Until I Love Him

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم
In the Name of Allah, Most Merciful, Most Compassionate
Assalaamu alaykum

Dear Friends

I pray that you are well.

The very purpose of life is to become of those who are close to Allah and beloved to Him. To be able to worship the Creator is a tremendous blessing from Him.

How does one draw close to Allah. It is mentioned in the famous hadith Qudsi in Bukhari:

...My servant draws not near to Me with anything more loved by Me than what I have made obligatory upon him,...

Allah has prescribed on us a general regular devotions (awrad) which is the obligatory worship. This is the first step to draw closer to Allah. You have the daily awrad--pray 5 times daily again and again, yearly awrad such as fast in Ramadhan every year, pay zakat every year, and hajj once in a lifetime. This is the minimum awrad that we must do.

Then Allah said,

and My servant continues to draw near to Me with supererogatory works until I love him...

Somebody who wants to come close to Allah, i.e. somebody who wants to be among the Sabiqun as mentioned in Surah Waqi'ah, does not stop at the obligatory awrad.

وَالسَّابِقُونَ السَّابِقُونَ ﴿١٠﴾ أُولَـٰئِكَ الْمُقَرَّبُونَ ﴿١١

And the forerunners, the forerunners - (10) Those are the ones brought near [to Allah] (11)

[Qur'an Al-Waqi'ah 56:10-11]

He performs the recommended and voluntary acts, such as sunnah prayers before and after obligatory prayers, sunnah fasting, sending blessings upon the Prophet, Allah bless him and grant him peace, istighfar, reciting the Qur'an, giving charity, acquiring sacred knowledge, invocation (dhikr) or reflection (fikr), etc.

The wird is a means to draw closer to Allah. So we should be doing the wird everyday.

Whoever has no wird is a qird (monkey). --Shaykh 'Abd al-Rahman al-Saqqaf.

There is a reward in this life for doing the regular acts of worship. By doing the acts, there is change that happens. With the change, there is knowledge that descend the heart and this is very pleasant. But the real reward is in the next life which outshines everything in this life.

To do a good job in worshiping Allah requires planning. For example, if one plans to pray Tahajjud or Fajr, he should not leave it by chance that he will wake up and feel fresh if he wakes up. He should take a few steps before going to sleep, for example, set an alarm clock, take wudu' and pray 2 raka'a, maybe recite Surah Waqi'ah, make intention to wake up for the worship, go to sleep early, etc. This planning is done out of the spirit of slavehood, not out of greed of wanting something from Allah.

The proper manner is always to focus at what one has to do rather than what one expects to receive because the slave does not expect anything but just does his duty. Allah, the All-Generous Master has promised and He doesn't break His promise. He will fulfill His promise whenever He decides to do it. Our duty is to keep doing what we have to do, day in and day out.

May Allah give us tawfiq. Ameen. Please don't forget us in your night prayers. Jazakallahu khairan.

And Allah knows best.
Wassalaam