Posts Tagged ‘God’

5 Things That Help Me Keep the Ramadan Spirit Going

Posted: October 16, 2012 in Affad Shaikh, American Muslim, Islam, Ramadan, Social
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Its another set of 10 days- those of Dhul Hajj.  Hajj…sigh.  Well if you can’t go for Hajj, there are the 10 days leading into Eid and the most important day for everyone, regardless if you’re performing Hajj or not, is the Day of Arefa.  As those 10 days start (today), I was reflecting on how this year I have been able to keep the Ramadan spirit going, much longer then usual.  These are the 5 things I feel I have been able to do to keep that Ramadan feeling:

1.  Don’t jump out of the deep end: I think one of the things we do during Ramadan is we participate in a great deal of sunnah activities- extra prayers, reading more Quran, sitting together to share food, longer duahs.  All of these things are easier during Ramadan and in return are what add to the Ramadan spirit.  By extending those activities, even a fraction of the intensity of Ramadan, into the rest of your year will help you keep hold of Ramadan.  For me, this year that is a significant change.

2.  Mercy is a Year Round Thing:  During Ramadan we are filled with Rahma, as Allah floods our lives with Rahma.  I feel that one thing we lose after Ramadan is that sense of Rahma and in turn we begin to lose the Ramadan spirit.  We worked on holding onto Rahma by doing good deeds, being kind, smiling, having good thoughts, doing things for ourselves, family, friends and strangers that we weren’t asked to do.  We showed mercy to ourselves, others and the environment during Ramadan because those were good deeds that were being multiplied, we should continue that even if the deeds aren’t being multiplied.

3.  Stay close to those who make you the person you are.  Family orientated activities, that don’t deal with business, were the central part of Ramadan.  In fact, those activities were all about our faith, we gathered because of our religion.  Eating together, breaking bread, cooking together- all of these activities brought the family and friends together during Ramadan.  Doing things that are like that, removing the trappings of business and consumerism or multitasking, and even better electronics, will help keep that Ramadan spirit going.

4.  Cut the static- I talked about cutting the cable cord.  I think one of the things that really helps the Ramadan spirit is not being governed by television or its content.  Use your DVR, limit your tube time, watch the content your consuming.I Performed the five daily prayers with greater concentration throughout the day I was better able to monitor my thoughts and censor and control my own impulses easily.  Also, checking social media like a crack addict, or having that cell phone around texting all the time, it layers on all these connections and responsibilities that allows you to lose yourself and lose sight of your God conscientiousness.  I find that its important to cut that out of my life, so I can devote my time and attention to God, myself and family and friends.

5.  Do good deeds.  Part of Rahma, is understanding the suffering of others.  Anticipating the needs of others is a way to become sensitive to other peoples life.  Learning to walk a mile in another persons shoes is that old saying that oft gets repeated but is so hard to truly live by.  In having a sense of participating in the suffering of others, is our way as Muslims to get near to Rahma in Islam because you raise your consciousness of God and his infinite mercy toward us.

Ramadan Day 4- Experiencing Mercy For Oneself

Posted: July 22, 2012 in Affad Shaikh, American Muslim, Islam, Justice, Ramadan
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Big Picture from Ramadan August 2012- Chinese Muslim kids waiting for the iftar.

“And surely, I am indeed forgiving to him who repents, believes (in My Oneness, and associates none in worship with Me) and does righteous good deeds, and then remains constant in doing them.” Qur’an 20:82

Remember that feeling of going without water and food all day, then sitting down and taking that first bite, the morsel that sustains your spirit, brings you back to life.  When you take the sip of water that drives back the thirst that has been unhinging your senses.  That feeling is really important, not just the spirituality behind it or the secular connection of being able to experience the feeling of hunger and starvation, but rather, the expression of “MERCY”.

You can’t begin to understand what mercy is unless you can relate to having compassion and mercy extended to you.  That feeling of breaking your fast with food, is god’s mercy in having provided us with sustenance.  The most important way to understand and practice mercy in day to day life, I believe, is by actually being merciful to yourself.

That means having the ability to forgive yourself, being compassionate toward yourself, having mercy for yourself.  I don’t want to say you should push yourself to excel etc.  But rather recognizing that your not perfect, that you working to better yourself is a process and that God is going to be the final judge.  By understanding this a person can move forward in their spiritual development without feeling the need to be held back by one’s own shame. Asking forgiveness from those who were harmed and making amends to those who have been injured are part of mercy toward one’s self.

