Articles
The Awaited Guest: The Three Holy Months
Feb
When the world adorns itself in all its finery and dazzles our eyes, when our feelings go bankrupt in our hearts, when hardness takes the place of a tender heart, heedlessness the place of reverent awe, worldly distraction the place of reflection, vanity the place of humility, selfishness the place of brotherhood, and miserliness the place of generosity and giving...
When the joy of worship withers in our hearts and Iblis sets out to lay his schemes and traps at every corner, a divine breeze begins to blow through our hearts. It showers parched, barren souls with torrents of grace, lets the seedlings of devotion flourish again, and sets the springs of mercy flowing...
To wake us from heedlessness, to remind us of the purpose of our creation, and to let hearts taste the sweetness of worship, cups of wine are offered in turquoise goblets. They are offered to those who wish to stay steadfast on the straight path; to us, who chose the Master of the Worlds as our only guide yet lost his trail; to those who stumbled on level ground, who gazed at the distant horizon yet fell into pits at their feet; to those who long to be revived and to enter the private gardens where the glad tidings of spring ring out from every side, far from the thorny roads...
The Mystery of Asking
If He did not wish to give, He would not make us wish to ask. (If there were no desire to give, there would be no asking.)
So says a noble saying. Allah the Exalted, who created us to be known, wants us to implore Him so that He may bestow. Unlike the doors of servants, where one loses worth by asking, here one gains value by asking and is granted more as one pleads, and every supplication is answered with "Labbayk" ("here I am") in the court of the Most High.
(O Messenger!) Say: "My Lord would not care for you were it not for your prayer." (Al-Furqan: 77) says Allah the Exalted. The servant, wounded again and again in the grip of the ego and Satan, who confesses his helplessness at every fall and seeks refuge with bowed head and tearful eyes, is received under the wings of divine mercy as an honored guest. His faults are forgiven, he is cleansed, and his sins are turned into good deeds. So the key to divine mercy is to express our helplessness with a feeling that wells up from the deepest corners of the heart, and to confess our servitude at this door.
"If you did not sin, Allah would do away with you and bring forth a people who would sin and then seek forgiveness." (Muslim, Tawba, 9) says the Master of the Worlds. He gives glad tidings to us, whose every side is flawed and who are wrapped in mistakes, and he lifts the veil on the wisdom hidden in the creation of man.
To sin and to repent... To take refuge in His mercy from His wrath, to fear His punishment and hope for His pleasure, to learn to rise after a fall, to love as if seeing Him though unseen, to pray as if hearing His response. All of this is the purpose of our creation. Were man to lose these qualities and take on the nature of angels, who neither sin nor err, the purpose and disposition of his creation would be changed.
The three holy months we are in are a blessed season in which generosity and bounty pour down in torrents, and in return for our confession of servitude and helplessness, the treasuries of hospitality are opened wide.
The Three Months, Awaited with Longing
The Three Months... A sweet bustle would seize the Master of the Age of Bliss as they drew near. Prayers would pour forth, clear as pearls... When they arrived, every night was a new reunion and every day a new life. He would pray, "O Allah, bless us in Rajab and Sha'ban, and let us reach Ramadan." To him, the three months were not merely a span of time, not merely the movement of the moon and sun or the turning of the earth.
In the pure spirit of the Master of the Universe, the three months took the form of a friend whose arrival is awaited with longing and whose meeting is eagerly desired. In his radiant gatherings they were welcomed with reverence, like a guest worthy of honor and respect.
Imagine a guest, O believers! Gifts spill from his saddlebag. He bestows such a purse that whatever you wish becomes yours; he grants you what you desire and gives you the happiness of both worlds. He names this boundless ocean of gifts "Raghaib." From the very first Friday, as soon as he arrives, he soaks every heart that wishes to be washed with his mercy, generously, without reckoning, counting, or limit, so that we may be purified, enter his spiritual atmosphere, and, after he bids us farewell, rise out of the whirlpool we have fallen into.
"Rajab is the month of Allah. Sha'ban is my month. Ramadan is the month of my Ummah," says our Master. Allah, Lord of the Worlds, Possessor of Majesty, lets His Beloved taste in his own month the blessing of beholding and the delight of meeting that He has let no one else in the universe taste. On the twenty-seventh night of the noble month of Rajab, the hearts of all believers ascend, accompanying the Master of the Worlds on spiritual ascensions, and so the honored guest leaves one more gift as he departs. He purifies at the beginning and grants advancement at the end. What a fine friend, what a precious traveler...
As he leaves, he does not let go of our hands. He does not abandon those who love him in foreign lands. He entrusts them to the month of his Beloved, immersing purified souls from one reunion to the next, from one ocean into another. "The Messenger of Allah would fast nearly the whole of Sha'ban," says our mother, Lady Aisha. "Sha'ban is a month between two blessed months, a month that most people neglect, unaware of its worth," says the Prophet, pointing to the reason for the care he showed it. A new friend, a new beloved knocks at the believers' door, and the gifts he brings fully express that this is the month of the Prophet of mercy. On its fifteenth night, waves of forgiveness break upon the shores of believers' hearts. How could one stay dry... Whoever believes in Allah and His Messenger and pleases his parents is handed a certificate of release made of light... What a great gift, what a generous guest...
And then, the result of all these preparations... The dazzling radiance of the awaited guest begins to appear beyond the hill when the night of "Forgiveness" has come to pass. Not a trace of hardened hearts remains; every gloom has been washed in the spring of the water of life. Eyes are misty and hearts are ready, as believers wait for their own month, for the Sultan of the Eleven Months, until the time arrives...
At the hour of dawn, the Sultan sets up his throne in the palaces of our hearts. But his arrival is different: the curtains of the unseen are lifted, you can almost touch him, and he walks among us in plain view. Wherever you look, you see him; his light fills the space between earth and sky for all to see. This blessed guest does not hide himself. He descends into the hearts of all believers, and makes it clear at every moment that he has been set aside for them.
As if offering the rarest pearls of the oyster, as if scattering the finest fragrance of roses, just as the blessed beard of the Prophet was honored to be brought forth from within forty pieces of silk, this blessed guest presents his most precious gift in his last ten days. The divine wisdom does not reveal the "Night of Qadr," better than a thousand months of worship, so that it may watch the search of the believers. The Master of the Worlds, peace and blessings be upon him, gives hints to the bewildered hearts, saying, "It is most likely in the odd nights of the last ten days, and on the twenty-seventh night."
And so, as we wait on the eve of the departure of these blessed guests, we hope that through this occasion our wounded hearts may be healed. Amen!
This article is published with reference to the Ismailaga website, linked below.
The Awaited Guest: The Three Holy Months