Asalamu Alaikum my dear sisters
Today is the 30th of Dhul Hijja which represents
the last day of the Islamic calendar. How fast the year has gone and what a
reminder this is to how fast the moments
of life run by us, how true is the statement of the great Imam Shafai’ ‘Life
is but a moment; therefore make it a moment of worship’.
As we enter the year 1433 we are reminded that one thousand
four hundred and thirty three years ago the prophet Muhammad–peace be upon
him-took flight from Mecca to Medina in order to establish what was to become
the first Islamic state. As our beloved messenger –peace be upon him-left Mecca
he stood looking at his city of birth and called out ‘ Oh Mecca you
are the most beloved of God’s earth to me...’
(Tirmidhi). The hijra was indeed an act of love and immense sacrifice,
a migration
not only towards Medina but also towards the Divine, the great men and women of
this migration left that which they dearly loved in order to flee to their
greater love, Allah the most high.
When the prophet
–peace be upon him- arrived in Medina he built a Mosque, opened a market place
and established a brotherhood between the people of the land and the new
migrants of Mecca. Through bringing together the spiritual, the communal and
economically empowering the new Muslim community the prophet –peace be upon
him-produced a community that was healthy and whole; they lived and breathed
Islam in every part of their lives. This flight or the Hijra as it is
known as in Arabic represents a great turning point
in the lives of the first Muslims; in Medina they thrived, practicing Islam
openly gaining the strength to spread this word of truth beyond the
Arabian Peninsula.
Ustadha Munirah al-Junayd- a blessed teacher of mine- once
told me that Hijra should be part of the spiritual development of every
believer upon this path, just as the first community took flight fleeing to
Allah so too should we take flight, she would say, ‘Flee from darkness
to light, from falsehood to truth, from the
temporal to the eternal, from illusion to reality, from the impermissible to
the Halal and lawful; flee from responding to the Nafs to solely seeking the
pleasure of the Divine...’.whilst reading with her Imam al-Hadad’s ‘
Manners of the Wayfarer unto God’ she would
remind me; ‘ Migration, migration our
state should always be in migration’.
As we strive to remind ourselves of the internal hijra the end of the
year has arrived
bringing with it a reminder of how little our effort to take flight
has been. Today
my dear sisters is a day of self reflection; a day of looking back in order to
learn how to move forward, a day of repentance and remorse as well as a day of
new resolve and renewed determination for as we have been given the 30th
of Dhul Hijja to end the year we have also been give the 1st of Muharam
to begin a new year. How blessed we are
to be given another chance to re-align the soul and turn our entire being to
He-the most high.
As the year 1432 comes to a close let us endeavour to bring
a good ending to it in the hope that we are blessed with good deeds being the
last of our actions, The messenger of Allah –peace be upon him-has said; ‘One of
you behaves like the people of The Garden until there is but an arm’s length
between him and it, and that which has been written overtakes him, so he
behaves like the people of the fire until he enters it. And one of you behaves
like the people of The Fire until there is but an arm’s length between him and
it, and that which has been written overtakes him, so he behaves like the
people of The Garden until he enters it’ (Bukhari)
It is because of this Hadith that our teachers would call
out in the gatherings of remembrance Oh
Allah bless us with a good ending, a life that ends with good deeds. Habib
Muhammad al-Hadar the late Mufti of Bayda (In Northern Yemen) and father of my
blessed teacher Hababa Nur bint Muhammad would say to his students ‘Do not just
ask for a good ending, but ask for the most excellent of excellent
endings, ‘Kamal husnul, khatimah .
Let us end the last moments of this year in prayer, fast and
charity. Let us raise our hands and call upon our Lord, seeking forgiveness for
the sinful states we find ourselves in; for our inability to exact meaningful
and continuous change in our lives; for our love of the world and how we have
allowed it to consume us.
Let us raise our hands and ask a Most Generous, Most Giving,
Most Merciful Lord to give us the strength and resolve we need to walk this path
unto Him, the path that has been trodden by His beloved prophets and
saints (the awliya), the path of love, longing,
sacrifice and true surrender.
In these last moments of this year let us renew our faith
and call out La ilaha ila Allah from
the depths of our souls asking the almighty that He makes us courageous enough
to live by these words. Let us strive and struggle with all of our strength;
with every last breath and with every beat of our hearts to take flight; a
Hijra that is true and sincere, fleeing unto Him, a Most Gentle and Loving
Lord.
Love and peace always
Ukhtukum nagheba
Below is a supplication that is traditionally recited at the
end of the year as well as the supplication of Imam Ali al- Habashi which
he-may Allah preserve him- would recite on the first day of the year may we all
benefit from it.
End of year supplication:
In
the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful, and God bless our
beloved Messenger
Muhammad and
his family and
companions and grant them peace. O God, whatever actions I have committed this
past year which have not pleased
You, which I may have forgotten though You do not forget,
while You are
forbearing with me though fully capable of punishing me, while You called me to
relent and atone
even after my audaciousness before You — O God, I surely seek Your
forgiveness for
this, thus forgive me. O God, as for my actions that have pleased You and for
which recompense
and forgiveness have been promised, please accept them from me. And do
not dash my hopes
in You, 0 Generous, O Most Merciful of the Merciful. And God, the Exalted,
bless our beloved
Messenger Muhammad and his family and companions and grant them peace. (3
times)
Beginning
of year supplication:
In the Name of Allah the All-Merciful the
All-Compassionate
All
praise is Allah’s, Lord of all creations.
