Speaker: Omar Suleiman
Source : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3iHdhrGCqI
The Prophet Saw says, when the first night of Ramadan enters upon you. The first thing that Allah does is He removes the influences, He removes the major devils, the most aggressive of the jinn away from you and puts them in chains. So you’re on this path now and Allah Swt restrains those shayateen from being able to influence you, the way that they would be able to influence you throughout the year. What does that mean? Allah has given you power over the shayateen throughout the entire year. Allah says in the qur’an. “You have no control or authority over my servants except for those who follow you willingly. And the call of the syatan is you will find that most of them will not be grateful people. So you have the power to put your syatans in chains throughout the entire year, figuratively by not obeying them and by reducing them and by sustaining yourself with the gratitude of Allah Swt.
For the one who recognizes the blessings of Allah upon him will not find in himself. The indecency, to sin knowingly and consistently. Majorly or minorly. You won’t find that indecency within yourself because you know the blessings of Allah upon you and you’re grateful to him for them. But in Ramadan Allah pulls them futher back and Allah makes you more aware of your blessings. So while Allah feeds you with shukur with gratitude throughout the day. Through just very act of fasting which should increase that gratitude. Allah also reduces the influence of the shayateen so they become weaker than they already are. They were already weak but now they’re weaker. Now they’re really reduced. So if you think about this, jannah is there it should be common sense that.
If there is paradise and I need to get to paradise when no influence should get in the way but the Prophet Saw mentioned that essentially, what keeps us away from Jannah is not a lack of good deeds. Its our inability to get out of our own way and our following of another path. Allah has already placed us on that path to get back home. We just have to make sure that we don’t take a detour and get away from that path. So the very first thing The Prophet Saw mentions here that the shayateen are restrained. You have no excuses now. You can’t blame the influeces, the influences have been reduced in ways that they will not be reduced throughtout the entire year.
It starts with that, and then The Prophet Saw said, this is beautiful “the gates of hellfire are closed and not a single one of their doors will be opened”. You don’t need to be temted and if you just think about this by the way. The sins that we struggle with and the bad habits thet we struggle with in Ramadan. Are leftovers from that which comes before Ramadan. You’re not gonna be more tempted by sin and disobedience in Ramadan than you’re outside of Ramadan. What I mean by that is that your urges to disobey Allah Swt. Will not increase inside of Ramadan that’s not gonna happen. Most people don’t suddenly take up a new sin in Ramadan. Right, you don’t start doing something that you weren’t doing before Ramadan in terms of sin. That’s very unusual and unlikely.
Instead you have a hard time kicking the previous habits. So no new door of hellfire will be opened, the doors will not be opened for you to sin. You just need to properly let go of the old one, anf make strides and make way in Ramadan. And the greatest accomplishment in Ramadan that you can possibly have beyond the recitation of the Qur’an, beyond the amount of prayer that you do is to kick those bad habits and that should be the greatest metric that you have in Ramadan. The number one thing you need to ask yourself is how much distance have I put between myself and those sins. That were holding me back, that is going to be the standard for success because as Umar ibn Abdul Aziz (R) said Taqwah is not fasting long days and praying long into the night. Taqwah is, abandoning the disobedience of Allah Swt. Abandoning the bad habits, everything beyond that is excellence so this is where you start and this is your standard of success how distant can I make myself from those sins. That have had power over me because the influence they have over me now. And the one who tempts me with those influences are weaker now than they ever will be so if there is ever a time to completely remove those shackles it’s now, its now because they’re weaker now than they ever will be.
Happy Ramadan 1444 H
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