The Importance of Sha’ban: The Month of Remembrance of Prophet Muhammad ﷺ

Bismi Llāhi r-Raḥmāni r-Raḥīm

Tariqatuna as-suhbah wal-khayru fil-jam`iyya

Alhamdulillah wa syukru lillah, Allah Almighty has gathered us up through the month of Rejab into the month of Sha’ban (Shahrun Nabi ﷺ). A month which the Prophet said most people neglect, between the months of Rejab and Ramadhan. This is a month in which those who are lovers of Mawlid and Salawat, must intensify our remembrance of the Prophet. And we are always thankful to Allah ﷻ for keeping us with our guides and keeping us constantly reminded of the various deeds and worshipping that can be done to fill the time, day by day, as we come to the end of our lives. Tariqah means guidance, to use your life fully in the remembrance of Allah ﷻ and we are always seeking guidance, seeking a way to understand deeper into ourselves. 

The one who knows himself, he knows his Lord. And the one who knows his weaknesses, he knows who he really is. The one who is blind to his own weaknesses, will not be able to see that Allah ﷻ is the All-Powerful and we are but an insignificant part of His universe. The significance of a human being is actually only by his association with Rasulullah ﷺ. The Holy Prophet was told by Allah Almighty, “If not for your sake, I would not have created anything.”

Ponder deeply this simple sentence, that everything is created for the sake of honouring Rasulullah ﷺ, and everything is coming from his light. A human being, no matter how rich or powerful or famous, is nothing if he is not existing for the sake of the Prophet.

Maulana Shaykh Nazim called such people sewage, which is a very strong word. It means rubbish. It means things that you throw away. It’s because if a person is not existing for the sake of Rasulullah ﷺ, by carrying the beautiful attributes of the Prophet, then he has not understood the reason why Allah created him.

Allah ﷻ created all of us for the sake of the Holy Prophet and for no other reason. We are not honoured because of us. We are honoured because we were created for his ﷺ sake. One who understands this concept will strive to imitate the Holy Prophet in every aspect of his life. And the Prophet said to us, “قُلۡ إِن كُنتُمۡ تُحِبُّونَ ٱللَّهَ فَٱتَّبِعُونِي”. To follow him, as Allah has created mankind for his sake, and in doing so, we may find ourselves beloved by Allah, the Most Forgiving and the Most Merciful.

This is something so important for us to ponder. People are proud because of their own achievements, fame and wealth. Proud because they are rich or famous or they are big CEOs of a company. But they fail to understand, that something is only of value when it is for the sake of Allah ﷻ and His Rasul ﷺ. Allah Almighty is honoring His whole universe in celebration of Rasulullah ﷺ. Every single thing coming from his life, every single thing coming from what Allah has dressed him with, from his ﷺ beauty Allah gave beauty of creation, Allah Almighty made this whole entire universe as Sollu Alan Nabi, as a Salawat upon Rasullulah ﷺ because we cannot understand the Divine.

The entirety of creation is a Salawat upon Rasulullah ﷺ by Allah Almighty. Allah has sent his Rasul as a divine mirror for us to understand Him. And so, one must understand that our value is only in resemblance to the Prophet. They call this Fanna’ Fi Rasul. To dissolve your own ego and behave exactly as the Prophet would. Through this, you may slowly inherit all the beautiful ways of the Prophet within yourself. 

Fanaq means to disappear. In other words, you do not eat the way you eat, you eat the way he eats. You do not sit the way you sit, you sit the way he sits. You do not behave the way you wish to behave with all our badness and ego and boasting and empty talk, but you try to be exactly like the Holy Prophet as much as you can. Then, you may rise day-by-day in value in the eyes of Allah ﷻ.

This is something Shaytan has hidden from the eyes of people today. Modern man seeks honour in wearing fancy clothes and driving fancy cars, collecting from dunya. MashaAllah, they feel as if they have attained some very high level of honour and fame. And they feel so important when they are driving a good expensive car. They feel so honoured collecting from the ways, which are not the ways of the Prophet and collecting from this dunya, which is sewage. Shaytan has decorated us with these useless things, making us feel that they are very, very important. And when someone is dressed in the Sunnah of the Prophet, no one in this dunya attributes any honour to him.

This corruption has affected even the believers of today, who seek honour in trying to be like the unbelievers in everything they do. Allah says, “إِنَّ صَلَاةِ وَنُسُكِ وَمَحْيَا يَوَمَ مَاتِ لِلَّهِ رَبِّ الْعَالَمِينَ”. Everything that we do, we earn, we strive for, we live, we die, everything is for Allah ﷻ. Allah says, for My sake, that means you must be like My Beloved. I have shown you the example, and for the example of this one who is beloved to Me, I created all of you.

