Chained But Not Slain

Yooooooo about-ten-days-deep-into-Ramadan people! Yooooooo to all other people with equal warmth! How is errybody feeling!? I feel like shouting “THANK GOD” pretty much every minute of every day. That about sums up the level of good that I’m feeling inside and out. So, yay for that! (I don’t even know how or where to start about all the gifts and mercy that Allah is granting me one after the other after the other lately. So I guess I’m kind of speechless at the moment. In time, In Sha Allah, I will try to find the words to tell about it here if it seems relevant and appropriate or if it’s all too private and personal. I will think it over.)

Islam teaches us in an authentic hadith that the shayateen are chained during this holy month. I definitely feel the ease of that now. That’s not to say that all the shayateen are dead or can’t still whisper, it’s just that their reach or power is lessened. I heard an analogy similar to this somewhere:

Let’s say you’re on a safari and there are wild lions and tigers that could harm you. It’s possible and likely since they are free-roaming. But, what if you were on a safari where those lions and tigers were chained up to trees? They are much less likely to bite you or kill you. But the question is, would you go near a chained tiger? It’s still capable of hurting you, but you have the great advantage to get away from it. Alhamdulillah.

Anyway, one of my blogger/reader/friends asked me to tell about how my Ramadan is going. So I will answer her questions:

No, this is not my first Ramadan, it is my second. The main difference is that last year it was so soon after my conversion to Islam that I did not have a solidified understanding of the obligatory nature and routine of salah. It wasn’t all clear to me. After some reading and more studying and hearing lectures, I realized exactly what I had to do and made salah a priority to rush to it within the alloted time, not just in Ramadan but all the time. And I have kept up with that for a looong time. I also fasted all 30 days last year. The only problem I remember is having a headache on the first day and that was it. I felt really hungry many days too.

So this year, I have ZERO headache and I do not feel hunger much at all. Just a manageable amount of hunger. I also realized you can eat just a normal sized dinner at iftar and don’t need to load up for the day ahead. I have a really hard time eating at suhoor because I just do not have any appetite at that time but I always drink water for suhoor and try to have a few bites of watermelon or strawberry and that’s about all I can force. I make sure to do fard prayers and I even added some nawafil prayers. And I made sure to calculate my required zakat correctly as best I could and have begun giving allowed recipients some much-needed dough. And, I now understand better the difference between zakat and zakat al fitr. I try to make a point to be more kind and more patient and do everything for the sake of Allah and in the name of Allah.

Idk if I explained all that well. Sometimes I do a decent job of explaining things and sometimes I don’t. I don’t think I am very good at explaining my own thoughts and experiences to others for some reason.

Anyhow, I just can’t find a way to express how much better my life is. Alhamdulillah, Islam has improved every single facet of my life! Literally every single one. And it’s not just a little bit of an improvement, we are talking a MAJOR and substantial improvement.

God bless and I wish all of the peace of Allah for everyone. Ameen.