nights of Ramadan. I hope it would increase the children’s zeal, and mine too, to look for the Night of Qadr and be in worship inshaa Allah.

And we reached the third and last chapter of the Mysteries of Fasting which is on the inner practices of fasting. Previously, they had learnt the outer obligatory and sunnah aspects of fasting. In the last chapter, the children learnt that there are 3 levels of fasting:

1) By most people - giving up food, drinks and lower desires

2) By the special people - giving up food and drinks while protecting every part of their body from doing bad deeds

3) By the elect of the elect - giving up food and drinks and protecting from bad deeds while fasting from all thoughts, concerns and worries about their daily lives in this world 

How do we increase our fasting from level 1 to level 2? That’s what the children will learn in the next and last lesson inshaa Allah and I’m just as excited to read up and learn it too. I realised that we should have started on the Mysteries of Fasting much earlier so that we could enter Ramadan equipped with the knowledge. Oh well, better late than never. This is definitely a book to revisit every year before Ramadan inshaa Allah.

May this Ramadan be the most special one where we, and our loved ones, receive Allah’s Gaze, Mercy and Forgiveness, and be blessed with a place in Jannah and be freed from the Fire. Aameen!

Love in Ramadan

Before we ended the class on Zoom last Friday, I asked the children if they wanted me to read a storybook and they said “Yes!” So I quickly looked through our Ramadan books and grabbed this - Love in Ramadan. It’s been so long since I last read it that I couldn’t remember what the story was about. I opened it and saw that the author had signed the book and remembered that it was a gift from my dear friend a few Ramadan ago.

The story is about a boy and what his family members love to do during Ramadan, such as hearing the adhan at fajr, giving gifts to others, and seeing the smiles on the faces of orphans. I had to prevent the melancholy from creeping into my voice as I read the parts about walking to the masjid for terawih and going out to nature to observe Allah’s Greatness in His creations. 

Then I asked the children what they loved doing during Ramadan. They told me that they loved to pray terawih with their family, wake up for suhoor, fast during the day, break their fast together, and read the Quran. MasyaAllah I was astounded. I don’t know if I would have given any of those answers when I was at that age. May these children grow up loving Ramadan and all the acts of worship connected to it. 

It made me think of what I love doing during Ramadan. What is for sure, I can’t revisit some of the things that I love about the blessed month for now. It feels more like I’m rewriting my love story for Ramadan. A third of the month has passed and it has definitely been melancholic. Memories of past Ramadans keep flooding my mind, together with the faces and places that I love. 

It’s a great reminder that those memories we have are part of the great blessings that Allah has bestowed upon us. And the One who gave them have all the right to take them back. Does it mean that we worship Him less now without all the faces and places that we love? Not at all. It is truly a test of our sincerity and total reliance on Him.

May we find true sweetness this Ramadan in our spiritual retreats without all the attachments that we used to have. As Ibn Ata’illah said in his Book of Aphorism, “Deprivation hurts you only because of your incomprehension of God in it.”