رمضان

(don’t forget, taqwa is among your provisions)

…

Before the first light of sun, before the stars stitched the night, this month was prescribed for you.

لا

For Ar-Rahman is not like a doctor who waits for (illness) to take hold…a fever to climb or a cough to deepen, only then to scribble a remedy on a piece of paper.

إله

For Ar-Raheem loves you too much to not have prepared your (healing) beforehand.

إلا

He preceded you with care and laid a path to wholeness before you leaned toward falling. Even more, your (medicine) was inscribed in the heavens by Allah, in al-Lawḥ al-Maḥfūẓ, fifty thousand years before the heavens and the earth were established.

الله

“O you who believe, (fasting) is prescribed for you, as it was prescribed for those before you, so that you may attain (taqwa).” — Qur’an [2:183]

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A Cure Written in the Heavens

The concept of al-Lawḥ al-Maḥfūẓ is quietly stunning. Imagine a Book in the heavens, holding every single episode of my life and yours, written 50,000 years before anything came into being — “Kun fa yakūn.” We hardly pause to take that in. Allah did not just document your life and then bring you into being; He set a measure for everything you would ever face, and He preceded it all with His care, His gentle watchfulness.

And doesn’t cure come to mind here? Allah, in His care, prescribed fasting for us long before we even knew it needed to be.

Today even physicians and researchers speak of its benefits, how fasting supports metabolic balance, improves insulin sensitivity, triggers cellular repair processes like autophagy, reduces inflammation, and strengthens mental clarity and discipline.

What revelation named as worship, science now observes as restoration. Fasting was never meant to be deprivation. It was love, stitched into the rhythm of our days, written in the preserved tablet long before we could even name the weight of our exhaustion.

And what does it mean to attain taqwa? It is to be mindful of Allah as if you see Him, and even though you cannot see Him, He sees you. Allah reminds us of this again and again in the Qur’an: “O you who believe, fear Allah as He should be feared and do not die except in a state of submission” [3:102], and, “Indeed, taqwa is the best of provisions” [2:197].

Taqwa is the sacred gravity of the heart, the sustenance of the soul, the firm footing in a world of endless noise and constant distraction, that blurs the truth from our eyes. How badly we ache for it, yet how easily we overlook it.

Allah knows us intimately. He knows we will not always see the full weight of its importance. That is why He prescribed fasting for us—not to overburden us, but to guide us gently back to this mindfulness.

Hunger and thirst slow us down, They pull us out of our comfort, revealing the quiet reality of those who live with emptiness not by choice, but by circumstance. They soften our pride, strip away the illusion of self-sufficiency, and make the heart more attentive, more awake, more alive.

And when we refrain from vain talk and gheeba, what happens? When we choose to speak good or remain silent, something subtle shifts within us. We feel lighter, cleaner, and begin to see how small and hollow those low conversations really were. Guarding the tongue guards the heart. Lowering our gaze from what doesn’t belong to us, from what is forbidden, opens our eyes to the quiet good we have been blind to all along.

Twelve hours of abstinence seem to dissolve in moments when the soul finds itself nourished by the Qur’an, by His gracious remembrance, and by quiet reflection that settles deeper than food and drink ever could. It is a different kind of fullness, one that stays. Gratitude blooms softly, love for Allah grows steadily, and longing for Him becomes familiar, like returning to a home you didn’t know you had drifted from. And there, quietly, taqwa takes root.