 

 

Ramadan Day 2- Al Rahman, The Most Merciful

Posted: July 21, 2012 in Affad Shaikh, American Muslim, Islam, Justice, Ramadan
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I chose this picture to go with this post because we often connect “MERCY” and “COMPASSION” in circumstances of complete desolation and loss and emotional rawness. Most images of mercy in Christianity I found were those of the Virgin Mary holding the crucified, dead body of Jesus. This image was so strikingly similar, yet removed by 2000 years and in a totally different world context, that I felt moved to use it to begin the discussion of Mercy as one of God’s most important attributes. -Woman holds man, compassion 2012 World Press Photo of the Year- A woman holds a wounded relative during protests against President Saleh in Sanaa, Yemen, Oct. 15, 2011. (Samuel Aranda/The New York Times)

Where do you begin when discussing mercy?  I started the conversation in my Ramadan Day (RD) 1 post by defining “mercy” in English.  I find that when your multilingual things often take on a  deeper meaning, however, in trying to translate all of that meaning the richness of the concept or idea is lost on the reader.  Trying to keep that in mind I felt the next best place to really explore “rahma” is Al Rahman- the Most Merciful, God.

Muslims relationship with God begins with the Arabic word for God- Allah.  If you open up a Christian Bible in Arabic, you will find it “littered” with the word Allah, because in Arabic, whether you are talking about the Muslim God or the Christian God, God in Arabic is Allah.  The closest example of this simple concept, that is often very difficult to comprehend by non-Arabic speakers, is the Spanish word for God- Dios.  When you pick up a translation of the Bible or the Quran, the concept of God is expressed in the Spanish language as Dios.   There are lots of people, on both the Muslim and Christian side, that claim that our God is not the God worshipped “those people.”  I don’t much care for the distinctions that divide those two opinions because for me my perception of the God that is discussed in the Bible as well as in the Quran stems from the Abrahamic perception of God.  Now whether Christians divide that concept by utilizing the Trinity, is in essence another story for another post.  Similarly in Urdu and Farsi the word for God is Khuda and in prayers and conversation, Khuda and Allah are intermingled and exchanged according to the speakers preference and possibly the emphasis the speaker is trying to get across.

Both the Bible and Quran discuss attributes of God- God will smite the evil doers, God will provide to the needy, God is compassionate, God is merciful, God is exacting, God is judge and just, God is everlasting, the Creator and these attributes go on.  In Islam, however, the concept of God is never mixed up with the idea that God is cruel or that God is malevolent.  I find that sometimes while reading the Bible I get this picture of God laughing at humanity and creation, but then again, there are multiple levels of translations that eschew the language of the Bible in ways that we, today at least, can’t completely untangle.

One of the most important attributes in Islam of God is that God is Most Merciful (along with God being Most Generous).  To give you an idea of the importance of this attribute take these examples:  A simple phrase, Bismillah ir Rahman nir Rahim (translation- In the Name of Allah, Most Compassionate, Exceedingly Merciful) is recited before every meal; before starting a new task, before wearing new clothes, while sitting in a car, while endeavoring on a new task, before beginning a meeting and the list goes on.  This same phrase is recited in the beginning of every reading of the Quran (except for one specific chapter of the Quran), in prayers it is recited in every standing section twice which, if praying all the prayers would mean a minimum of reciting it 35 times, but you add in their Surah Fatiha (The Opening Chapter) and you’ve double that amount.  The short of it is that Muslims attune themselves to God’s Mercy all the time.

One of the most beautiful chapters of the Quran is Surah Rahman, in which human kind is asked over and over again, after each example of creation listed in the chapter- Which of these favors of  your Lord will you deny?  For Muslims creation itself, along with everything in it, is a mercy from God, an opportunity to do good, to seek out goodness in oneself, to attain a self that is closest to God and God consciousness.  Out of all the attributes of God that are expressed in the Quran, the most famous and the most worthy to call upon is ar Rahman- ”Thy Lord is self-sufficient, full of Mercy: if it were God’s will, God could destroy you, and in your place appoint whom God will as your successors, even as God raised you up from the posterity of other people.” (Surah Al-An’am, verse 133)

To truly understand MERCY I find it hard to begin in any place besides God, because the Quran describes exactly how merciful God is.  To embody MERCY, Muslims need to understand how forgiving God is.  Its hard to comprehend that mercy because as humans we seem to have a hard time forgiving ourselves, but God has in the Quran and through examples given by the Prophet, expressed that he will be ever Merciful and ever Forgiving, we just need to turn to him with that faith and hope in his Mercy and Compassion.

Still want more?  Go on to RD3—