Don't despair at the end of Ramadan

Many people keep thinking if they had done enough in this Ramadan to gain laylatur qadr and khatm Quran. Perhaps the effect of social media and technology (internet & mobile phones) has already affected us for more than a decade. Its already a norm in our life today. The difficult part is to not to see how good we are in doing ibadah to feel secure with what we had achieve. This became the fear and anxiety towards the end of Ramadan.

Sometimes we don’t realise how the nafs are making us feeling hopeless. It’s a meltdown. But the reality is that if each Ramadan we are aware the state of our hearts whether it’s incline to the nafs ot Allah. It’s a sign that we are not lax. We are trying our best. We leave everything to Allah after we put in our effort.

This is why nurturing of the soul is important. It begin somewhere for us to develop this deep understanding for us to reflect upon ourselves through our nafs and not to find any satisfaction with our ibadah instead we thank Allah for being able to ibadah and seek his acceptance on our ibadah.

Shaykh ibn ataillah said One of the signs of relying on one’s own deeds is the loss of hope when a downfall occurs. Have good opinion of Allah and trust Allah in our affairs. Allah said in the Quran “And when My servants ask you about Me, I Am near; I answer the call of the caller when he calls on Me. So let them answer Me, and have faith in Me, that they may be rightly guided.” [Quran 2:186]

Allah also mentioned in the Quran Allah does not want difficulty for you, but He wants to purify you, and to complete His favor upon you, that you may be grateful.” (end of Quranic verse 5:6). Another verse He said Why would Allah punish you if you are thankful and believe? And Allah is Appreciative (of good), All-Knowing.” (4:147)

It’s positive to have fear and hope. Fear is to remind us that our ibadah is for Allah not for the self to be proud and arrogance. We are doing it for the sake of Allah. We are hopeful Allah will accept it. Hope is to have a good opinion of Allah because we are doing it for Him. We tawbah, zikr and read Quran for our hearts to be fully connected with Him in our struggle and weakness.‘May Allah accept it.