Ramadan Reminders; Day 11

Assalam Alaykum wa Rahmatullahi wa Barakatuhu! :)

May the peace, mercy and blessings of Allah swt be upon you!

Daily Reminder 11:

If I could title this reminder, I would name it as “Sunnah precedes Science yet again!”

Portion control or limited eating leads to a healthier lifestyle – this is what Science has discovered recently (probably a couple of decades ago). But this is exactly what Prophet Muhammad (saws) recommended and encouraged 1400 years ago! Isn’t that amazing?!

Our Prophet (saws) said: “No human ever filled a vessel worse than the stomach. Sufficient for the son of Adam are a few morsels to keep his back straight. But if he cannot bear that, then one third for his food, one third for his drink and one third for his breath.”

[Ahmed, At-Tirmidhi, An-Nasai’, Ibn Majah]

Yuhanna Bin Masawiyah (770 CE) was a famous Assyrian physician who lived through the period of four caliphs in Baghdad. He said, “If people only applied these words practically, they would avoid all diseases and maladies (sickness) and the clinics and pharmacies would remain idle.”

Nafi’ Bin Al-Harith Bin Khalada Al-Thaqafi (670 CE) who lived during the time of the Prophet (saws), said, “That which has destroyed mankind is the introduction of food on top of food before it has been digested.”

That’s not it! Guess what shaytan himself spoke about your stomach?

When Allah swt created Adam (as), Iblis started going around Adam (as) in hate and jealousy, scanning him from head to toe, trying to find an error or a weak point in him. Suddenly, he spotted something hollow in him, it was the stomach! And Iblis said, “I can lead him astray because he has got a stomach and he has no control over it.”

If you think about it, when we over-indulge in eating or munch on junk, is there a desire to do any work at all? Let alone perform Sujood and Ruku’ and standing in Qiyam! We’d just hold our stomach and go to sleep… Isn’t that what happens? 

Sinning and wasting time are both from shaytan because it takes us away from Allah swt. So when we fill our stomachs, we’re actually inviting shaytan over to have fun with our nafs!

This is why Ramadan is here! To control this desire which is also one of our weaknesses! And if we don’t exercise control over our eating habits now, do you think we ever will…? For the rest of the year we may diet to lose weight, but if you incorporate healthy and Sunnah eating habits now, you’d also be gaining rewards, In sha Allah!

Also, filling your stomach to the brim does not mean you’ll stay energetic and active throughout Taraweeh. The Sahabas and our Prophet (saws) literally survived on dates, water, khubs (flat bread) and olive oil. And yet they stood longer in prayers than us!

Keep your Iftaar light, cut down on carbs and fried food, chew well and In sha Allah you’d experience a whole lot of difference if you suffer from sluggishness or even burps!

Verse of the Day:

Juz: 11

Surah: Yunus

Verse: 45

وَيَوْمَ يَحْشُرُهُمْ كأَن لَمْ يَلْبَثُوا إلاَّ سَاعَةً مِنَ النَّهَارِ يَتَعَارَفُونَ بَيْنَهُمْ قَدْ خَسِرَ الَّذِينَ كَذَّبُوا بِلِقَآءِ اللَّهِ وَمَا كَانُوا مُهْتَدِينَ

“And on the Day when He will gather them, [it will be] as if they had not remained [in the world] but an hour of the day, [and] they will know each other. Those will have lost who denied the meeting with Allah and were not guided.”

This ayah was revealed in the context of those who denied their meeting with Allah and Allah swt calls these people lost and misguided.

But what I want to focus here is on one of the facts about the Judgement Day.

On the Day of Judgement, our entire life on this earth will only seem like an hour or a small part of a day. Because Allah says in Surah An-Naziyat, verse 46;

كَأَنَّهُمْ يَوْمَ يَرَوْنَهَا لَمْ يَلْبَثُوا إِلَّا عَشِيَّةً أَوْ ضُحَاهَا

“It will be, on the Day they see it, as though they had not remained [in the world] except for an afternoon or a morning thereof.”

This Dunya is going to seem so insignificant on The Final Day and yet it is this Dunya and the matters of this world that gets on the priority list for most of us!

If I ask you to summarise your entire day in one sentence, you’d probably pick the activity that took most of your time in that day, right…?

On that Day, when we will be standing before The Rabb ul A’lameen, Our Master, Creator and Ruler of the ENTIRE Universe and He begins to question us, how will we summarise our entire life in this Dunya which will only seem like an hour…? 

What is our answer going to be…? Cooking? Having fun? Studying for this Dunya? Or struggling with a 9-5 job?

I don’t mean to say that these things are unworthy. They are what is going to help us survive in this world. The above activities are important but what is more important is how much time we spend for the sake of Allah. How we turn each of the above activities into an act of worship. And how much we prepare ourselves for the Aakhirah!

Prophet Muhammad (saws) said: “The life of this world compared to the Hereafter is as if one of you were to put his finger in the ocean and take it out again then compare the water that remains on his finger to the water that remains in the ocean.”

[Sahih Muslim]

Remember, this Dunya is only temporary. It ends with our death. And what begins next is the life that will remain forever, for eternity.

The matters of this Dunya shouldn’t own us but in fact we should be in charge of them. 

This is what I’ve learnt from the saying of Ali ibn Abi Talib (ra): “Detachment is not that you should own nothing. But that nothing should own you.”

Subhan Allah!

If only we would live this life by the terms and teachings of Rasulullah (saws) and his noble companions, we wouldn’t be the ummah that is at end of receiving backlash!

May Allah swt detach our hearts from this world and all that it contains, make our hearts steadfast in Deen and allow us to be among those who are successful in this world and the Hereafter! Ameen.

Sunnah Challenge 11:

How many of you knew that it was the Sunnah of our Prophet(saws) to change the positions for prayer after completing the Fardh prayer?

Abu Dawood (854) and Ibn Maajah (1417) narrated from Abu Hurairah (ra) that the Prophet (saws) said:

“Is any one of you incapable, when he prays, of stepping forwards or backwards, or to his right or left?” – meaning in order to offer a naafil prayer, after an obligatory prayer.

Another Hadith which we see is a report narrated by Muslim in his Saheeh (1463) from Mu‘aawiyah (ra) who said:

When you have prayed Jumu‘ah, do not follow it immediately with another prayer until you speak or leave (the mosque), because the Messenger of Allah (saws) instructed us to do that, not to follow one prayer immediately with another until we spoke or left (the mosque).

Our Prophet(saws) instructed us to separate our prayers with such a gap for the purpose of differentiating between the Fardh and Sunnah prayers.

The scholars in Islam have also mentioned that increasing the number of places of prostrations, so that they would testify for us on the Day of Judgement!

Let us make it a habit from now on, to space our prayers by switching from one place to another, or at the least try to break the gap by speaking or reciting some Dhikr In shaa Allah!

Assalam Alaykum.