Welcome to the University of Sufism's Ramadan reading of Rosina Fawzia al-Rawi's book,
The Call of Allah,
A companion to the holy month of Ramadan.
Today,
I will be sharing day six about supplications,
Otherwise known as du'a or prayer.
And if my servants ask thee about me,
Behold,
I am near.
I respond to the call of him who calls.
Whenever he calls unto me,
Let them then respond unto me and believe in me,
So that they might follow the right way.
Quran 2,
186.
Allah is al-Mujib,
The one who responds,
The one who answers,
The one who reciprocates.
The great master al-Ghazali explains this name as the one who hurries to hear the requests of his creatures ere they have formed.
Know in your heart that your pleas are heard,
And this happens at the right moment and in the way which is right for you.
Have trust,
Patience,
And perseverance,
For nothing can happen until the right moment has come for you.
We sometimes pray and supplicate for something passionately,
And something else happens.
God always answers,
But the answer may not be the one we expect,
And still it will contain the message we sent in our prayer.
God knows no limits,
And we are creatures of limitation.
This is precisely our role and our most precious gift.
We can hold out to God our neediness,
Our dependence,
And our need for support.
We can present him with our deepest needs in full trust and devotion,
Knowing that the answer they contain will always be the best and most valuable one.
Some believers say that they should never entreat God for anything.
Others say,
Why should I force a seemingly insignificant matter on God?
And then there are those who say,
God is omniscient and omnipotent.
He already knows what I want,
So if he does not fulfill my wish,
There must be a reason for that,
Which I do not know.
To turn pleadingly to Allah means to invite the divine light into the dark,
Confused spheres of our ego,
So we may be surrounded by light and come to know what we are actually asking for.
This is how we begin to see the answers which have always been there.
Our supplicating and praying makes us into that which we are meant to become,
And opens us to the divine.
When we cross the space between the isolated and the divine,
And this we human beings can only do by opening our hearts,
Answer and plea come to meet.
Not knowing when,
Where,
Or how the answer comes protects us from our limited ideas,
But knowing in our heart that the answer will come,
Transforms us into lovers.
Allah has put two things in our heart,
Longing and asking for help,
And he calls us to him by stimulating neediness and poverty in us,
So that we open to him and understand that that we are closer to him than his neck vein.
Warid.
Quran 50 16.
The word for neck vein,
Warid,
Comes from the root wrd,
Which means to flow towards someone.
Allah bestows upon us everything useful for our life,
Air,
Food,
Everything we gain,
And all the basis of our livelihood.
At no other time do we notice how fast we become weak and needy as we do in Ramadan.
Only after a few hours without food and drink,
Our strength and concentration drop.
We become slow,
Sensitive,
And thin-skinned.
In this vulnerable state,
When our feelings pull us this way and that,
Between longing for surrender and constantly keeping an eye on the clock,
Hoping that the fast,
The inner struggle,
Finally comes to an end,
Allah calls us and says,
Now verily,
It is we who have created man,
And we know what his innermost self whispers within him.
Quran 50 16.
Allah knows our struggle.
He knows how the ego fights,
And in his endless love he tells us,
I am here,
Regardless of your state.
No matter how many times you have failed,
No matter how much you believe in your unworthiness,
I am always here for you.
Turn to me with all your difficulties,
All your weaknesses,
All your wishes.
The true aim of supplication is not for our wishes to be fulfilled.
Rather,
It is to transform our human will so that it may unite with the divine will.
If we keep opening our heart and our hands in trust and surrender,
Allowing trust and surrender to suffuse us,
Then we will begin to experience Allah's loving care and to accept our fate as our own choice.
Say,
Behold my prayer,
And all my acts of worship,
And my living and my dying,
Are for God alone,
The sustainer of all the worlds,
And whose divinity none has a share.
For thus have I been bidden,
And I shall always be foremost among those who surrender themselves unto him.
Say,
I am then to seek a sustainer other than God,
When he is the sustainer of all things.
Quran 6,
162 through 164.
Find your task in this world.
Fulfill it as best you can,
And ask Allah for help.
Open your hands in prayer so that the blessing can fall into them,
And you may catch it.
And be open.
That is all you have to do.
For the meaning of our existence is to come closer to Allah,
To love him,
And in the end,
To worship him.
Practice suggested for today.
Let Ya Samih,
Ya Hamid accompany you throughout the day.
When we pray,
We say,
Samih lahu liman hamadahu.
Allah hears the praising of those who praise,
In the sense that he accepts them.
For whoever hears,
Accepts.
Thank you for joining us for day six.
