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Ramadan Is More Than Just Abstaining From Food & Drink

February 26, 2024 July 6, 2024

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From the Realities of Mawlana (Q) as taught by Shaykh Nurjan Mirahmadi

A’uzu Billahi Minash Shaitanir Rajeem
Bismillahir Rahmanir Raheem

I seek refuge in Allah from Satan, the rejected one
In the Name of Allah, the Most Beneficent, the Most Merciful

Atiullah wa atiur Rasul wa Ulil amre minkum.

أَطِيعُوا اللَّهَ وَأَطِيعُوا الرَّسُولَ وَأُولِي الْأَمْرِ مِنكُم… ﴿٥٩﴾‏ …

4:59 – “…Atiullaha wa atiur Rasula wa Ulil amre minkum…” (Surat an-Nisa)

“…Obey Allah, obey the Messenger, and those in authority among you…” (The Women, 4:59)

The First Ten Days of Ramadan Open With Baab ur Rahmah, the Gate of Mercy

Always a reminder for myself ana abdukal ‘ajeezu, dayeefu, miskinu, zhalim, wa jahl and but for the grace of Allah (AJ) that are still in existence. Alhamdulillah, that Allah (AJ) gave us a life in which to see the holy month of Ramadan and the month of fasting and the month of immense rahmah and mercy from Divinely Presence which its first ten days of fasting, Baab ur Rahmah.

The gate of rahmah and mercy opens and that Allah (AJ) dress the servant with an immense mercy in which allows them the ability to fast. That immense barakah and immense blessings that Allah (AJ) opens allows the servant to enter into that fast, to be dressed by its lights and blessed by its lights.

Cleanse Your Hearing Through Sam’ina wa Ata’na, to Hear and Obey

Alhamdulillah, that awliyaullah (saints) come into our lives and pious people inspire within our hearts always that fasting with all our senses. That the beauty of Ramadan and its immense blessings is a state in which to fast from all our senses; not only the sense of not eating but to fast with our ears, to fast with our eyes, to fast with our breath, to fast with our tongue, to fast with everything and all our senses so that Allah (AJ) can dress them and bless them. That the fast of the tongue is one aspect of Ramadan but the fasting with our hearing.

That we pray that in this month of Ramadan, Allah (AJ) clean for us our hearing and that in each Ramadan, Allah (AJ) open a different sense and a different reality of that sense so that to have completed its siyam (fasting) and its abstinence – abstaining from the bad, abstaining from unnecessary. So, alhamdulillah, that the hearing that we make an intention. That from our senses, ya Rabbi, from the hearing that is so immensely important and “sam’ina wa ata’na” is to hear and to obey.

وَقَالُوا سَمِعْنَا وَأَطَعْنَا ۖ غُفْرَانَكَ رَبَّنَا وَإِلَيْكَ الْمَصِيرُ ﴿٢٨٥﴾‏

2:285 – “…Sam’ina wa ata’na, ghufranaka Rabbana wa ilaykal masir.” (Surat al-Baqarah)

“…We hear, and we obey: (We seek) Thy forgiveness, our Lord, and to Thee is the end of all journeys.” (The Cow, 2:285)

Enroll in a School of Guidance to Discipline the Self

The practice of obedience and obeying the teaching is to bring a discipline with on the self so that we can obey the real self; not the ‘self’ that people talk about. They talk about a self which we know to be the nafs (ego), but obedience and itiba’ and following from “Atiullah atiur Rasul wa Ulil amre minkum.” It’s a training in which to be enrolled in a school of guidance. That I’m going to follow my best Allah’s (AJ) commands. I’m going to follow my best, the commands and the teachings of Sayyidina Muhammad ﷺ and exhibited by example through the shaykhs – “Wa Ulil amre minkum”. I try my best to follow their teachings, to adhere to their practices as to discipline the self.

أَطِيعُوا اللَّهَ وَأَطِيعُوا الرَّسُولَ وَأُولِي الْأَمْرِ مِنكُم… ﴿٥٩﴾‏ …

4:59 – “…Atiullaha wa atiur Rasula wa Ulil amre minkum…” (Surat an-Nisa)

“…Obey Allah, obey the Messenger, and those in authority among you…” (The Women, 4:59)

When I discipline myself and Allah (AJ) finds acceptance and sincerity in the student’s path, then Allah (AJ) begin to open for them the understanding of their own self, their real self, the light that Allah (AJ) has given to them in Divinely Presence that wants to inspire the light within the physicality. We’ve described before Allah (AJ) gives us only a small portion of that light inside our body, not giving the whole secret so that you go and destroy it and destroy the body and destroy all of its realities.

