Ramadhan is for Sinners (also)

Ramadhan is for Sinners
Life is full of odd ends and bits,
And odd men
With crooked ends
And straight bits,

I found myself coincidentally
With three examples tonight,
With many years of hard drugs,
Mischief and Misdemeanors
Between them.

How pleased I was to be with them,
Completing a quartet
Of sinning believers
And believing sinners.

In this holy month of Ramadhan
It is ours in favour and flavour,
For it is a month especially
Made by the Lord for sinners,

To abstain and to seek forgiveness,
Resting our weary spirit
From all of men’s wickedness.
…………………………

It was some eight years ago that I met Abdullah (not his real name), a gifted musician and Sufi of Hadramaut descent. He led a naughty life when he was younger, a drug-pusher who was not adverse to sampling his own product and being a right nuisance to the local enforcement force in his town, ending up an unwanted guest of the prison and drug rehabilitation facilities.

One day a doctor at the clinic asked him why he was in such a dire strait, being warded for drug overdose. Abdullah only smiled and replied, "It is better to be naughty now while I am young. I have seen old men with their drinking, drugs and womenising. I don't want to be like that. I will reform before that happens to me." The doctor looked surprised and said, "How do you know you will change?" Abdullah, without any doubt assured him, "Oh I am certain (yakin). Maximum by 40 years old I would be good and leave all the things which God forbids! Most probably around 30s. I am certain!"

Today Abdullah is contented, happily married with two kids. He doesn't smoke, he doesn't chase women anymore and he doesn't drink or take drugs. An almost boring pillar of the community, so thank God for his musical talent, humour and ready smile. I first met Abdullah in 2004 at the cusp of his change, the metamorphosis of a soul. But like the caterpillar shedding its skin to become a butterfly, the change in his life was natural, the unveiling of the true spirit after years of stasis.

A happy, hopeful story for a rainy day in Ramadhan, sunshine.

wa min Allah at-taufiq

Hate has no place in Islam

Love will show the Way