“10 days of spiritual rendezvous with Allah”

“10 days of spiritual rendezvous with Allah”

The Holy month of Ramazan has just ended blessing us with a lot of time to spend in the remembrance of Allah. It was a month of practice, an opportunity for us to revive our connection with our God, though, after that it should not remain confined only to these few days. Holy Prophet (s.a.w) showed us a way to make this connection even stronger with Aitaqaf, as Um-ul-Momenen Hazrat Ayesha (R.A) narrated: “The Prophet (s.a.w) used to practice aitaqaf in the last ten days of Ramazan until his death”. According to another hadith, he (s.a.w) referred the rewards of atiqaf equals to Umrah and hajj.

Alhamdulillah, I got an opportunity to do aytaqaf this month again and I decided to write this blog as I was asked by one of the fellows to share the experience. Following lines will include general ideas from personal experience which could as per my experience, help you to earn more out of it.

The idea is to start with small steps and changes and adding more to them as we move on towards the end of Ramazan.

First thing first you have to get yourself regular not only with prayers but with Tahajud as well. If you are not already regular with it start it at the beginning of Ramazan. offer nawafil and gradually increase the number.

Another important thing is the recitation of Holy Quran. If you are good and fluent with talafuz it takes almost 45-50 min to complete one part/juz every day you can complete one complete recitation of Quran or two during Ramazan. If you are already good with your pace to start off with translation this time and then taking the next step select a chapter and start with tafsir of it. This way, gradually, you will be making progress toward understanding Allah’s message to you.

Try to learn new prayers in Arabic for which I used “Khazena tu Dua” compiled by Hafiz Muzafar Ahmad sahib. Start with comparatively small prayers and decorate your Salat with them and make it a proper gift by you for Allah.

And how can we forget books so for that grab any book on the life of Prophets and Promised Messiah (A.S)  Start with Deebacha Tafseer ul Quran i.e Life of Muhammad(s.a.w) then Seerat Khatam un Nabeeyen (s.a.w) and Hayat e Tayyaba by Molvi Abdul Qadir Sodagarmal and Seerat ul Mahdi (A.S) . These books are so well compiled and keep your interest bound till the end and it’s not easy to put them down once you start reading them.

Note down few important aspects from these books and apply them to your daily life. For example reciting “Subhanallah wabwhumdihi Subhanallahil Azeem” regularly was a habit of Promised Messiah A.S, add few similar habits to your life to beautify it.

Finally get an aytaqaf diary to keep a daily record of your progress note down your progress of tilawat, books and personal experiences that will help you to keep up the pace and improve it as self-analysis is the best teacher.

Once you get used to this routine in Ramazan it would become easy for you to apply these reforms in your daily life.