Build Your Candle Flame Through Spiritual Practices Until Allah (AJ) Ignites You Like a Sun

Allah (AJ) only give as an inheritance, a small portion of that light to see that what you’re going to do. Are you going to nourish that light, bless that light, build that light, make that light to become eternal from just a flame of a candle? Are you going to reach to be an eternal light in which no wind can take it out? Life as a candle, well [shaykh blows], anything can blow that light out. Its faith and its practices will be gone.

Our life is wuquf and vigilance over this light within our heart that I make it to be strong. I make it with my practices and my listening, my adherence to what’s being taught and what Allah (AJ) wanted from me. That becomes the stations of faith in which the faith of the servant is built and built and built so that their flame is no longer a candle, but Allah (AJ) ignites them like a sun. Can you imagine going to the sun and trying to blow it out? Nothing can come to blowing that out. But anything else can easily be overtaken and extinguished.

Do You Simply Accept Prophet ﷺ Without True Belief?

So, then this reality and this way of ma’rifah (gnosticism), Allah (AJ) giving us an ability that get your heart to be lit. The way that that heart is going to be ignited, its secret is in the ears. How faith going to enter into the heart? That’s why when the Arabi came to Prophet ﷺ say, ‘We believe.’

Allah (AJ) corrected and gave ayatul kareem (generous verse of holy Qur’an), ‘No no, tell them they don’t believe. They’ve merely accepted you ﷺ. They’ve seen your beauty. They’ve accepted you, but they haven’t believed. They haven’t come into their training and all the testing that Allah (AJ) going to put upon the servant.’

﴾قَالَتِ الْأَعْرَابُ آمَنَّا ۖ قُل لَّمْ تُؤْمِنُوا وَلَـٰكِن قُولُوا أَسْلَمْنَا وَلَمَّا يَدْخُلِ الْإِيمَانُ فِي قُلُوبِكُمْ ۖ وَإِن تُطِيعُوا اللَّـهَ وَرَسُولَهُ لَا يَلِتْكُم مِّنْ أَعْمَالِكُمْ شَيْئًا ۚ إِنَّ اللَّـهَ غَفُورٌ رَّحِيمٌ ﴿١٤

49:14 – “Qaalatil-A ‘raabu aamannaa qul lam tu’minoo wa laakin qoolooo aslamnaa wa lamma yadkhulil eemaanu fee quloobikum wa in tutee’ul laaha wa Rasoolahoo laa yalitkum min a’maalikum shai’aa; innal laaha Ghafoorur Raheem” (Surat Al-Hujurat)

The desert Arabs say, “We believe.” Say, “Ye have no faith; but ye (only)say, ‘We have submitted our wills to Allah,’ For not yet has Faith entered your hearts. But if ye obey Allah and His Messenger, He will not belittle aught of your deeds: for Allah is Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful.”

When You’re Doing Right, It Feels Heavy on the Self

So, it means then this reality of hearing that, ‘Ya Rabbi, I’m trying my best to open the reality of I hear and I obey.’ If we can, through the guidance, begin to live a life in which I hear their guidance. I like it, I don’t like it, it doesn’t matter. Most likely you don’t like it. If you’re doing something right, it’s going to be heavy on the self. Then you hear the guidance and then you begin to fight the self.

That’s when you know it’s right is that you battle the self to adhere to the teachings, to understand the teachings, to put it and make it to be real within our lives. As a result, at that time, Allah (AJ) begin to grant within the ears the oceans of sincerity. “Hudal lil muttaqeen” – a guidance for muttaqeen (those with high level of consciousness) (Holy Qur’an, 2:2).

Holy Qur’an Opens With Seven Fountains and Waterfalls of Surah al-Fatiha

This is how Allah (AJ) open Holy Qur’an. That Qur’an is going to be our guidance. Qur’an is the power of our existence. Qur’an, Holy Qur’an, is the uncreated speech of Allah (AJ). Right at the beginning after Surat Al-Fatiha which contains all of Holy Qur’an. That from “Bismillahir Rahmanir Raheem” that contains all the realities of Holy Qur’an. It opens into seven fountains.

