By Aizatul Amilda Bte Sazali

As I look back and think about the number of times Allah ﷻ has allowed me to pull through what I thought was the most difficult thing I’ve ever experienced, a deep sense of remorse seeped into my heart for the lack of gratitude I showed to Him ﷻ, who has always been present.

The only One ﷻ who never disappoints despite the countless of times we fall down and our nafs and syaitan gets the better of us, He ﷻ continues to sustain us, provides for us, and gives us life. He ﷻ opened countless of doors for us, the doors of Rahmah and Maghfirah. The best of those doors are the doors of knowledge.

“How deep is your love?”

We are but an odd bunch. He ﷻ gives and continues to give, yet our temptations and nafs yearns for more, until we feel fully satiated. But how can we ever fill our heart with other than Allah ﷻ, when He ﷻ is the only one deserving of that sacred part within us. And how can we ever expect to experience it in this dunya when what we are promised in the hereafter is more enduring (87:17) and beyond our comprehension. How can we question the extent to His ﷻ boundless and endless mercy?

HOW MERCIFUL IS OUR LORD ﷻ, WHOSE MERCY IS SO VAST THAT DESPITE OUR HEEDLESSNESS, HE ﷻ STILL ACCEPTS OUR REPENTANCE, EVEN IF WE SEEK IT UP UNTIL OUR FINAL MOMENTS IN THIS WORLD. AND WE ASK ALLAH ﷻ TO GRANT US ALL A GOOD ENDING.

He ﷻ is so Merciful that the Angel Gabriel was afraid that The Most Merciful One ﷻ would even forgive the biggest tyrant, Pharaoh after having done all the injustice imaginable.

Ibn Abbas reported: The Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, said,

“When Allah drowned Pharaoh, he said: I believe in the One in whom the children of Israel believe. Gabriel said: O Muhammad, if only you could have seen me while I was taking mud from the sea and filling his mouth, fearing lest the mercy of Allah should reach him.”
Hadith

Questioning the extent of Allah’s ﷻ mercy is never the subject, but rather, questioning ourselves on how we can seek to attain that mercy from Him ﷻ, is the ultimate goal and focus. And this is the month (Ramadhan) where we strive as hard as we can, to attain His bountiful Mercy. This is the month where we clear all doubts and uncertainty of “what exactly we are looking for and where we should be looking”. The answer to that has always been Allah ﷻ all along, but we grew distracted as we left behind the previous Ramadhan. And yet He still granted us good health to reach this Ramadhan, Alhamdullilah.

In His vast Knowledge and Wisdom, He ordained upon us a special form of ibadah––fasting. Why?

يَـٰٓأَيُّهَا ٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُوا۟ كُتِبَ عَلَيْكُمُ ٱلصِّيَامُ كَمَا كُتِبَ عَلَى ٱلَّذِينَ مِن قَبْلِكُمْ لَعَلَّكُمْ تَتَّقُونَ

“O believers! Fasting is prescribed for you—as it was for those before you—so perhaps you will become mindful of Allah…”
Quran 2:183

While an outsider may look at fasting as a religious rite, simply adhering the do’s and don’ts, fasting in its essence is a means of declaring our submission, love and sacrifice to Allah ﷻ and it helps us to attain closeness to Him, by developing a sense of God-consciousness. We detach ourselves from the means such as food and drinks and turn our attention to Al-Muqeet (The Sustainer). As we are on day four of Ramadhan, it always boggles my mind how quickly my thirst is quenched despite the 13 hours of fasting. It is not hunger nor thirst that we see in our fasts, but rather we see Allah ﷻ, who sustains us and gives us the energy to push through our day up until the sun sets. How perfectly has He taken care of us—with the numerous ease throughout the day that simply just occur as we are fasting, because He is always present.

وَهُوَ مَعَكُمْ أَيْنَ مَا كُنتُمْ ۚ

“and He is with you wherever you are.”
Quran 57:4

This month, completing a sunnah act grants us the reward of performing one obligatory act whilst the obligatory acts are granted seventy times the reward. As if the facilitations through the days and the rewards promised to a fasting person isn’t enough, our Lord has decreed upon us the Night of Power, Laylatul Qadr, occurring in the last 10 nights of Ramadhan. It is a night that is better than 1,000 holy months. We should strive to seek out this special night by dedicating extra reverence and love for Allah ﷻ, who wants us to have it as we see how generous He is in wanting to reward us even through our obligatory and sunnah acts.

Ramadhan is the month of the Quran. The Quran was sent down to us as a guide to life. Seek to recite it with proper tajweed, giving the rights to each beautiful letter of the Holy Quran. Additionally, we must also contemplate on its meanings and seek out the gems within the Quran through reading the translation with tafsir. Ramadhan is also a month of sabr as we hope to attain His Pleasure in paradise. It is also the month of charity, so strive to give consistently within your means. His Rahmah awaits us as the gates of heaven are flung open!

Ramadhan to me is quite the opposite of deprivation, it is the month where Allah ﷻ doesn’t withhold from His imperfect slaves who strayed for the past few months leading up to Ramadhan. It is the month of righting our wrongs, becoming more attuned to our innate essence of submitting ourselves to our Lord, in complete and sincere faith. We have been toiling for the world in the preceding year anyway, so now is the time we toil for the hereafter where He has facilitated and eased the path towards attaining His Mercy, out of sheer love and compassion for us. Let us make it count.