Remembering Remembrance

Tuesday, April 7th, 2008

Today our discussion topic title was "Remembering Remembrance" the third and last session of the "Islam as a core" series.

Recap

In the first session "A day in the life of the Prophet (S)" we reflected first on the importance of the Prophet (S) as a model and then discussed how the Prophet (S) divided his day and how he scheduled his different activities during a 24hour day.

In the second session "Intentions, actions and the sunnah", we discussed i) the importance of intentions being in line with the commands of Allah, ii) The importance of acting out actions in the right manner and iii) how the best actions are those which are in accordance to the sunnah.

In today's session be built upon the previous two sessions; we discussed how the Prophet (S) taught us to use remembrance as a way to state our intentions and examples of his (S) remembrance throughout the day.

Vereses

وَمَا خَلَقْتُ الْجِنَّ وَالْإِنسَ إِلَّا لِيَعْبُدُونِ
I created the jinn and humankind only that they might worship Me. 051.056

• Reflecting upon this, one might ask how can one make every waking moment of his life into worship. One activity that we can embark on to fill our lives with worship is remembrance (Dhikr).

Some verses about remembrance to reflect on:

فَاذْكُرُونِي أَذْكُرْكُمْ وَاشْكُرُواْ لِي وَلاَ تَكْفُرُونِ
Therefore remember Me, I will remember you. Give thanks to Me, and reject not Me. 002.152


وَالَّذِينَ إِذَا فَعَلُواْ فَاحِشَةً أَوْ ظَلَمُواْ أَنْفُسَهُمْ ذَكَرُواْ اللّهَ فَاسْتَغْفَرُواْ لِذُنُوبِهِمْ وَمَن يَغْفِرُ الذُّنُوبَ إِلاَّ اللّهُ وَلَمْ يُصِرُّواْ عَلَى مَا فَعَلُواْ وَهُمْ يَعْلَمُونَ
And those who, when they do an evil thing or wrong themselves, remember Allah and implore forgiveness for their sins - Who forgiveth sins save Allah only? - and will not knowingly repeat (the wrong) they did. 003.135

• This verse is describing those who ward off (evil), or the Mutakeen.

إِنَّ فِي خَلْقِ السَّمَاوَاتِ وَالأَرْضِ وَاخْتِلاَفِ اللَّيْلِ وَالنَّهَارِ لآيَاتٍ لِّأُوْلِي الألْبَابِ
190 الَّذِينَ يَذْكُرُونَ اللّهَ قِيَامًا وَقُعُودًا وَعَلَىَ جُنُوبِهِمْ وَيَتَفَكَّرُونَ فِي خَلْقِ السَّمَاوَاتِ وَالأَرْضِ رَبَّنَا مَا خَلَقْتَ هَذا بَاطِلاً سُبْحَانَكَ فَقِنَا عَذَابَ النَّارِ191
Such as remember Allah, standing, sitting, and reclining, and consider the creation of the heavens and the earth, (and say): Our Lord! Thou createdst not this in vain. Glory be to Thee! Preserve us from the doom of Fire. 191 Those who remember Allah standing and sitting and lying on their sides and reflect on the creation of the heavens and the earth: Our Lord! Thou hast not created this in vain! Glory be to Thee; save us then from the chastisement of the fire. 003.190-1

Hadiths

We also mentioned the hadith mentioned in Imam Nawawi's book "al-adhkar", that (with the meaning of) 'the like of he who remembers his Lord and he who doesn't is like a living person and a dead person', Chapter 2 hadith 11. We also mentioned a hadith in the introduction of the adhkar, informing us (with the meaning of) that when 'a group of people sit down to remember Allah, the angels surround them, Mercy encompasses them, and serenity falls upon them and Allah remembers them in His gathering'.


Disucssion

The remaining of the discussion revolved around:
- stories from the sahaba showing how they integrated remembrance of Allah in their everyday lives.
- The best remembrance is that which the Prophet (S) taught us, yet if we don't have any of his teachings memorized then we can try our best to remember Allah in our own words.

Please add any stories/reflections that you would like to share about the topic