﴾بِسْمِ اللَّـهِ الرَّحْمَـٰنِ الرَّحِيمِ ﴿١

1:1 – “Bismillahir Rahmanir Raheem” (Surat Al-Fatiha)

“In the Name of Allah, the Most Beneficent, the Most Merciful” (The Opener, 1:1)

These seven fountains are the source of every ayatul kareem of Holy Qur’an. Every “Alhamdu lillahi Rabbil ‘aalameen” like if you could imagine seven waterfalls that spring every verse of Qur’an, known and unknown to us. That every time “Alhamdu lillahi Rabbil ‘aalameem” is the fountainhead of every verse of praise.

﴾الْحَمْدُ لِلَّـهِ رَبِّ الْعَالَمِينَ ﴿٢

1:2 – “Alhamdu lillaahi Rabbil ‘aalameen” (Surat Al-Fatiha)

“In the Name of Allah, the Most Beneficent, the Most Merciful. Praise be to Allah, the Cherisher and Sustainer of the worlds” (The Opener)

Ramadan Slows Us Down to Reflect on Our Creator

So, from these immense waterfalls of Divine realities that have no beginning and no end, Allah (AJ) begins after Surat Al-Fatiha “Alif, Laam, Meem. Dhaalikal kitaabu laa rayba feeh, hudal lil muttaqeen.”

﴾الم ﴿١﴾ ذَٰلِكَ الْكِتَابُ لَا رَيْبَ فِيهِ هُدًى لِّلْمُتَّقِينَ ﴿٢

2:1-2 – “Alif, Laam, Meem. (1) Dhaalikal kitaabu laa rayba feeh, hudal lil muttaqeen. (2)” (Surat Al-Baqarah)

“Alif, Lam, Meem. This is the Book that there is no doubt/crookedness in it, it’s a guidance for pious people who are conscious of Allah.” (The Cow, 2:1-2)

Right there is the guidance of Ramadan because Allah (AJ) wanted for us: stop your life. Slow down. Don’t even put anything in your mouth because that’s such a big distraction. As soon as you cut things to your mouth, you have complete attention from Allah (AJ) and your attention is upon Allah (AJ) because the whole dunya (material world) shuts down when you can’t eat. It’s a time of reflection. It’s a time in which you know everything else we’re running, we’re busy.

It has its own miraculous way just to slow everything down. Blood pressure drops. All the function of the body begins to change and you’re continuously reflecting about Allah (AJ), your existence, your life, what have you been running for, what will be the end goal, what will be the result. All of that is Allah (AJ) is what the love of Ramadan for Allah (AJ). That the servant slows down and now contemplates their Creator.

Holy Qur’an is Guidance When You Submit to the Love of Sayyidina Muhammad ﷺ

Right at the beginning “Alif, Laam, Meem. Dhaalikal kitaabu laa rayba feeh.” ‘Verily in this book,’ the coding of “Alif, Laam, Meem” and then ‘For verily in this book, there is no crookedness’ but “Hudal lil muttaqeen.” It’s a guidance for muttaqeen (Holy Qur’an, 2:1-2).

That’s why you see people read Qur’an and they’re crazy. They read Qur’an and they’re crooks and thieves. Why? Because Allah (AJ) said, ‘Hudal lil muttaqeen’. Didn’t say, ‘It’s going to be for you a guidance until your submit.’ That all the fasting, praying, all of these things that we’re doing. If we don’t do with sincerity and we don’t do with all the senses, how they read the same verses but they’re violent people? How they read the same verses and they have very aggressive interpretations? Because they’re not muttaqeen.

Are You Reading Holy Qur’an or Furqan?

They’re reading furqan – they read right and wrong. It means this can be a furqan. If you have love of Sayyidina Muhammad ﷺ because it has to be mixed with the Arabic messenger. What that means is that the light of Prophet ﷺ has to be in your heart. Then when you read it, it’s now above the level of furqan and now it becomes Qur’an. Otherwise, if they don’t have that ishq and love, they read but furqan.

Furqan is all right and wrong, right and wrong, right and wrong. It’s devoid of an ishq and love and very harsh and that’s the other groups that are very tough. So, Allah (AJ) giving us an opportunity that if you’re going to begin to read Holy Qur’an, especially in the month of Ramadan, Hudal lil muttaqeen – that it’s a guidance for the muttaqeen because muttaqeen, that they use all their senses for Allah (AJ). They’re not submitting, just say, ‘Okay, I’m submitting my nafs, my self. I’m asking, ya Rabbi, I’m submitting my senses, my hearing for You. Sam’ina wa ata’na, my eyes for You and I close them.’

