Benefits of Ramadan

We are already close to completing the first week of the month of Ramadan; This first week is the week to get used to fasting, it is a complicated week for many, the week to change schedules and get used to it; probably one of the most complex aspects is lack of sleep or having disrupted sleep; but that is why, because of the difficulty it entails, it is why the first third of Ramadan, the first ten days are the days of Rahma, the days of Mercy.
Without this Mercy from Allah these first days would be much more complicated, they would be harder and more difficult, but despite the difficulty that they seem to contain, when we put ourselves with sincerity, we go through them with ease, which leads us to reflect on the wisdom of Allah, to realize His immense generosity and finally, to recognize the greatness of Allah, Subahanhu wa Ta’la. The month of Ramadan is not only abstaining from eating, drinking and having sex from sunrise to sunset, it goes much further, it is a whole process of purification both internal and external, it is Hahir and dressing gown, it is a process of deep awareness of Allah at all times and situations, it is a process of containment, in which our tongue, our ears, our eyes and the rest of the members of the body also participate, we contain them above all evil, we restrain them from any obscenity or aspect that can take us away from the state of surrender and closeness to Allah with which we imbue ourselves in fasting.
And it is that, and this is a wonderful aspect of this noble month, Allah wants us to draw closer to Him, He gives us that opportunity, He wants us to take one step towards Him, so that He gives ten steps to us, He wants us to walk to Him so that He may come to us running and for this, to make this task easier for us, In this month he chains the Shahayaten, as the Messenger Muhammad said, salla allaahu alayhi wa sallam, in a saheeh hadith.
Those enemies of man who constantly whisper to us and incite us to evil, those enemies who embellish to us the things desirable and desirable for our nafs with which Fire is surrounded; those enemies are chained, bound and imprisoned, and Allah does so because His Generosity towards us is immense, to facilitate our way, to smooth out the obstacles that we often encounter in our journey, to facilitate the means of approaching Him.
Those enemies are no longer there, Allah has chained them, He does not want them to interfere in our journey of approach to Him, but we must be aware of one thing and that is that the greatest enemy of man is there, the enemy that does not separate from us for an instant if he is, our nafs, our ego, always remains.
An enemy that you do not see, an enemy that is constantly with you, that is part of your very being and that to defeat it takes a large dose, an enormous dose of sincerity.
That is why Ramadan is known as the month of sincerity, for there is no more sincere act of worship than fasting, and that is why Messenger Muhammad, Salla Allahu Alaihi wa Salllam., he said in a Hadith qudsi transmitting from His Lord: “All the actions of the son of Adam are for himself except fasting. He is Mine and I reward him.” But the Nafs of the human being, that enemy that we all possess within us, that enemy that Imam Al Busairi in his poem of the Burdah likens to a nursing child, which is always attached to its mother’s breast; It tempts us with food and drink.
It also tempts us with things desirable to the gaze and our baser instincts, and even to our ears.
How do we overcome it?
How do we defeat this enemy?
With sincerity, with sincerity towards our Creator, and above all, with Taqwa of Allah, knowing that He is closer to us than our own jugular vein, knowing that He is a witness to all our actions.
And by doing so, by overcoming our most natural instinct, which is food and drink, that instinct that leads the newborn to seek its mother’s breast for nourishment, we will be attaining a reward that has no limits, a reward that we do not know, a reward that only Allah knows, why?
Because fasting is Allah’s and He rewards it, He repays it.
There are numerous occasions when we do not realize this, we restrict the month of Ramadan to stop eating and drinking from fajr to makhrib, and well, if we do so we will be fulfilling the obligatory and most basic degree of fasting, alhamdulillah and Allah, in His immense Generosity will reward us for it.
But… We can go further, we can go upwards, we can get closer and closer to Allah, we have a wonderful opportunity, Allah gives us this opportunity during the days and nights of this noble month, He gives us the opportunity, if we are able to fulfill the whole process both internal and external of fasting, to attain one of the greatest gifts to which we can aspire, we will be attaining complacency, not only that, we will be, inshallah, attaining the love of Allah.
And we all know what the one who is loved by Allah attains, don’t we?
When one attains the love of Allah, Allah is to him the hand with which he grasps, the feet with which he walks, the eyes with which he sees and the ears with which he hears.
And this, brothers and sisters, is what we can attain in the month of sincerity, in the month of patience, in the month of the Qur’an, in the month of Ramadan.
We will do this if we are able to fulfill the whole process of fasting, if we are able to be generous with our time and our wealth towards the most needy, if we fast during the day and pray during the night, if we dedicate our time to the increase and acquisition of knowledge, if we dedicate our hours to reflection and supplication, if we overcome our nufus and draw closer to Allah.
Will we be able to take advantage of this opportunity that Allah gives us with His immense Generosity and Mercy?
Are we to be of those who fast the month with longing and hope and therefore our faults will be forgiven?
Or are we going to be one of those whom the Messenger of Allah describes as those who only get hunger and thirst from fasting because they do not recognize what Ramadan is and because they do not understand the whole process that it entails?
The decision is up to each one of us, we will get from Ramadan what we want to obtain: either closeness to Allah and an immense reward, or hunger, thirst and difficulty. And Allah asks Him to make us one of those who take advantage of this noble month and enter the Garden through the gate of Ar-Rayyan, the gate of the Garden through which the sincere fasting will enter. Amin

Written by Shaikh Ahmed Bermejo in http://ahmedbermejo.com/