You are people of common sense. If you and I were created for the sake of the Prophet, where would our honour lie? Honour would lie in being like the Holy Prophet, the one who is Beloved to Allah ﷻ. Would honour lie in dressing in a very expensive $5,000 suit, or driving a million dollar car? Or having lots and lots of money in the bank? Or mixing with the high-end people sitting in expensive restaurants and drinking wine and dancing and passing our time listening to music?

So my dear brothers and sisters, wonder about this ayah. It’s very deep, it’s a huge ocean that Allah ﷻ created you for the sake of the Prophet, you must think about this ayah and ponder upon it. InshaAllah, this will open for you the understanding to know that you are here only because of Rasulullah ﷺ, no other reason.

Once you understand that you have been created only for the sake of the Prophet, then you may begin to rid your heart of all these worldy desires. Allah ﷻ would not have created you just because you are handsome or to collect nice things. No, all that is nothing to Allah, you were only created for His Beloved. And if you understand this then you will begin to strive to throw away, to scrape away everything dirty from your heart; you must throw all your bad characteristics, all your badness slowly until you come to a point where you are knowing of your destination.

In fact, it is very easy once you know your destination. A person who knows he’s heading for a destination, it becomes easy for him because he is very clear where he is headed. A person going to Hajj knows he’s going to Hajj, so everything he packs in his bags and every single knowledge he is seeking, he is seeking to perform his Hajj. It becomes very clear.

But today, we are not clear about our destination, our destination being death. It is a very clear destination but again Shaytan has drawn the shutters over our eyes and we become blind and we all feel as if death is very far away, death is a very simple event or death is something that will only happen when we are ready.

We must know that on Nifsu Sha’ban, which we are going to prepare in a few days time, a believer’s life, in fact even the unbelievers, their lives are determined from one Nifsu Sha’ban to the next. Once the kitab comes down on the 15th of Shaban, if on that night it states that a certain person will pass away in the year that is to come, for certain he will pass away. And if it is written this person will live, inshaAllah then he will live for another year.

Our rezeki and all that will happen to us in the coming year is written on this day. And all these things are able to be seen by the angels. And this is why why we see in the stories of people passing away, that the angel will come, Angel of Death will come with the angels who are looking for our water, looking for our food. And the angels come and they will say to you, I’m the angel tasked to look for your food. And I’ve traveled the world and I’ve looked for your food and I couldn’t find it anywhere. And because of that, I must let you know that your time in this dunya is finished.

This is something that struck me when I was on my flight to Istanbul. They were serving the food, and as you know, everything is given on your plate on one small platter on the airplane. And everything bite-sized, small amounts. And I remember they served in a very small container one big prawn covered with olive oil and lettuce.

We had long hours on the flight, so a lot of time was spent in Tafakur and I was looking at this one prawn and MashAllah, it was shown to me that when this prawn was born, my name was written on this prawn already amidst the millions and millions of prawns that were swimming in the sea off the coast of Sri Lanka. My name was written on this prawn. Allah ﷻ protected this prawn from being eaten by any other creature out there in the sea because the rezeki has been terjamin, as they say in Malay. It is promised what has been written for you will reach you.

That’s why the angels are always full of admiration for Allah ﷻ. They say, oh Allah, you know better than us. You know what we do not know. Because as an angel looking at all these billions of prawns and you are looking at the names of the various people who are going to eat this prawn, and sometimes this can be very mind-blowing that this prawn is in Sri Lanka, in the sea. Yet the names of the people are written from all over the world.

Even though this is hundreds of miles away from where I stay, 30,000 feet in the sky on that morning on the way to Istanbul, this prawn had been waiting six months with my name on it before it reached me on my table, on my flight. And beside it, even more amazing, there was an eggplant. And not the whole eggplant, just one slice. So imagine this single eggplant that was growing. The angels would have seen so many names, you know, on one eggplant and my name is there also with a demarcation. This is Abdul Sattar’s portion. Subhanallah. And that portion, again, protected from all the predators, again, harvested from Turkey, and then served on that plane. That precise slice with my name was there beside me. Subhanallah. 

So I spent the flight doing a lot of thinking, looking with amazement, the Mercy of Allah Almighty, His kindness to His creation. Allah is writing everybody’s rezeki everyday when you see all these Grab riders zooming all across the island the entire day, every single grain of rice whether it was growing in Vietnam or whether it was growing in China, wherever it was growing in the Philippines, that single grain had your name on it and it will reach you on that day when you ordered from Grab to bring to your house. So amazing.

And it was something very sad for me when I saw the person beside me throwing away her prawn. She didn’t eat it. On a normal day, it would have meant nothing, right? Somebody threw away her prawn. But after you have been deep in thought for half an hour, about how this prawn from small became big and it was harvested and then flown to the airline and then cooked with tender care and then served onto our plate and then this person simply tells the stewardesss “I don’t eat prawns.” and threw it away. 