Fast With Your Eyes and Tongue – Don’t Look at Bad Material and Don’t Argue

Fast with your eyes. Look at your feet. Don’t look around. Don’t look at bad. When you do, make tawbah (repentance) and istighfar (seeking forgiveness). Fasting with our breath, that don’t get into conversations and discussions that are unnecessary; definitely not to fight and to argue.

Unnecessary speech is like overeating and is abusive because every word that we put out, you cannot take it back and the angel already wrote it. So, they say it’s like taking the elephant through the eye of a needle. Once you squeeze it through, you can’t bring him back because it’s written now in a kitab (book).

Fast With Your Ears – Remove Yourself From Gossip and Backbiting

Fasting with our hearing, with our eyes, with our breath, with our senses and our hands. It means every aspect of our being is to enter into the fast so that Allah (AJ) make us to be muttaqeen, those whom have an immense taqwa (consciousness). They don’t claim their taqwa from themself, that you asked, ‘Do you have taqwa?’ Say, ‘I have taqwa.’ But no, they’ve been trained. If you have taqwa from your hearing, then what would be your character? You have very clean hearing. You don’t want to hear bad. You don’t want to sit and listen to gossip all day long. You don’t want to hear backbiting. Now you turn on TV – it’s killing everyone. The news is just backbiting. It’s no more khabar – it’s no news. What he did, what that…is one guy is sit there and just keep talking bad, just keep talking bad, just keep talking bad because ghibah (backbiting) is going to destroy these realities and all shaitan wants to do is destroy insan (mankind) on mass scale so that they can’t reach the satisfaction of Allah (AJ).

So then the characteristics of muttaqeen, they would know themselves. ‘Oh, shaykh, how do I know if I’m muttaqeen?’ Then you would know if you’re hearing is of a caliber in which you are in a continuous fast that you don’t want to hear bad. You have a lot of comfort in being alone because as soon as you’re with people, they want to talk and mostly, they want to talk garbage about other people if you give them opportunity. [You] Say, ‘Oh, I’m not saying it. They’re saying it,’ but listening to it is as bad as the one speaking to it because it’s contaminating the heart. The garbage goes out, it contaminates everything.

You Cannot Direct Your Eyes Towards the Heavens When They’re Dirty

Then say, ‘How do you know if you’re muttaqeen?’ Is you try your best to keep your eyes to be clean because these are the same eyes in which you want to look and not through the physical eye, but what this eye captures. You want it to capture the heavens and not the filthiness of dunya (material world) because with that filthiness on its lens, how you can then try to direct it into the heavens? It gets contaminated. So, it’s like trying to look through the heavens and you’ve sort of thrown all sorts of dirt onto the lens and then you have to spend all your time continuously re-cleaning and polishing the heart.

Muttaqeen Constantly Try to Keep Their Senses Clean

So, the muttaqeen of the qalb (heart) and Ahlul Basirah (the people of spiritual vision), they try their best to abstain. They’re even trained on how to wash from what they’ve seen with their eyes and what their eyes have captured so that they use the purity of that lens of reflection into the heavens and towards the presence of Sayyidina Muhammad ﷺ.

Then their breath that they don’t want to speak. They don’t want to waste it. That the preciousness of what Allah (AJ) has given to them, they conserve it and use it in the way of Allah (AJ) and that was the unnecessary speech that doesn’t need to be spoken so that they train themselves on how to keep a path of silence. That’s why Sayyidina Abu Bakr as-Siddiq (as) had a rock for seven years and we said that many times. That put a lollipop in your mouth so that you stop talking and keep a path in which to practice the way of the salik and those whom took this path of realities.

Fast With Your Hands – Don’t Oppress People, Earn Honestly and Give Zakah

Fast with your hands and say that, ‘My hands not to be abusive; not to take me into make something that’s not halal (permissible) for me’ because the hands were a symbol of power and authority. That one – are you oppressing people and then what are you earning from your hands? The muttaqeen to be conscious of what I earn, ya Rabbi, from my hands and does it bring for me a purity into my home or contamination and difficulty?

