Part One : Amn, Iman, and Spiritual Responsibility
At the Door of the Month: A Spirit Descending
My dear friends,
We now stand at the door of the month of Ramadan. This month was deeply honored by the Messenger, and he invited us to honor it as one welcomes a descending divine spirit, like the divine spirit that descends every night during the last third of the night.
There is a spirit that descends.
That is to say, a divine frequency.
A vibration of rahma, rahma in the sense of love, forgiveness, compassion, but also stimulation, awakening, a boosting of spiritual intelligence and spiritual consciousness.
Ramadan is not merely a calendar.
It is an atmosphere.
A density.
A field.
The Prophet taught us to make ourselves available to this spirit.
He begins with this supplication:
Allahumma ahilahu ʿalayna bil amni wal iman wa salama wal islam wa tawfiq li ma tuhibbu wa tarda.
And while looking at the moon:
Rabbi wa Rabbuka Allah.
Amn: The Forgotten Priority
Al-Amn.
Peace.
Security.
Inner and outer stability.
Psychological.
Social.
Political.
The Prophet begins with this.
This is not incidental.
He does not begin with “more practices.”
He does not begin with “more effort.”
He begins with amn.
This is a hierarchy.
A society without amn cannot develop Iman.
A heart without amn cannot access inner Islam.
Seeking amn today is an urgency.
Whoever disturbs peace in the name of religion goes against this prophetic invocation.
Iman : Far More Than Belief
Then comes al-Iman.
The second request is al-iman. Often translated as belief. Sometimes as faith. But I insist : al-iman is a spiritual and social commitment.
A commitment to found, to build, to develop a human society that does not seek its security at the expense of other human beings. A society that does not seek its peace against the peace of others, but rather a mutual peace grounded in developed consciousness, a universal consciousness.
Al-Iman, as the Prophet explained repeatedly, means becoming a trustworthy person, a sadiq amin.
A sincere person.
A person who does not lie.
A person who does not cheat.
A person who respects their neighbor.
A person who does not harm others.
A person whose presence brings safety.
The Mu’min is the one who carries the amanah with responsibility.
The Mu’min is the one to whom one can entrust money, keys, honor, knowing that this amanah will not be neglected.
Thus, Iman is a project, a muhammadan project.
Al-Amn was at the heart of the Abrahamic supplication:
Rabbi ijʿal hadha al-balad amina.
With the Muhammadan renewal of the universal message, the project becomes that of Iman.
What was Kitab becomes Qur’an.
What was mission becomes transmission.
What was request and search for security becomes the responsibility to establish it.
The responsibility to become trustworthy and to build a space of mutual trust.
It has been reduced to belief.
It has been reduced to faith.
But al-Iman, in Muhammadan pedagogy, is an existential quality and a civilizational project.
Salama and Islam: Integrity and Alignment
As-Salama: to remain whole.
Not fragmented.
Not torn in a thousand directions.
As-Salama is integrity. Remaining whole. Remaining intact. Not allowing oneself to be fragmented by the contradictory tensions of the ego.
Then comes al-Islam.
Not here in its legalistic sense reduced to five pillars, but as the summit of the din. As a spiritual state.
Alignment with the Divine.
Zero resistance.
Perfect alignment.
Perfect submission to complete light.
Alignment with the Whole and the One.
Why connect as-Salama to al-Islam?
Because one cannot align with the Whole and the One while internally fragmented.
How can you align with the One if you are pulled in a thousand directions?
How can you be aligned if you are divided?
Without inner integrity, there is no authentic Islam.
Islam without salama becomes empty form.
Iman without amn becomes ideology.
At-Tawfiq: Embodied Wisdom
Then comes at-Tawfiq.
Tawfiq is active concordance with the Divine.
Li ma tuhibbu wa tarda, for what You love to see from me.
It is alignment manifested in action.
It is embodied wisdom.
Knowing what to say at the right time.
Knowing when to remain silent.
Knowing how to seize openings and opportunities.
Knowing how to enter through the door.
Knowing how to recognize openings of grace.
Knowing how to step into portals of grace.
Knowing how to seize the moment.
It is Islam translated into behavior.
Tawfiq is the living manifestation of inner Islam.
Rabbi wa Rabbuka Allah : Shared Growth
The Prophet then says:
Rabbi wa Rabbuka Allah.
He speaks to the moon as to a living being.
The One who makes you grow makes me grow.
The One who makes me grow makes you grow.
This month is a month of growth.
Rabbi wa Rabbuka Allah becomes a state of mind.
When I meet someone: Rabbi wa Rabbuka Allah.
In the street.
In the mosque.
With my children.
