How to become a person of Allah

Mention of the people in Quran.

Allah ordered people to become “Rabbani”.

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كُونُوا رَبَّانِيِّينَ بِمَا كُنتُمْ تُعَلِّمُونَ الْكِتَابَ وَبِمَا كُنتُمْ تَدْرُسُونَ ﴿٧٩

“Be pious scholars of the Lord because of what you have taught of the Scripture

and because of what you have studied.”

Aal-e Imran:79

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When a person takes a path of ilm for themselves, the intention behind that is to be Rabbani, to act upon the ayah that commands us to become Rabbani. People who have a close connection with Allah.

Rabbani comes from the word Rabb, which basically means cherisher, sustainer, caretaker. Just like a gardener takes care of the seeds in the ground until they become plants. The gardener is happy to see the seed become a sapling and then grow further.

Allah takes care of us with an infinite amount of more care.

It is a gesture of reciprocation that Allah has chosen us to be His ibaad, He has given us so many blessings, the biggest of which are iman and hidayah. How do we reciprocate? Of course our reciprocation cannot be perfect. Seeking that friendship, seeking that very delicate, subtle, beautiful connection with Allah, that deep yearning for a friendship with Allah, that is what a Rabbani is. Everyone might reach at various levels, some people might be closer, but what Allah is going to look at is the effort. This connection with Allah is not optional. That is the reason for our creation.

I want to talk, walk, live in a Rabbani way. That is the goal.

Rabbani is everything that Allah loves.

There is a contrast, one thing noticed in teaching Quran in Ramadan, is “is this thing necessary?” “You are telling me to do XYZ, is this necessary?” If we critically evaluate our priorities in life, this shows an imbalance. We want the bare minimum in deen, and absolute maximum of dunya. “We don’t want to leave faraiz and wajibaat, but beyond that…“. “This particular ayah in the Quran, this is essential, that other ayah is optional.” Nothing in the Quran is optional. If you say Mufti sahab, I want a fatwa, I want to do one thing which is completely halal and the other that has more taqwa, the Mufti sahab will say that you are good to go, both are halal.

Balancing deen and dunya

People talk about striking a balance between deen and dunya. Our deen is so beautiful, it covers all aspects of human needs and desires and caters to it. The human needs to spend quality time with the family, but you have to do it with the intention of pleasing Allah. You are in the dunya and on the other side is akhirah, which is literally infinite. The equation is pretty much one-sided. We try to strike a balance but deen itself is the balance.

Imagine spending a day and night with a close connection to Allah, imagine giving a whole life to Allah in which you were His friend. It is all about priorities.

MashAllah, there are many women, we try to make the house look clean, we try to make it as presentable as possible, while we are doing all those chores, we have to keep in mind that we also have to scrub that heart. Allah does not look towards the faces, the wealth, the external, Allah looks at the actions, the hearts.

It’s about polishing those hearts. That is why you are here. Yes, we are here for ilm but we are here to wash away the old and stubborn stains of sin.

A matter of what we give value to. Many, many times, it’s not about leaving something absolutely. We are not asking you to leave the dunya and sit in a dark room, that’s not the life of a mu’min. The Rabbani life, when you set on to achieve it, you have looked beyond the category of choosing between halal and haram. In Rabbani life, haram is completely out of question. The real choice we have to make in our life, while doing halal things, that is the choice we face. The most critical choice. It differentiates a good student from a bad student of ilm. For example, it is halal to read the news once, but the random scrolling could be spent in revising a hadith lesson or reading istaghfar. This is where the difference lies in deciding how to spend 5 minutes. I have 5 minutes before going to bed, I want to have the connection with Allah, I decide to do something for deen. Instead of randomly scrolling on the Internet and seeing things which are halal. Both options are halal but how is our approach supposed to be? Is this better for our dunya or for our akhirah? Is this going to benefit me in my akhirah and the khair of my dunya? If it’s not going to benefit my akhirah, why am I going to waste five minutes of my life? We should not be heedless of this.

These many years of my life, I choose to spend 5 minutes on a futile activity, it adds up. Imagine how much noor there will be in our life just for choosing the taqwa option as opposed to the bare minimum halal option. Imagine how much noor and mercy will descend on that person. We are seeking this special noor from Allah.

Again we are coming back to the point of time. Surah Al Asr, Allah presents to us very beautifully, that we don’t have time.

Imagine if you borrowed something from your neighbour, e.g. a washing machine. You will wash the maximum amount of clothes in the limited time you have the washing machine, to have maximum benefit. That is exactly the example of dunya. Allah gave us 50, 60, 70, 90, 100 or 120 years of our life, we borrowed this time to take the most benefit out of it. It really depends on us.

