One question for Ramadan: Where is the Almighty?

“Yes” where is He? How do we contact Him? How far from us is He? How close to us is He? These and many other questions constantly agitate our minds as we negotiate life and living on a daily basis. Hardly is there a human being on earth who is not figured in-between the two stations- the stations of fear and hope, the stations of happiness and sadness, the stations of wealth and poverty. To arrive at a station in life is to begin to depart for another one. It is this utter lack of permanence, this incertitude in our lives as humans that constantly returns us to the origin. We are fated to look up to Him, to lust and yearn after His mercies every moment, every minute and every hour of our existence.

At a public lecture at the Obafemi Awolowo University a week ago, I took the newly admitted students on an excursion of life, on an excursus into the history of Islam; the history of Makkah, of the Prophet (s.a.w) and his friend, Abu Bakr al-Sideeq (r.a). I “took them on a journey” from Makkah to Madinah. I asked them to “join” the Prophet on an Hijrah. I asked them to enter the “cave”; the cave of life. I reminded them that on the day the Prophet entered that cave on his flight from Makkah to Madinah, Abu Bakr, his companion was afraid. He was afraid that the Makkans who were pursuing the Prophet would eventually catch up with them. But the Prophet reassured him saying: “Don’t be afraid; the Almighty is with us” (Quran 9: 40). I then asked the audience: “what type of cave are you in presently”? While some of them succeeded in making sense of my line of thought, others could still not chance upon the idea I was trying to convey. I therefore put it as simply as I could: “whenever and wherever you desire divine interventions in your life, that is your own cave; whenever you look up to the heavens and rhetorically ask the question: my Lord! where are you?”, that means you are in your own cave”.

If there is indeed a season in which His presence is felt more than ever before, it is during this month of Ramadan; if there is a period during which the question “where is the Almighty” could be answered faster and instantaneously, such is this month, the month of Ramadan. The Prophet says ‘If humanity knows the bounties which come with the month of Ramadan, they would have yearned that fasting during the month should be extended to a year’.

Ramadan is here to remind us as Muslims that a cardinal principle of our faith is the affirmation of the presence of the Almighty in a way which is beyond all human vision; that He is there with and in us; in the fetus in the bomb, in the deepest and darkest regions of the ocean, in the desert where pebbles and sand attest to His inimitable majesty, in space far beyond the reach of the latest and most potent instruments in the hands of space explorers. Each time the sun rises in the morning and sets in the evening, each time the rain falls and the stars appear at night, each time you see your neighbor shout in happiness or the Other surrounded by grief, you and I need no further evidence to confirm the presence of the Almighty. He is nearer to us than our jugular vein.

Suddenly the month of Ramadan is here. Apart from heralding a spiritual exercise the like of which is unavailable outside Islam, the month of Ramadan is unique for some other historicalreligious reasons. Recall that the revelation of the last testament, the Glorious Qur’an, began during this month; recall dear brethren, that the battle of Badr between Islam and the forces of evil, oppression, degradation, sex-ploitation and dehumanization of women took place during the month. Recall, dear Brethren, that the conquest of Makkah or the arrival of Islam back to the point of its departure took place on the twentieth day of Ramadan i.e eight years after the Hijrah - the forceful departure of our leader from Makkah to Madina. This event, that is the opening up of Makkah for the worship of the Almighty, has been Quranized. The event consequently became one which enjoys divine patronage not for its material implications but because it opened a new pathway for those who would constantly yearn to establish a link between them and their Creator. Brethren, Makkah experienced a re-birth in the month of Ramadan in order that those who would enter it as visitors may undergo spiritual purgation every month of Ramadan. The glorious month is here. The one that came this way last year eventually became the last for some; may this one not be the last for me and you on terrestrial earth (aamin).