A Sacred Conversation
A Sacred Conversation
By: Yasmin M.
InFocus News
There is a time of night when the whole world transforms. During the day, chaos often takes over our lives. The responsibilities of work, school, and family dominate much of our attentions. Other than the time we take for the five daily prayers, it is often hard to take out time to reflect or even relax. Many of us live our lives at such a fast pace, that we may not even realize what we’re missing.
But there is a time of night when work ends, traffic sleeps, and silence is the only sound. At that time—while the world around us sleeps—there is One who remains awake and waits for us to call on Him.
We are told in the hadith Qudsi:
"Our Lord descends during the last third of each night to the lower heaven, and says: 'Is there anyone who calls on Me that I may respond to him? Is there anyone who asks Me that I may give unto him? Is there anyone who requests My Forgiveness that I may forgive him?"' (Bukhari and Muslim)
One can only imagine what would happen if a king were to come to our door, offering to give us anything we want. One would think that any sane person would at least set their alarm for such a meeting. And if we were told that at exactly one hour before dawn a check for 10 billion dollars would be left at our doorstep, would we not wake up to take it?
Allah has told us that at this time of night, just before dawn, He will come to His servants. The Lord of the universe has offered us a sacred conversation with Him. That Lord waits for us to come speak with Him, and yet many of us leave Him waiting while we sleep in our beds. Allah comes to us and asks what we want from Him. The Creator of all things has told us that He will give us whatever we ask.
And yet we sleep.
There will come a day when our veil of deception will be lifted. The Quran says: “(It will be said:) "Thou wast heedless of this; now have We removed thy veil, and sharp is thy sight this Day!” (50:22).
On that Day, we will see the true Reality. And we will realize that two rakat of prayer were greater than everything in the heavens and the earth. We will realize the priceless check that was left on our doorstep every night as we slept.
There will come a day when we would give up everything under the sky just to come back and pray those two rakat. There will come a day when we would give up everything we ever owned just to have that conversation with Allah. But on that Day, there will be some who Allah will turn away from…and forget, as they had once forgotten Him.
The Quran says: “He will say: "O my Lord! why hast Thou raised me up blind, while I had sight (before)? ((Allah)) will say: "Thus didst Thou, when Our Signs came unto thee, forgot them: so wilt thou, this day, be forgotten" (20:125-126).
In Surahat al Muminoon, Allah says: “(It will be said): "Groan not in supplication this day: for ye shall certainly not be helped by Us” (23:65).
But one does not need to wait until that Day to know the result of this nighttime meeting with Allah. The truth is there is no way to describe the overwhelming peace of such a conversation. One can only experience it to know. And its’ effect one one’s life is immeasurable. When you experience Qiyam, the rest of your life transforms. Suddenly the burdens that were crushing become light, the problems that were irresolvable become solved, and that closeness to the Creator, which was once unreachable…becomes your lifeline.
By: Yasmin M.
InFocus News
There is a time of night when the whole world transforms. During the day, chaos often takes over our lives. The responsibilities of work, school, and family dominate much of our attentions. Other than the time we take for the five daily prayers, it is often hard to take out time to reflect or even relax. Many of us live our lives at such a fast pace, that we may not even realize what we’re missing.
But there is a time of night when work ends, traffic sleeps, and silence is the only sound. At that time—while the world around us sleeps—there is One who remains awake and waits for us to call on Him.
We are told in the hadith Qudsi:
"Our Lord descends during the last third of each night to the lower heaven, and says: 'Is there anyone who calls on Me that I may respond to him? Is there anyone who asks Me that I may give unto him? Is there anyone who requests My Forgiveness that I may forgive him?"' (Bukhari and Muslim)
One can only imagine what would happen if a king were to come to our door, offering to give us anything we want. One would think that any sane person would at least set their alarm for such a meeting. And if we were told that at exactly one hour before dawn a check for 10 billion dollars would be left at our doorstep, would we not wake up to take it?
Allah has told us that at this time of night, just before dawn, He will come to His servants. The Lord of the universe has offered us a sacred conversation with Him. That Lord waits for us to come speak with Him, and yet many of us leave Him waiting while we sleep in our beds. Allah comes to us and asks what we want from Him. The Creator of all things has told us that He will give us whatever we ask.
And yet we sleep.
There will come a day when our veil of deception will be lifted. The Quran says: “(It will be said:) "Thou wast heedless of this; now have We removed thy veil, and sharp is thy sight this Day!” (50:22).
On that Day, we will see the true Reality. And we will realize that two rakat of prayer were greater than everything in the heavens and the earth. We will realize the priceless check that was left on our doorstep every night as we slept.
There will come a day when we would give up everything under the sky just to come back and pray those two rakat. There will come a day when we would give up everything we ever owned just to have that conversation with Allah. But on that Day, there will be some who Allah will turn away from…and forget, as they had once forgotten Him.
The Quran says: “He will say: "O my Lord! why hast Thou raised me up blind, while I had sight (before)? ((Allah)) will say: "Thus didst Thou, when Our Signs came unto thee, forgot them: so wilt thou, this day, be forgotten" (20:125-126).
In Surahat al Muminoon, Allah says: “(It will be said): "Groan not in supplication this day: for ye shall certainly not be helped by Us” (23:65).
But one does not need to wait until that Day to know the result of this nighttime meeting with Allah. The truth is there is no way to describe the overwhelming peace of such a conversation. One can only experience it to know. And its’ effect one one’s life is immeasurable. When you experience Qiyam, the rest of your life transforms. Suddenly the burdens that were crushing become light, the problems that were irresolvable become solved, and that closeness to the Creator, which was once unreachable…becomes your lifeline.
posted by sonarani at 6:39 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home