It is not a matter of guesswork. What do I mean by that? Allah from Quran and Hadith and Sunnah has given us absolute hidayah, and how scholars have understood that Quran and Hadith, that is our hidayah and defines the priorities for our life. It is not a matter of guesswork. We cannot get this wrong. We have to re-evaluate how we think.

Our teachers have laid out a set of priorities according to Quran and Sunnah, especially for a person who wants to live a Rabbani life, of course, who has multiple roles and responsibilities.

Priorotize

First, highest priority, no compromise: faraiz and wajibat and sunnah mu’akadah of deen, meaning if person has Salah, if the time of maghrib Salah, the person can pray Salah or go help the needy, the person chooses to go help the needy, that is absolutely ridiculous. The way the deen is laid out, the faraiz, wajibat and sunnah mu’akadah are absolutely non-optional. The sunnah patience of Prophet s.a.w is sunnah mu’akadah. We think that is optional. That is absolutely not optional. That is our first priority. We have to have that sunnah patience, that we progress towards it insha Allah. I need to get the sunnah sabr, shukr, taqwa, all the sunnah feelings that are absolutely necessary. If I am tried and tested and I don’t have sunnah patience, what’s that going to do? Is that a neutral act, screaming at somebody? It is going to be written as a sin. This first category gets us rid of all possible sins. The faraiz and the wajibat and sunnah mu’akadah of deen are priority one.

Priority two: fulfilling the huquq ul ibad of the ones who are dependent upon you. One needs to know where the boundaries of the haq are e.g it is not jaiz for a husband to require that his wife be with him 24/7 and not do anything with her life. Fulfilling huqooq with ihsan, in the noblest and most merciful of ways, with beauty of character and demeanor and conduct.

Third category: extras in deen. Dawah, khidmat, extra ilm. Some part of the classes we attend is farz, the other is optional. Generally, the extras of deen are priority number three. One khidmat of deen is not better than another khidmat of deen. All of them would be priority number three.

Priority number four: extras in dunya. e.g. spending quality time with the family, cooking etc. Now comes dunya. Now where is recreation and where is hobbies and free time and cup of coffee/tea? How we answer that question, “me time” is certainly there, but these priorities are very solid in terms of how much time they require. Their aim is that they should not waste any time.

Let me give you the reality: if we do all of these categories with ihsan, with the level of beauty that Allah wants from us, we would not have time for sitting around doing nothing, slacking or extra surfing on the Internet.

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The reality is that we spend much of our time engaged in futile activities.

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Shaytan wants us to have no plan that is sustainable. You are going to do your new life plan one, two, three days, then fourth day you will crash. We are trying to diagnose ourselves, how much time is spent in doing the four categories, then what is the time that is left, how much time do we spend in futile things? If we say that tomorrow I am not going to waste a single minute and become Rabbani, you will crash the second day. When you try to achieve ihsan in the first four categories, the rest will become minimal. Won’t have time for useless things that have no benefit in deen or dunya.

How to keep up with the ‘New Life Plan’

The three things that will make us more firm in trying to follow these priorities:

1. Following sunnah and shariah: Can you say that for the past 6 months of my life I did not miss fajr salah? We should not tolerate any slips in faraiz. Any missed prayer should devastate us. Allah asked me to make that sajda of fajr salah, how could I keep sleeping. It is also a matter of directing our potential. Sometimes we want to do more khidmat, but the person’s faraiz are not stable. Having stable faraiz is absolutely necessary, then beautifying it with sunnah. “I want to be an endless ocean of Sunnah” you should think. Living the sunnah. Nabuwah is an endless ocean of guidance and even a drop of it can be enough for us. We have to take it seriously.

2. Kasrat e zikr: Allah has mentioned zikr both in terms of quality and quantity. Whenever Allah talks about zikr, He mentions abundant zikr, zikr e kaseer. How do you know you have done abundant zikr? You will know.

   Your heart will tell you. just like you know when you have eaten too much, you will know when you have kasrat e zikr.

   -Shaykh Mufti Kamaluddin Ahmed (db)

   When we make the effort of abundance, quality will be given by Allah. Allah will pull us closer and we will feel the difference in our life. More tawfiq will come from Him, we will feel it in our life. We should try to make it quality, but we should start with quantity.

3. Pious company. Good company, in the form of any online talk, or onsite company.

The world is a cage for the believer. No matter where we go, where we run, where we hide, the world will eventually be a cage. The closer we can get to freedom is either to go to the Kaba or to go to gatherings of zikr. Find some panah gah, a place of refuge. Find a place of peace. Find a place to save a person’s iman. It’s the closest thing to freedom we can find here. When Allah will take back the imanah of time that He has given us, may we meet Him so He is absolutely pleased with us.