Ramadan is like entering a room lost in your thoughts and suddenly catching a glimpse of yourself in
the mirror. Realising it’s you. No one else but you.
Ramadan is a month where you discover your true self. You discover your soul, its desires, its deepest
cravings, its thoughts. At all other times all these thoughts would be dismissed as the devil’s work, but
during Ramadan they cannot be ignored, as they are your own making.
It is difficult to accept it. It can be hard to accept that you are solely responsible for your actions and
cannot blame others for your faults. That at the end of the day, it’s you and you alone that will face
your destiny. Face Assirat. That it is your actions that will allow you to progress on it or fall in the
abyss.
Many just realise how much changes they need to bring in their life. Because Ramadan is just that. A
time of reflection on where you are, where you want to go.
Ramadan is a time of deep cleansing of our souls. It is an opportunity to sit in a quiet place, away from
Satan and look into yourself. Try to take the bits that need changing and work on them. Purify your
heart and its many black spots from the past year and clean it, one step at a time. To look into your
daily habits and make a permanent change, As someone beautifully put it, Ramadan is like a spiritual
spring cleaning.
One aspect that is often overlooked is the great mercy Allah shows us in Ramadan by locking up the
gates of Hell and opening up the doors of paradise. Because as we know, humans were created weak.
Ramadan is the month when the Quran was revealed to our prophet, on the night Allah chose to make
this privilege to humanity. The Quran says that the Night of power is better than 1000 months
which is roughly equivalent to 83 years ! Praying for 83 years straight is an immense feat that is
beyond the capability of people in our day and age. But God, in his mercy, gave us the opportunity to
gain decades of adoration just by praying during the 10 last nights of ramadan.
Ramadan is a yearly opportunity, for every single year in your life to turn the tables round and get to
go to Paradise, a yearly event to help you stay in line with who you are.
I will end with a beautiful story demonstrating the importance of Ramadan; out of two men that
became muslim together, one used to strive harder than the other. He went out to fight and was
martyred whilst the other man lived one year longer. A companion of the prophet Muhammad صلى الله عليه وسلم dreamed he saw the two at the gate of paradise.
Someone came out of Paradise and admitted the one who had died last, then came out and admitted the one who had been martyred. (…) When the companion told this story to the prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم, looking for an explanation to this astonishing dream the prophet Muhammad (صلى الله عليه وسلم) said: (…) “Did he not stay behind for a year?” They said: “Yes.”
He said: “And did not Ramadan come and he fasted, and he offered such and such prayers during that year?” They answered: “Yes.” The Messenger of Allah (صلى الله عليه وسلم) said: “The difference between them is greater than the difference between heaven and earth.”
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