Alhamdullilah, this week has been a blessing in disguise. I wasn’t going to attend classes- I found some good excuses not to and really believed that they were legitimate reasons- but I would have missed out some vital soul food.
My teacher spoke about fasting and zakaat- the last of the acts of ibada’t before we get to hajj. Fasting is a means to taqwa, and taqwa is simply unexplainable, he said. Zakaat is a means of purifying your wealth and all of our physical ibada’t: wudhu, salaah, fasting, zakaat and hajj, are means to bring us “down to earth”- to keep our nafs in check as I understand it.
Now zakaat and sadaqat is something that is quite like a slippery slope because it deals with wealth- and wealth deals with money-and we like to be tricky with money. I learnt that you cannot avoid paying zakaat by giving sadaqat; you cannot spend your money so that it becomes below the nisab value just before the zakaat is due; and that you cannot give your zakaat to family members, because they are your responsibility anyway.
This last bit of information has really made me ponder. My parents have a lot of debt and yet my husband and I have savings that we pay zakaat on. We cannot give them the zakaat, but how do we help them to pay the debt short of giving all of our life savings to them? (my husband’s life savings that is!). This is something to look into.
Another point to ponder was the goal he set for us- in terms of preparing ourselves to become close to Allah. He said that we all should by now be waking up for tahajud at least once a week and then we need to steadily increase it until we are doing it each night. Now this is something I am struggling with since the birth of my daughter. Every now and then I set a goal that I will wake up for tahajud and every time I turn the alarm off and politely turn my cheek away from Allah who is waiting for me. Now I really have a challenge.
It’s not that I want to make tahajud because my teacher said we should, or because that is what must be done if you going on hajj- no. Performing tahajud every day use to be like breakfast for me- I couldn’t go a day without it. That was before I married and had lots of responsibilities. But I’ve always had this personal goal of wanting to get back to that spiritual high in my life- wanting to once again feel the presence of angels surround you in the dark of the night while all else is asleep. I want to again have such a strong connection with my Rabb that He controls whatever I say, do, think and am. And that connection came, for me, with tahajud.
One of my niyahs for when I come back from hajj was that I would be at that point to be able to sacrifice sleep and pray. But what the teacher said hit home: if you not doing it now, you not going to do it when you come back.” (that’s what it was in a nutshell anyway)
So now my first hajj challenge has begun: to perform tahajud at least once a week. The goal is set, the mind is ready for the challenge, but will the body obey… Find out in next week’s… Journal of a young hajji! (lol).
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