moonglow

need i say more?

Ramadan, be eclipsed by divine light

wake up before fajr {the dawn prayer} to eat traditional moroccan foods: siloh, m'simmin, chorba, tamar, it's 4:40 am. we sit and watch the news, three tractor trailers trashed on the san mateo bridge. promised myself i would devote myself to divine service this ramadan, and i have only devoted myself to ego service. i was told by the imam to "let ramadan fast you", good advice, hard to follow. today is a lazy day, the self only wants to lounge and sleep. fasting only from food is not what ramadan is about. it's about losing yourself in nearness to God's mercy, which is everywhere, and retreating from the inspirations of the nafs, the lower self. God has promised to answer whatever supplication His servants make at the break of the fast, iftar, right after sunset. i hope in the days remaining, the inspiration comes to draw closer to my Creator and to lose myself in contemplation of Him, and to take away from blessed month wisdom, excellence, a higher station, and a heart overflowing with nur, light.

the return

In spite of its puritanical vision of Islam, Saudi Arabia was occasionally beautiful in its simplicity. At each call to prayer everything would close and everyone would make their way to the masjid to pray. Perhaps when something extraordinary is repeated so often it becomes ordinary, habitual, but for us pilgrims, hujjaj, it accentuated the incredible distance between the west and Islam, between the secular world and the traditional practicing religious world of the Islamic east. All of us who've returned yearn to hear the call to prayer here in the USA to be reminded 5 times each day of where we've been, but being back it is all to easy to fall back into the auto-pilot mode of existence, with masjids so far and soul darkening outlets of TV and Internet so close to daily life. In the world full of choices that we inhabit what will we, the returning hujjaj, choose? Will we choose the path of guidance and Paradise, or the path of desires, distraction, and Hell. Oh Allah, do not leave us under the influence of our lower selves even for a twinkling of an eye, astaghfirullah al adheem wa atubu ilay wa la hawla wa la quwwatta ila billah ya arhama rahimin.