Ramadan Inspirational Quotes

The more you look into and understand yourself, the less judgmental you become towards others.

Mornings are like almost clean slates. I say almost clean because the residue of yesterdays is sometimes stuck on them.

Jack," I said, "why don't you go check on Sam?" Maybe you can advise her on getting through those doors. OR you could sing to her. I know she'd love that." "Yeah? Cool!" Jack zoomed off to serenade Sam, which meant Sam would want to hit me later, except it was Ramadan so she had to be nice to me. Wow, I was a bad person. At the doors, Jack was trying to help by suggesting songs he could sing to inspire new ideas for getting inside: 'Knockin'on Heaven's Door', 'I Got the Keys' or 'Break on Through (to the Other Side)'. "How about none of the above?" Sam said. "'None of the Above' ..." Jack mused. "Is that by Stevie Wonder?" "How's it going guys?" I asked. I didn't know if it was physically possible to strangle a magic sword, but I didn't want to see Sam try.

REMEMBER: Prayer is not about punishment or reward; it is about cultivating a genuine connection with God. The deep purpose of prayer is not to obtain a certain outcome; rather, it is about having an intimate conversation with your Lord.

The question is not whether God is lovingly speaking to us, the question is, are we open enough to listen?

Prayer, then is a means of undressing the ego of its superficiality and coming to the Divine presence with all of our neediness and humility.

REMEMBER: No matter what happens in your life, if it turns you towards Allah, it is a blessing. Whether Allah is testing you to strengthen you or holding you accountable for a sin you may have committed, the response is the same: turn to Allah and ask for His help and guidance.

Oh Allah, open my heart to receive the light of Your guidance and all-encompassing love. My Lord, guide me to the inner truths of my own being and help me to walk the spiritual path with gratitude and humility.

The Qur’an is a divine map, a flashlight in the dark night, a compass that leads us back to the home we left so long ago.

We do not need to understand every element of our sin to let go of it. The seed doesn’t need to understand the nature of the sun’s light to be moved and transformed by it.

We do not pray, fast, or give charity because Allah needs it, but because our spirits need to be in the presence of the Divine light to blossom. We are seeds, we are infinite potential hidden in the garden of a body, waiting to awaken through the mercy of Allah’s light.

When we are humbled before Allah, we taste something of His greatness. When we focus on our shortcomings, our sins, and mistakes it is easy to lose hope, but when we focus our attention on Allah’s forgiveness, mercy, and love we are able to traverse whatever challenge or obstacle is in our way.

Ask Allah to open the eyes of your heart so that you are able to witness the miracles and blessed moments that are constantly unfolding around you, patiently waiting for you to notice them. The miraculous gifts of Allah are not rare, however, our inability to be receptive enough to receive them limits our ability to experience them.

Allah is always with us. His light never extinguishes. If we experience darkness or separation it is a function of a part of us knowingly or unknowingly closing the eyes of our hearts to the everlasting presence of His love, mercy, and truth. The Divine is the only eternal reality in and beyond existence; everything else is impermanent. All variability in our experience of Allah has to do with our state, not His.

Hasan, the Begger: Believe it or not, they call this purgatory on earth “holy-suffering”. I am a leper stuck in limbo. Neither the dead nor the living want me among them. Mothers point me out on the streets to scare their misbehaving little ones, and children throw stones at me. Artisans chase me from their storefronts to ward off the bad luck that follows me everywhere, and pregnant women turn their faces away whenever they set eyes on me, fearing that their babies will be born defec-tive. None of these people seem to realize that as keen as they are to avoid me, I am far keener to avoid them and their pitiful stares. Friday is the best day of the week to beg except when it is Ramadan, in which case the whole month is quite lucrative. The last day of Ramadan is by far the best time to make money. That is when even the hopeless penny-pinchers race to give alms, keen to compensate for all their sins, past and present. Once a year, people don't turn away from beggars. To the contrary, they specifically look for one, the more miserable the better. So profound is their need to show off how generous and charitable they are, not only do they race to give us alms, but for that single day they almost love us. I’ve realized that the trees and I had something in common. A tree shedding its leaves in autumn resembled a man shedding his limbs in the final stages of leprosy. I am naked tree. My skin, my organs, my face are falling apart. Every day another part of my body abandons me. And for me, unlike the trees, there would be no spring in which I would blossom. What I lost, I lost forever. When people looks at me, they don’t see who I am but what I am missing. Whenever they places a coin in my bowl, they do so with amazing speed and avoid any eye contacts, as if my gaze is contagious. In their eyes I am worse than a thief or a murderer. As much as they disapproves of such outlaws, they don’t treat them as if they are invisible. When it comes to me, however, all they see is death staring them in the face. That's what scares them--to recognize that death could be this close and this ugly.

À la lumière de cette tradition, et dans l'esprit de Montaigne, je dirais que lorsque je discute avec un individu avec qui je suis ou non d'accord, s'il a une bonne idée, c'est la mienne, et s'il en a une mauvaise, eh bien, c'est la sienne. Ce rapport à autrui est celui que les civilisations devraient nourrir entre elles; malheureusement, on retient souvent le moins bon des civilisations dominantes.

With the glorious flames of compassion in your heart, embrace the goodness from all religions. Taste the love of Christmas, the radiance of Diwali, the brotherhood of Ramadan, the feast of Sukkot and assimilate anything that appeals to you. The end product of such acceptance is a peaceful human society, filled with joy and cheer.

Let us pray to Allah to unite us for human mercy, instead of dividing us all on what we believe. Ramadan Mubarak!

Tawba is not about our sins as much as it is about Allah’s forgiveness. When we seek refuge in Allah’s mercy we are turning from our human qualities towards His divine attributes. Whether we wrong ourselves or others wrong us, tawba is the vehicle that turns us from our pain, blame and disappointment back toward Allah, who is the source of all hope, mercy, and peace.

Prayer helps strip us from the false weights of the ego allowing us to be vulnerable enough to receive the blessings Allah has always been pouring upon us.

We are called to pray like rain, to pour our spirits into the soil of humility as we plant our heads in prostration upon the ground of faith. In prayer, we water the earth of our existence with the cleansing, pure water of God’s own words.

Even when the situation is bad, do good.