Hope in the Month of Rajab

All praise is due to God alone. We have just entered the month of Rajab, one of the four sacred months in the hijri calendar. Just as God established sanctuaries on the earth, like Makkah and Madinah, so too did He establish the months of Muharram, Rajab, Dhul Qadah, and Dhul Hijjah as sanctuaries within time. These months are times when the blessings placed within our worship becomes amplified and when wrong actions are especially discouraged.

Rajab also marks the beginning of the season leading up to our month of fasting, Ramadan. At the beginning of Rajab, the Messenger of God ﷺ would pray, "O Allah, bless us in Rajab and Sha'ban, and deliver us into Ramadan." He also said that "Rajab is the month of Allah, Sha'ban is my month, and Ramadan is the month of my community." Ask anyone who has been Muslim for a few years or more and they will likely tell you that Ramadan has a way of sneaking up on us. It is easy to neglect preparing for our fast, either through worship or making intentions, until the final nights of Sha'ban. Yet the Prophet ﷺ signals to us that now is the time to begin preparing our hearts.

One of the best ways we can spend the month of Allah is by making deliberate efforts to draw nearer to Him through tawbah, turning back to Him, and istighfar, seeking His forgiveness. In other words, Rajab is an excellent opportunity for repentance. Yes, I know this hardly sounds like fun. When we hear words like this, our minds tend to jump to taking rigorous moral inventories, feelings of shame, and the painful process of rectifying ourselves. But before you click away to read something that sounds more upbeat, like Faith and Happiness, consider this: tawbah and istighfar are profound acts of hope. To perform them, you have to truly believe that God not only is capable of forgiving you, but also that He wants to do so. You have to realize that your perspective on your mistakes and shortcomings is not God's perspective. For you, they cause regret and anxiety; for God, they are easy to wipe away without any reckoning. Repenting from a place a hope requires only that we believe what God has to say about it: "Whoever comes to Me walking, I will come to them running. Whoever meets Me with enough sins to fill the earth, not associating any partners with Me, I will meet them with as much forgiveness.”

So I would like to challenge anyone reading this to do something, and to do it with a heart full of hope in God's mercy. Begin by reflecting on that one sin that you've never been able to leave. The one that you believe defines you. The one that you abandoned giving up long ago. The one that, frankly, you can't imagine your life without. We all have something like this, whether it is something we do to harm ourselves or to harm others. On some level, we have all become comfortable with lowering our standards for ourselves. But this is the opposite of hope--it is despair. So next ask yourself: which one do you choose? Hope or despair? Have the courage to choose hope! Turn to God and seek His forgiveness with the certainty that He will forgive you and turn you away from from your sin.

Next, let's address the nagging voice in the back of your mind right now. The one that's probably reminding you that you've been here before, that you're all too familiar with this cycle. That's your nafs, the lower self. You just put it under a lot of stress because you resolved to give up something that it finds deeply satisfying. But here's the secret about the lower self: it is not all of you, even though it pretends to be. You have a higher self. This is where your repentance and your hope in God's mercy come from. Knowing this is the first step to not becoming overwhelmed when its nagging voice crops up. You are bigger than your desire to sin. We can take practical steps to act from this higher place, and return to God's mercy instead of returning to our sins.

First, don't entertain the voice of your nafs. How often do we hear it and immediately accept it as our own true voice? Instead, talk back to it. Say, "I am going to make it to the end of Ramadan without obeying you. And it is going to feel *good* to do it." This will give you a concrete goal to work towards. It will reaffirm your intention. It also names the very real joy that comes from having your hope validated. Just as importantly, it breaks you out of the habit of avoiding or even cowering before your nafs. Invite it in, have a good look at it, then send it on its way.

Second, whenever your lower self does start to overwhelm you, name something that you're grateful for. Your nafs has a way of tricking you into believing that you won't be happy unless you obey it immediately. But you already have much to be grateful for. Gratitude diffuses these tense moments by reminding us again that we are bigger than our desires and by pointing us directly toward other sources of happiness in our lives.

Third, reward your nafs with something it desires that is permissible. Do so whenever you whenever you require a break from trying to tame it. Ultimately, our lower self is not our enemy. It is a part of us. There is no beating it--we can only integrate into a life of worship.

Finally, remember that this process will end (God willing, in success). You're embarking on a marathon that will have a finish line, Eid al-Fitr, the celebration after Ramadan. Hope is the key to this journey. Set out with the certainty that God's mercy and forgiveness is greater than your shortcomings, and you will see the proof in your own life.

O Allah, bless us in Rajab and Sha'ban, and deliver us into Ramadan!