Question:
Salamalaykum,
I met my wife 10 years ago and I met Maulana Sheikh Nazim 5 years ago.
Every Ramadan for the last few years, I have many memories of my wife in the earlier years of knowing her. I miss her ‘spirit’, confidence, good looks, easy-going nature, bubbly, happy, sociable personality,etc that she had back then.
Before 5years ago she started loosing these qualities and after converting she suffered from bad thoughts, tension, paleness, no drive, no friends and really lost her beauty which she had in abundance before. So every Ramadan all the nice memories from before come back. I fasted earlier this year but didnt think back to the past -it just seems to happen in Ramadan.
Is this normal? This year, im not so attached to the memories -its not really a distraction this year, so thats an improvement, but it still happens. Any idea why?
Answer:
wa `alaykum salam,
Actually that is good, because as an annual season, Ramadan is a good time to make muhasaba, self-accounting and review our accomplishments, and more importantly as Mawlana Shaykh Hisham Kabbani advises, review our failures, especially in the spiritual dimension. That is because self-praise is a blameworthy attribute in spirituality but accounting for one’s mistakes and making tawba, repentance is recommended.
However, Shaytan, as usual, may try to interfere, and instead of reflecting on spiritual aspects, make us focus more on the superficial. That is when it is good to repel his insinuations by reciting at-Ta`awwudh (a`udhu billah mina ‘sh-shaytani ‘r-rajeem) and the Basmala (Bismillahi ‘r-Rahmani ‘r-Raheem).
Taher Siddiqui
