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“هللا أكبر هللا أكبر ال إله إال هللا، و هللا أكبر هللا أكبر و هلل الحمد"
إنَّ الْحَمْدَ لِلهِ نَحْمَدُهُ وَنَسْتَعِينُهُ وَنَسْتَغْفِرُهُ، وَنَعُوذُ بِاللهِ مِنْ شُرُورِ أَنْفُسِنَا وَمِنْ سَيِّئَاتِ أَعْمَالِنَا،
مَنْ يَهْدِهِ اللهُ فَلاَ مُضِلَّ لَهُ، وَمَنْ يُضْلِلْ فَلاَ هَادِىَ لَهُ، وَأَشْهَدُ أَنْ لاَ إِلَهَ إِلاَّ اللهُ وَحْدَهُ لاَ شَرِيكَ لَهُ،
وَأَشْهَدُ أَنَّ مُحَمَّدًا عَبْدُهُ وَرَسُولُهُ
Praise belongs to God. We praise Him, and ask Him to help us, and ask Him to forgive us. We take refuge in Him from the evils of our soul and the evils of our actions. He whom Allah guides will never be lost, and he who is lost there is no guide for him. And I bear witness that there is no god but Allah and Muhammad is His servant and Messenger.
بسم الله الرحمن الرحیم
It is said that people who fast in Ramadan are God’s guests as Ramadan is the month of God. God is our host. Rumi tells us that in this month the fasting man is God’s guest and deserves to receive heavenly food. God closes the gates of hell and opens a thousand gates to Heaven.
دال در روزه مهمان خدايي طعام آسماني را سزايي
درين مه چون در دوزخ ببندي هزاران در ز جنت برگشايي
This is also the month that prayers are fulfilled fast and sins are forgiven. The root of word Ramadan is ramada (رمض (meaning to burn, for it is believed that fasting burns and destroys sins.
For ordinary people fasting means to avoid eating, drinking, sexual activity, and staying away from haram actions. For travelers on the spiritual path, in addition to observing all commands of the Shari‘a, fasting means avoiding anything that distracts the traveler from attaining proximity to God. Ideally and spiritually speaking therefore, a faqir/faqirah is--in one degree or another--always in a state of fasting, not just one month in a year.
Eid al-fitr marks the end of Ramadan and is a time of celebration and expression of gratitude to God that gave us the opportunity and the strength to perform our duty to Allah Ta’ala, and in the process purify our body and soul. The descend of the month of Shawwal is seen as a sign of the acceptance of our prayers and fasting during the month.
Sufis consider the rituals of Ramadan not just a duty but as an indispensable part of spiritual journey (sayr & suluk) and in order to attain control of the carnal soul, the nafs. Hence, Sufis masters described this Eid as the “end of the Ramadan of the body, and the beginning of Sahwwal of the soul.” Rumi described the Eid as “the day that marks the end of the night of separation and union with the Beloved, when the Beloved reveals herself to the traveler.
بگذشت مه روزه، عيد آمد و عيد آمد بگذشت شب هجران معشوق پديد آمد
Thus, Ramadan and the Eid are in fact a process that human being can transform himself (by God’s grace) from what he is and become what he can be; a return to primordial state, a station that Rumi describes as “When man was the Bird of the Heavenly Garden”
مرغ باغ ملکوتم نيم از عالم خاک
Ramadan is the month of God, a month when two most important events of Islamic history took place: The first is revelation of the Qur’an when God manifested Himself in His Word and in the consciousness of the Prophet. This is a cosmic event of utmost important for ALL Muslims.
The second event is the Ascension of the Prophet to heaven (mi‘raj) when God in fact honored His Messenger by inviting him to His Presence near His Throne where no other human being even prophets had gone before, so close to Divine Throne that the Qur’an describes it as the “Length of two bows or shorter (ادنی او القوسين قاب (. The earthly translation and meaning of this event for ordinary Muslims is explained in the famous hadith in reference to daily .(الصالة معراج المومن ) prayers.
For fuqara and all spiritual seekers mi‘raj has a much deeper and more personal meaning. The Prophet described this experience in the following terms:
The night that they took me to my nocturnal journey and I entered heaven, I saw a palace made of red ruby in the center of paradise. Gabriel opened the gate of that palace for me and I entered. I saw a house made of white pearl. I entered the house and in the center of that house I saw a trunk locked with a lock made of light. I said ‘O! Gabriel! What is this box?’ He said: ‘O master! There is a mystery in that box that God would not reveal to anyone except whom He loves.’
I begged Gabriel to open it but he declined and said that I should ask God for His permission to open the box. I asked for God’s permission whereupon He commanded Gabriel to open the box. I saw a cloak and [spiritual] poverty (فقر و خرقه (in the box and asked what they are. A call came from Divine Throne that ‘I have chosen these two things for you and your community. Since I created them, I have not created anything that I love more, and I will not grant these to anybody but the one whom I love.’
After this incident the Prophet always said that: “God chose the cloak and [spiritual] poverty for me, and these are the dearest of all things to God, Exalted is He.” 1
This is the event that marks the Prophet’s formal initiation to inner life when he received spiritual poverty and the cloak (faqr & khirqah) as he described. The meaning and importance of these two gifts for Sufis are too clear to need explanation. The event in fact marks the birth of the First Sufi and the beginning of the Messenger’s second function as the Supreme Spiritual Master, the first being his mission as Messenger of God bringing the final revelation.
I hope this short discourse makes it clear that in practicing what we do as fuqara we in fact become the companions and fellow travelers of the Prophet. Let us hope that through sincerity in words and deeds we become worthy of this companionship; Let us hope and pray that God help us to be a good companion to the Prophet in our spiritual journey, insha’llah.
Let us ask God for a pure heart, and an honest and truthful tongue. We ask You for the best of what You know, and We seek refuge in You from the worst of what You know. We ask Your forgiveness for what You know. Indeed, You are the Knower of all things the unseen.
. يا َوهل اللهم يا مفتح االبواب افتح لنا
خير الباب. اللهم يا مقلب القلوب و االبصار ثبت قلوبنا علی دينک -يا کريم يا رحيم به لطفک
و کرمک و رحمتک يا ارحم الرحمين. عيد مبارک.
1
Ibn Abi Jumhur Ahsa’I, al-Mujli Mir’at Munji and Ghavali al-La’ali, 4: 130-131 and Tafsir al-Muhit al-A‘zam,
1: 518. As quoted in, Muhammad Mu’adhdhin Khorasani, Tuhfah-ye Abbasi, translated, introduced, and
annotated by Mohammad H. Faghfoory, Lanham (MD) University Press of America, 2007, pp. 129
