السلام عليكم ورحمة الله وبركته،
How are you guys spending these last few days of Ramadan?
Oh my servants, all of you are misguided.
Except whom I guide.” (Muslim)
A line from a hadith so powerful that Imam Al-Nawawi includes it in his 40 hadith collection. It begs a profound question,
“What makes you so special?”
What makes you so special that the light of faith was turned on in you?
What makes you any different than the thousands of people around you who still walk in darkness?
What made it that you are guided, and Abu Talib, the one who raised the Prophet ﷺ was not?
And when you realize that you’re not special, other than Allah bestowed on you this incredible gift of guidance, it invokes humility.
And gratitude.
And fear. Fear that your light may flicker when you need it most. Or that it die out.
Of the Prophet ﷺ most consistent prayers was,
“Oh turner of hearts, make my heart firm upon your religion.” Even the prophet ﷺ is asking for steadfastness constantly.
Abdullah Ibn Umar, the great companion and son of Umar ibn Al-Khattab, stood in Hajj saying,
“"O Allah, You have said, 'call on Me - I will answer you' and You do not break Your promise. So I am asking You, in the same way that You have guided me to Islam, not to take it away from me until you take my life while I am a Muslim.”
That’s the worry of a companion who lived in the Prophet’s footsteps.
We say 17 times a day, “Guide us to the straight path.”
There is no level of service to the religion or knowledge that you acquire where you are not in need of making this request.
So let us be humble, grateful, and fearful..
but also hopeful.
Because the hadith continues with a promise.
“Oh my servants, all of you are misguided, except whom I guide,
so ask Me for guidance and I will guide you.”
These are the days of accepted prayers, may Allah gift us a guidance that illuminates us until we meet Him.
-Ammar Al Shukry