On the Path to Mercy: Striving Spiritually During the Month of Ramadan 2020 | 1441
On the Path to Mercy: Striving Spiritually During the Month of Ramaḍān 2020 | 1441
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In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful
As we approach the high season of spiritual and community life—Ramaḍān—those who live near communities or extended family gear up to gather at mosques or in homes to break the day’s long fast, to pray together, and to teach our little ones generosity and sharing. Our community centers gear up to feed the broad Muslim community, many of whom only attend during peak season.
This year is going to be different. If someone works an “essential” job and must venture into crowds, then they live in a moment of high anxiety facing potential infection to earn a living. If we are lucky enough to work from home or if – God forbid – we have lost our jobs, then we live in a moment of lockdown and quarantine. As a community, we live apart from one another, interacting through pixelated representations on computer and phone screens. The COVID-19 pandemic will keep our mosques closed, our dinner invitations postponed, our congregational prayers performed alone, and our lectures attended virtually.
But not all is lost. A state of radical uncertainty has its own unique upsides. The pandemic has torn asunder the illusion of our sense of existential independence. As the Qurʾān teaches in Surah Fāṭir 35:15
يا أَيُّهَا النّاسُ أَنتُمُ الفُقَراءُ إِلَى اللَّهِ ۖ وَاللَّهُ هُوَ الغَنِيُّ الحَميدُ
O mankind! You are the ones who stand in need of Allah, and Allah—He is the All-sufficient, the All-laudable.[1]
We are utterly dependent on God, not just for our guidance and our sustenance, but for our very being; if God were to blink His eyes, so to speak, we would be annihilated without a trace. Amidst this crisis it is now clearer than ever that we are not in control—we are not in control of the larger economy, our personal wealth, our health, or our tomorrow.
In that realization lies a key to potential spiritual refinement during Ramaḍān: our realization of total reliance on God humbles us. That humility places us in a better position to engage in beautiful and right action; it attunes us to obedience which ultimately brings us in harmony with the cosmos and the Divine. And that is the core purpose of our fasts during this month. As mentioned in Surat al-Baqarah 2:183
يا أَيُّهَا الَّذينَ آمَنوا كُتِبَ عَلَيكُمُ الصِّيامُ كَما كُتِبَ عَلَى الَّذينَ مِن قَبلِكُم لَعَلَّكُم تَتَّقونَ
O you who have faith! Prescribed for you is fasting as it was prescribed for those who were before you, so that you may be Godwary.
In this verse, God not only informs us that fasting is an ancient rite of prior religious communities, He also tells us the purpose of our fasting: “so that you may be Godwary.” So, while we will miss out on big dinner gatherings, communing with family, and gathering in mosques, we have all gained an opportunity to engage in a quieter sort of heart-work.
Be Vulnerable with your Self
This newfound humility, borne by the pandemic, has made us ripe for the opportunity to sit with ourselves and engage in an honest moment of introspection and spiritual accounting (muḥāsabah). While Ramaḍān is the month of intensified Divine mercy wherein the smallest gestures of gratitude toward God are counted as great, and even our sleep is considered worship, we can only fully attain God’s Mercy during this month if we come face-to-face with our souls, be real with ourselves, and ask ourselves difficult and specific questions regarding our weaknesses and our strengths. Where do I stand in God’s eyes? Do I stack up to my own flimsy, human standards for myself? What faults and habits have I been ignoring because I am too afraid of them or too overwhelmed by the thought of digging them out of my soul? Have I been fooling myself?
These questions are important because, yes, Ramaḍān is the month of God’s forgiveness, but it requires us to turn toward Him and to take steps. We are not fasting for Him in the sense that God needs our fasts. We need Him, so we fast to come near to Him through creating new spiritual attitudes and habits and leaving behind destructive vices and manners. Put another way, we fast for the good of our own selves, following Surat al-Isrāʾ 17:7
إِن أَحسَنتُم أَحسَنتُم لِأَنفُسِكُم ۖ وَإِن أَسَأتُم فَلَها
‘If you do good, you will do good to your [own] souls, and if you do evil, it will be [evil] for them.’
Merely foregoing food and drink during the day won’t do, as is narrated from Imam ʿAlī, “Many are the people who fast without partaking of anything except hunger and thirst!”[2] Some of us engage in the fundamental physical act of fasting, without refraining from problematic tendencies: laziness, gossiping, abusing, and other lapses that don’t break the outward form of the fast, but wholly conflict with the purpose of fasting: “so that you may be Godwary.”[3] Fasting is meant to activate a deeper exploration of ourselves, help us develop the strength to fortify ourselves from our corrupting inclinations, and animate our sacred aspirations.
Strategize
We often prepare for this month by listening to sermons or reading articles that highlight the major goals for the month of Ramaḍān: increase your reading of the Qurʾan, ask forgiveness, give charity. Those are solid starting points, but to most effectively activate Ramaḍān we should move beyond the general. After reflecting on our spiritual health, we can begin to think through our personal answers to the questions above and begin jotting a list of the bad habits we want to abandon[4] and of good habits we want to develop.
With that achieved, we should begin crafting more specific goals. “I want to be better” is good in-and-of-itself, but it is not measurable enough; we want to be able to evaluate our accomplishments or lack thereof. We should make sure to get out of our own personal comfort zones as well; if we enjoy service and activism, then limiting our goals to similar activities may lead us to ignoring our weaknesses; if we enjoy reading the Qur’an, then simply adding to one’s daily recitation won’t stretch us. We can double down on the things we are naturally inclined toward—and that is important—, but crafting goals that come less naturally will help us see our spiritual blind-spots and help us grow in new ways. And we shouldn’t focus solely on acts, but we should evaluate our propensities and subtle points of personality—am I patient or is my temper short? am I generous or tightfisted? am I lethargic when it comes to responsibilities? am I present when interacting with my family? —and craft goals around changing our attitudes and the less concrete elements of our character.
Our goals set, next we need to create meaningful plans to help us achieve those goals. If we want to dedicate more time to worship or recitation of the Qurʾan, then we need to set aside specific hours during the week for that purpose. If we want to volunteer, then we should identify an organization to work with or specific people to serve. If we want to make life easier on our families or spouses, we should ask them how we can lighten their load and plan which days we take on those tasks. If we are addressing something more subtle—say, our lack of presence or even sense of boredom when communicating with family—, then we can commit to behaviours that push us in the opposite direction: less screen time, active listening, looking them in the eye.
The potential goals are myriad, so such are the plans, but crafting a handful of personalized, attainable goals and strategies will not only make our Ramaḍān more profound, it will set us off on a positive trajectory that will last the year over. Throughout the month we can re-evaluate our list of goals and refine our goals as the days go by, as we reflect and become more intimately familiar with our selves. And, with our effort and God’s support, we pray we will be on the path to Mercy.
[1] All Qurʾanic translations in this piece taken from Ali Quli Qarai’s translation.
[2] Shaykh Abbas Qummi, Mafatih al-Jinan: A Treasury of Islamic Piety, trans. Ali Quli Qarai, 461. See also: Nahj al-Balāghah, Bāb al-Mukhtar min Ḥikam Amīr al-Muʾminīn, ḥ. 145.
[3] Q. 2:183
[4] And keep this list private.