O
Lord, with all beauteous names (Allahuma),bestow blessings and peace upon our
beloved messenger Muhammad, our supreme access to You in the answer to what we
supplicate for,
the
achievement of what we aspire to, and the forgiving of such wrongdoings as we
have committed, and upon members of his household and his companions and those
who
support
him. Indeed, elapsed in
our span of life is a whole year, You have garlanded us in it with Your
bounties for which we are unable to offer gratitude, and You have protected us
in it from evils and unpleasant things from which we could not have protected
ourselves, and we have put into it works of which You are All-Knowing. Such
good deeds which You have enabled us to do in it, may You please accept that
from us, and may You record them in Your presence as virtuous works, and may
You forgive us the blemishes of ostentation, and self-glory, and
self-embellishment,
and other things as have interfered with them, and may You make them a means
through which we
are led to Your good pleasure and drawn near to You,
and
such evil deeds and errors as we have committed. And actions unpleasing in Your
sight. And intentions which are unrighteous [such of these that we may have
committed] with our limbs and our hearts we ask You, Allahuma, by virtue of
Your essence and Your names and Your attributes and by virtue of the sublime
Quran and Your revealed books, and by virtue of our beloved messenger Muhammad,
Allah bless him and bestow peace upon him as well as members of his household,
and by virtue of whosoever has rank before You amongst all Your created beings,
that You will forgive all those wrongdoings and cover all those defects, and
that You will favour us from Your ample, magnificent, generosity with all that
we aspire to, and that You will exchange our evils actions for good ones, and
that You will enable us to attain Your good pleasure at the highest level of
our aspirations and the uppermost limit of our wishes. And we, as You know us,
have our forelocks in Your hands and our entire affair, in all our states, comes
back to You, and whatever good opinion we cherish regarding You, You are well
aware of it, and our absolute dependence upon You, and extreme need of You, are
not concealed from You, and here are our hands stretched out towards You and
our hearts are focused upon You, do not therefore, turn us away empty handed, O,
the Hope of all aspirers! And the Refuge of all refuge seekers! Show mercy unto
he who calls You when he believes that You are his Lord and comes exclusively
to You, when indeed, You are his sufficiency. After the outgoing year a new
year has come upon us while we do not know what has been pre-ordained in Your
knowledge regarding us. And our hope is that You will open for us in this new
year a door of sincere, genuine, repentance from which we shall not renege, and
that You will grace us in it with the ability for virtuous works, acceptable to
You, that will in turn grace us with Your good pleasure towards us, and that
You will employ our limbs in obedience that is well-pleasing in Your sight, and
our hearts with love for You, and love for whomsoever You love, and love for
whatsoever You love, and that You will expand our hearts and grant them the
capacity for Your special knowledge, with which You have ennobled such of Your
servants that are possessed of knowledge about You and virtuous saints, and
that You will sustain us with taqwa with which You have ennobled servants of
Yours who are endowed with taqwa [that You will sustain us] with its
essence, its
fruit, its main roots and its branches and may You lodge us in the highest
stations of rectitude, and raise us to certainty at the highest levels of
certainty, and that You may grant us entry to the path of following,
in words, deeds,
intentions, and works ,Your beloved, the most honoured of created beings in
your presence, namely our beloved messenger Muhammad, may Allah bless him and
bestow peace upon him, as well as his household, and that You may make ample
our share of love for this beloved and of following him in all our states and
that You make us, O our Lord, among the happiest of people by virtue of him, and
those closest to him, and among those who cherish the greatest lasting love for
him, and may You honour us with the vision of his honoured face, Allah bless
him and bestow peace upon him and his household whilst he is well pleased with
us, in sleep and our wakeful moments, in this world,
the
world in between and the hereafter, and may You honour us, O our Lord, with
complete and copious blessing in our works, our intentions, and our
sustenance and
in our movements and stillness, and may You make the coming years of
our lives rotate
around firmness in our religion and dedication to Your service, and may You
protect us in all this from the evil of Satan, and his works, and from the evil
of the evil-commanding soul, and its work, and from the evil of worldly
temptation, and may You protect us from plunging into its gewgaws, and its
decorations, and from such tests as derive from it in the area of wealth and
dependents
and
things other than these, and from yielding to ruinous passions, and may You
protect us from being overwhelmed in the domain of ephemeral desires, and from
evil companions and their companionship, and may You make our renewed spans of
life all employed in what is well pleasing to You, and such bounties as You
have generously bestowed upon us, may You enable us to offer gratitude for
that, and may You make us, O our Lord, among those who hold firm to the firm
handhold of sincerity towards You, in all our pursuits, and may You embrace in
all these supplications, our children and our parents, and our friends and our
brethren in religion, and endow us with an immense strength which will
[further] strengthen us in obedience to You, and in the discharge of Your
obligation upon us, in the manner that You like, and with which You are well
pleased, and may You grant us a plentiful share with which to strive vigorously
in Your service, and in the constancy of such works as will earn Your good
pleasure, and may You open for us, a manifest opening, in the reflection of the
magnificent Quran, and in the access to its secrets, and in the excellent
manners at the time of reciting its verses, and when listening to them, and may
You grant us, O our Lord, the memorisation of its words and the fulfilling of
its obligations, and the response to its call, and the hastening to abide by
its commands and the avoidance of its prohibitions, and may You make us amongst
a people who are loyally wedded to its rights, and may You appoint it for us,
in Your presence, a witness of sincerity through fulfilling what it calls us
to, O Most Merciful of the Merciful, [since every merciful one receives the
gift of mercy from You],
and
may Allah bestow blessings on our beloved messenger Muhammad and his household,
and
upon his companions in their entirety, and the praise is Allah’s, Lord of all
universes
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