That’s why…and that’s we talked earlier – zakah (charity). Why to give zakah? Because it purifies from what your hand brought in of sustenance and imagine all the contamination that it brings in. Those same hands have to give back. That what the hand brought, the hand has to give and even Prophet ﷺ described, ‘Don’t let one hand know from the other hand what it gave.’

عَنْ أَبِي هُرَيْرَةَ رَضِيَ اللهُ عَنْهُ عَنِ اَلنَّبِيِّ ‏ﷺ ‏قَالَ: ” سَبْعَةٌ يُظِلُّهُمُ اَللَّهُ فِي ظِلِّهِ يَوْمَ لَا ظِلَّ إِلَّا ظِلُّهُ.‏.‏.‏.‏ ” فَذَكَرَ اَلْحَدِيثَ وَفِيهِ: ” وَرَجُلٌ تَصَدَّقَ بِصَدَقَةٍ فَأَخْفَاهَا حَتَّى لَا تَعْلَمَ شِمَالُهُ مَا تُنْفِقُ يَمِينُهُ ” مُتَّفَقٌ عَلَيْهِ 1‏ الْكِتَابُ ٤، الْحَدِيثُ ٣٣

‘An Abi Hurairah (ra) ‘anin Nabiyyi ﷺ qala: “Sab’atun yuzilluhumu Allahu fi zillihi yawma la zilla illa zilluhu… ” Fazakara al haditha wa fihi: “Wa rajulun tasaddaqa bisadaqatin fa akhfaha hatta la ta’lamu shimaluhu ma tunfiqu yameenuhu.” Muttafaqun ‘alayhi [1] [Al Kitab 4, Al Hadith 33]

Abu Hurairah (ra) narrated that The Messenger of Allah (pbuh) said, “Seven people will be shaded by Allah under His shade on the day when there will be no shade except His ….” He mentioned the rest of the hadith, which says, “and a man who gives charity so secretly that his left hand does not know what his right hand has given.” (i.e. nobody knows how much he has given in charity). Agreed upon. [Book 4, Hadith 33]

Allah (AJ) Grants Immense Generosity Through Laylatul Qadr, the Night of Power

It means the immensity of generosity that Allah (AJ) opens. This is the month of generosity in which Allah (AJ) going to grant immense blessings, immense blessings because within the blessings of this immense month in which Allah (AJ) gives a reward, in which no angel knows and no prophetic reality knows. Allah (AJ) gives clearly just from His Divinely Presence for the sake of fasting. Allah (AJ), within that holy month has Laylatul Qadr (Night of Power) so it’s that everything now is multiplied on Laylatul Qadr by 30,000. If the servant should reach to that light, then a lifetime of that multiplication upon every ‘amal and every action that they do.

So, alhamdulillah, that Allah (AJ), inshaAllah, inspire within us that in this blessed opportunity that Allah (AJ) giving to us, it’s not just by mouth. It’s not just enter into hunger, complain that you’re hungry and what you don’t have to eat and all of these. But it’s a fast of the entire being. That every year, from those whom are on this way of ma’rifah (gnosticism), Allah (AJ) begin to open the senses and their realities. That open for them their hearing. Open for them their seeing. Open for them their sense of feel and touch so that they become more latif and more subtle in their energies so that they feel the energies. We pray that Allah (AJ) dress us and bless us with these immense blessings.

If You’re Unable to Fast, Support Those Who Can

InshaAllah, tomorrow night we’ll begin tarawih (night prayer in Ramadan) for Saturday fasting, inshaAllah. Allah (AJ) dress everyone, bless everyone and that those whom can fast, they try their best to fast, inshaAllah. Those who can’t fast support those whom are fasting. Give in the way of iftar (breaking fast) and feed those whom are hungry and want to have iftar and those whom also don’t have the ability to have their iftar.

So, we have programs in Pakistan and in different areas to give food and to give food to in the thousands because it’s a 30 day supply that goes out in packages to hundreds of people and that’s thousands of meals, inshaAllah. These types of actions, inshaAllah, Allah (AJ) makes this Ramadan to be blessed and packed with barakah, blessings and immense lights.

Subhana rabbika rabbal ‘izzati ‘amma yasifoon, wa salaamun ‘alal mursaleen, walhamdulillahi rabbil ‘aalameen. Bi hurmati Muhammad al-Mustafa wa bi siri Surat al-Fatiha.

Special thanks to our transcribers for their help with transcribing this suhbah.

Original Date of Suhbah: 31^st March, 2022

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