And so this is the danger of mankind today. The ungratefulness in people. Tak bersyukur, not Syukur to Allah ﷻ. Very few people are thankful to Allah, very few people are appreciative.

If you knew that I was sick and then you brought me soup to my house and I threw it away how would you feel, after you spent so much tender loving care with getting the herbs from all over to cook it. That’s what mankind is doing to Allah ﷻ. Allah is sending them food and rezeki from all around the world and they are not grateful for the gift of Allah. 

So in this very short nasihat today, be aware of the Mercy of Allah Almighty. How he arranged everything in your life before you were even created. Before I was created, Allah already wrote for me that we are going to have this prawn born in the sea on this day, for the sake of this servant of mine. Allah Almighty wrote for all of us our rezeki 50,000 years before we came to this dunya. If you don’t see his love in those things, you don’t see his tender loving care, his kindness, then how else will you see Allah? How else will you find the Mercy of your Lord? You must see these things and be very, very, thankful. Not just Alhamdulillah on your tongue, but from the bottom of your heart, you must understand.

You must realize how much your life is not as you please, not as you wish to do. Every part of your life is something that has been written so precisely such that every atom, that you will consume or you will drink or you will breathe is something that has already been laid out by Allah ﷻ completely and perfectly until the last second of your life. So be thankful to Allah, as a servant because it is the greatest Sunnah of the Prophet, and we are trying to be like the Prophet.

So practise this in Sha’ban. Say Alhamdulillah not just from your tongue, but from the deepest recesses of your heart.  As narrated by Aisha RA, when asked about his ceaseless prayers till his ﷺ feet were swollen, the Holy Prophet responded; Is it not appropriate that I should be a thankful servant to Allah ﷻ? 

So be a very thankful servant of Allah ﷻ. Everything that you receive, never take it for granted. Never feel that you got this nasi lemak on your table, because I have money what? I can buy what I want to eat. It’s not that. What has been written will reach you. But His gift, you must receive that. You must thank Him. You must be more and more like the Prophet. Remember, you are created for his honour, right?

So throw away your bad characteristics, inshaAllah, all of us, bit by bit, and try to be like the Holy Prophet. Go back and ponder about the meaning of you being created for the honour of Rasulullah ﷺ. May Allah ﷻ grant us more realisation when it comes to our food, more realisation when it comes to our rezeki and thankfulness in our hearts and make us servants who are constantly thankful to Allah. 

We make Dua for each other. May Allah ﷻ grant us all healing, not just healing physically but also from our hearts. Allah heal us of all our illnesses that keep us away from tasting the sweetness of worshipping and from tasting the sweetness of being close to Rasulullah ﷺ. This is a month in which the door of closeness to the Prophet is open and it’s only up to you. As the Prophet said in the Hadith, he who wants to go to Jannah will go to Jannah. Which means that if you want to go, you will enter. It’s only those who don’t want to go, then they will not enter.

Similarly, Mawlana was saying, on these special nights especially, the Door of Mercy is open. Those who want, just ask. Those who don’t ask will not get it. That means if you are humble enough to wake up at night, lift your hands and say, Ya Allah ﷻ, I ask you for your Mercy. Ya Allah, forgive me. Have pity on me. Allah will grant you. Nothing to stop Allah.

He is happy to give. He is happy to grant. He is happy to grant anything that you ask for from himself. Allah Almighty created all His gifts for mankind. But if mankind doesn’t want to ask from Him, then there’s nothing that can be done if we don’t want to ask or humble ourselves and beg from Allah Almighty. So InshaAllah, we ask from Allah Almighty that he grant us this chance in this month to dream of Rasulullah ﷺ, to see Rasulullah, to be with Rasulullah, to do a lot of Salawat upon him.

You can do a bit of maulid in your homes. You can do a lot of Salawat even with or without Wudhu, wherever you are. Constantly be in the remembrance of Allah ﷻ and His Rasul ﷺ.

May Allah ﷻ grant us all healing inshaAllah, and to be given the chance to taste the sweetness of this journey.

Ameen Ya Rabbal Alameen. Bi hurmatil Habib, Bi hurmatil Fatiha.

• Almarhum Sheikh Muhammad Abdul Sattar Khan

24 February 2023/ 4 Shaʻban 1444 AH

Our beloved Sheikh Muhammad Abdul Sattar Khan reunited with his true love, Allah Almighty, on 11 November 2023.

May Allah forgive his shortcomings, bestow upon him endless blessings, mercy, and light, and elevate his rank for the sincerity of his efforts and contribution during his lifetime. 

May he be placed amongst those closest and dearest to Allah Almighty.

Al-Fatiha for Sheikh Muhammad Abdul Sattar Khan.