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As I am writing this, it is a Wednesday afternoon. The spring sun is struggling to peak through the stubborn, moody clouds and I have layered three necklaces clunkily, to feel something.
It is also the tenth day of Ramadan, in the Islamic year, 1445 AH. It is supposed to be an ‘easier’ year this year. All that means is that the fasts are shorter. We can eat food and drink water sooner. Things seem to be smooth sailing. But isn’t it nice when life surprises you?
The intention behind this Ramadan was, mistakenly, not thought about this year. There were no goals. The house dons no festive decorations. There were no plans on how much of the Quran to read nor did I even have a feeling of what I wanted from this Ramadan.
It seems as though in recent years I find myself saying, I am not ready for the Holy Month which then makes me ponder about what I prioritise for the rest of the year. The sahaba and companions of the Prophet (pbuh) used to prepare for Ramadan six months in advance. Therefore, knowing this, pangs of guilt are felt periodically.
Yet my heart was ready. And blessings through tests began to unfold and reveal themselves.
****
I walk through life, like many women, instinctively, with an innate nature to feel things around me, even when I do not wish to. Empaths that become homes of healing for the broken.
However, unlike, the many women I have met from a young age, I’ve recognised the power of listening to those instincts. Those niggly-gut feelings. It truly shapes the decisions I make and everything around me. Because how we do anything is how we do everything, right?
Then, a month before Ramadan, I was gifted by a loved one for my birthday, How To Find Love by The School Of Life. In the chapter, “Improving Our Problematic Instincts” I read the sentence, “It’s not that instinct is stupidly wrong in the direction it points us to; it’s just that it is radically insufficient on its own. It is a good instinct, but, taken alone, it creates immense opportunities for relationship sorrows.”
Our instincts are not the entire picture. This was a revelation.
If I were to take this recent finding in the month of Ramadan and connect it to my relationship with God, I would ask myself questions such as: what are the gut feelings I have about God? What do I believe He thinks when He thinks of me? What are my limitations of Him and therefore me? And then how do I feel this impacts my blessings, the direction I view my life heading in and the experience I have within my body most days?
When you are someone who is a ‘gut feeling person’ you can sometimes walk around, controlling and behaving as though you own your khadr and you are your form of God.
Because for so long, you have relied on this instinct. This instinct needs to be heard and listened to always. It is loud. It has protected you. But truthfully, it cannot know everything and predict what will happen, even if it has been right the majority of the time. Life will have a way of surprising those instincts. That is to say, it is not always easy to be this type of person.
It is no shock then, that as a person and as a Muslim, I struggle with tawakkul. This ultimate trust and reliance in the Highest Being for All Things. I can sit and have sabr but if I am not productive and proactive, I struggle to just be, without this feeling of coasting.
But then I started to notice months blurred into the same. There was not enough change. (I may not like it but I require change much of the time). That having the patience and overthinking without the action or the action without the faith meant being tested on the same things through different dilemmas. And it tended to come back to this — a lack of tawakkul.
I had not realised that at some point, the chipping away of tawakkul and faith, meant the invitation of fear. There became blurred lines between instinct and trying to control and mould things in a way that I believe suited ‘me’. Who is this past version of myself I am trying to fulfil?
In
debut collection of essays How Do We Know We’re Doing It Right the ultimate basis of the book is based on the anxiety we have in the modern world about making the right decisions. This pressure to go down the right road where there will be no regrets.I did not realise how much I had been doing this until these past ten days. And how often are we seen doing this?
How many of us try to control how our Ramadan will go and then become disappointed when it is not how we envisioned? How many of us go to the mosque expecting to pray a certain amount of rakats and end up with a better number that suits us and our souls at that moment? How many of us do not expect to see change in these thirty days because perhaps, we are not where we expected to be — three months into 2024 — and will only see it retrospectively after Ramadan?
Perhaps our gut instincts are from the Divine but in fact, they cannot know it all. They are projections of only experiences lived so far. Even our well-intended gut instincts or sometimes ‘familiar hells’ can rob us of an ‘unfamiliar heaven’, including our relationship with God.
So I ask myself, what is the point of all this prayer — the duas we make physically, the mental conversations, the remembrance if we cannot remember to leap and know that there are no wrong decisions as this is where we were always supposed to be? And if we don’t like it, we do as the hadith says and try to change it firsts with our hands, if not, then our tongues, then at least with our hearts.
The thing about trying to control life while also experiencing anxiety about the future is that we forget how much we are capable of anyway.
So we keep it moving and jump with faith, regardless of the crossroads. Let’s not waste this Ramadan. It feels different for a reason.
Sending dua, love and prayers,
Tahmina
Recommendations
Books:
Prayers Of The Pious by Omar Suleiman
Secrets of Divine Love by A. Helwa
Other:
How to Make This Your Best Ramadan