Sha'ban Mubarak!

Bismillah hir Rahman nir Raheem
As-salaamu 'alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuhu : )

Sha'ban Mubarak!!! SubhaanAllah, Sha'ban's started!! That means Ramadan is only one month away!! SubhaanAllah.... May Allah subhaanahu wa ta 'aala give us physical and spiritual health in this blessed time.... Rasul Allah salAllahu 'alayhi wasallim would get noticeably excited when Sha'ban would start, because of his eager anticipation for the forthcoming month. So we should definitely make the most of this time.... start doing the things you want to be doing in Ramadan... stop doing the things you don't want to be doing in Ramadan. And just stop them. I mean, it's totally not worth losing out on the barakah.. the sweetness... the closeness of Ramadan for whatever petty sin you're holding onto. Look at the quote on the right about Ramadan... that's the way it should be.

I know we're not supposed to be like hermits on this Earth... not interacting with people, staying in our rooms with our doors shut doing 'ibaadah from morning till night. This is not what we've been commanded to do. But in Ramadan... do it. That's the time to do that. Just cut yourself off from as many people and things of the dunya as you can and attach yourself to remembrance of Allah and love of Him.

How sorry is the state of the person who enters Ramadan and exits Ramadan without having drawn nearer to Allah jalla jalaaluh and made some change. Ramadan is about change. It's about changing those things you tried soooo hard to change before but simply have never succeeded in doing. It's about dropping those sins you do which fill you with deeper and more painfully penetrating shame each time you go back to Allah subhaanahu wa ta 'aala to beg for His forgiveness for having slipped yet again. Ramadan's the time when the shayateen are locked up, the gates of Jannah are open, the gates of Jahannam closed.... and barakah is being poured upon the Earth and all its inhabitants. It's up to us to make use of that barakah. We have to seek it out, grab hold of it and make use of it.

So start now... don't leave yourself 100% of the work to start on the first of Ramadan. Increase in your recitation of Qur'an. Try to finish a Qur'an now so you'll be better trained in doing so once Ramadan starts. Increase in your tasbihaat. After each salaah do a few tasbihs of dhikr, any dhikr. Or if you already do, do two instead of one. Be more patient. Be kinder. Be more helpful and understanding. Fast. Rasul Allah salAllahu 'alayhi wasallim would fast the first 15 days of Sha'ban, but generally not the last half of Sha'ban, because he didn't want us to get drained. But you still can fast here or there in the last half as well, just definitely not in the last three days before Ramadan starts, in order to be certain you start fasting on the first of Ramadan. (I heard all that in one of Shaykh Husain's (db) lectures.... actually the majority of this post is directly from Shaykh Kamaluddin Ahmed (db) and Shaykh Husain (db). Except for the stuff that sounds weird. That's probably from me.)

Also, increase in your constant remembrance... remain focused on your heart throughout the day and be certain that it is remembering Allah subhaanahu wa ta 'aala at all times. This will make sin more difficult to commit and will, Insha'Allah, purify your heart. There's a hadith that says that everything in the world has a polish and the polish of the heart is the remembrance of Allah. And this act of constant, internal remembrance of Allah subhaanahu wa ta 'aala has a certain sweetness, a certain beauty that's indescribable. Coz no one knows about it. It's between you and Allah... it's your little secret : )

Ohhh.... there's this beautiful narration I heard in one of Shaykh Kamal's talks, where he explains how when you do this quiet, internal remembrance of Allah subhaanahu wa ta 'aala, it's so much between you and Allah that not even the angels get to know about it. All that happens is that a sweet fragrance comes from your heart and they smell that sweetness. So on the Day of Judgment after they present all our deed before Allah subhaanahu wa ta 'aala -veils removed- He will ask them, "Is there anything left of My servant's deeds to be presented?" And they'll say, "Oh Allah, there were times when we smelled a sweet frangrance coming from the heart of Your servant, but we knew not what it was, so we didn't know how to record it." And Allah subhaanahu wa ta 'aala will tell them, "Oh My angels, know that those were the moments My servant was remembering Me internally, quietly, secrectly, to himself... and just as I kept that between him and Me in his life, so also will I keep his reward for that between him and Me." SubhaanAllah :')

May Allah subhaanahu wa ta 'aala grant us the tawfiq to increase in our good works and to leave our bad habits in Sha'ban so that we can make the best of Ramadan. And may He grant us the sweet things we yearn for in Ramadan, and the ability to make the changes we've been dying to make but have continued to fail at. Ameen...

[Please refer to my post "Preparation for the Sweet Days of Ramadan" for lectures on Ramadan and how to make the most of it, in Urdu and English.]