We share the same process of growth.
I safeguard my spiritual growth.
I safeguard the growth of others.
I prepare a space of tarbiyya, of spiritual growth.
The Messenger’s Teaching Continues
As-Siyam: Returning to the Axis
The Prophet says:
“As-siyam laysa min at-taʿam wa shurab.”
As-Siyam is not merely abstaining from food and drink. It is not reduced to fasting.
It is abstention in the broader sense.
Self-mastery.
Returning to the axis.
The Messenger continues, in other teachings and narrations, to clarify what this means:
It means:
Abstaining from lying.
Abstaining from sabotage.
Abstaining from words of zour.
Abstaining from actions founded on falsehood.
Responding:
“Inni sa’im, inni sa’im.”
I am in a state of consecration.
Even in the face of insult.
Even in the face of aggression.
If anger arises:
Sit down if you are standing.
Calm yourself.
Return to your center.
All of this can be summarized in one word : al-Iman, as I defined it above.
Part TWO : The First Night : The Invisible Architecture of the Month and the Importance of Referring to Astronomy
Let Us Pause on the First Night
According to prophetic tradition, when the first night of Ramadan arrives, the eve of the first day of sawm :
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the shayatin (devils who seek to divide) and rebellious spirits are chained
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the gates of hell are closed
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the gates of paradise are opened
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a cosmic call resounds
O seeker of good, advance.
O seeker of harm, restrain yourself.
But let us reflect.
Sawm begins at sunset.
Not at dawn.
The eve is already an entry into the month.
The beginning carries baraka.
Takbirat al-ihram.
Bismillah.
The letter B.
The initial momentum often determines continuity.
For me, and I am not alone in saying this, this first night is Laylat al-Qadr.
Why?
Because intention is more powerful than a thousand mechanical actions.
The night of decision is more decisive than accumulated acts without consciousness.
It is the night we receive the Guest.
The night we choose to enter.
The Night of Doubt… or the Night of Courage ?
And yet…
What has this night become?
A “night of doubt”, what a strange name.
Indeed, it has become a night of confusion, one that plants doubt in many minds, including mine.
Not doubt about the goodness of the message.
But doubt about whether those who insist on this archaic method truly wish us well and are fully conscious.
The first night, meant to be a night of universal forgiveness, has become:
A night of division.
A night of dispute.
A night of rivalry between mosques, between countries, sometimes even between members of the same family.
“It’s tomorrow.”
“No, it’s the day after.”
“We follow this country.”
“We follow this calculation.”
Worse than divergence or fracture,
the real problem is the lost opportunity.
We could:
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unify the dates through precise astronomy
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plan our holidays
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harmonize families
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present a face of unity
Competent astronomers such as Hassan Talbi have proposed reliable methods.
We could know Ramadan and ʿAïd a year in advance.
Yet there is resistance.
Why ? Is this “Taqwa”? Fear of making a mistake? Loyalty to old juridical texts ? A desire to cling to Tradition?
There was a time when I was conciliatory. But today I say clearly to the guardians of tradition:
If we want to follow the hadith literally, then let us follow it completely:
Each person should climb a hill and look with the naked eye.
Why accept optical instruments but refuse astronomical calculations ? Where is the coherence ?
“Seeing” is not limited to ocular vision.
To see is to establish certainty.
The Prophet proposed the simplest and most accessible method of his time.
The Qur’an says:
Faman shahida minkum ash-shahr fal-yasumh.
It does not say: “whoever sees the crescent.”
Shahida means to be present. To bear witness.
Bearing Witness to the Month: Presence and Maturity
We say: shahida Badran.
It means: he was present. He attended.
Literally:
Whoever is present during the month, let them commit to it.
More deeply:
Whoever develops conscious presence toward the month, let them enter into sawm.
To bear witness does not merely mean to be biologically alive.
It means:
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to be receptive
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to be available
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to be aligned
The first question is not:
Did I see the moon?
The first question is:
Am I present ?
Am I inwardly available ?
If I spend the first night debating, proving I am right, defending my group, then I may be biologically alive, but spiritually absent.
True maturity begins here.
True Siyam Begins Before Hunger
Perhaps true siyam begins here:
Abstaining from food
but also from ego.
Abstaining from drink
but also from the need to prevail.
Returning to the axis.
Returning to the center.
Without unified intention, a thousand calculations will not suffice.
But with clear intention, we will see what is best for all.
The Real Question
The real question is not :
When does Ramadan begin ?
The real question is :
When does our spiritual maturity begin ?
When do we decide:
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to prioritize amn
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to embody Iman
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to preserve Salama
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to live Islam
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to manifest Tawfiq
