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In the dua for the days of the month of Ramadan, many things are requested of God. It is a very good dua. By Allah’s favor, read and contemplate on this dua, if you have the opportunity to do so. It is an astonishing dua: in it Imam (a.s.) has taught us to make requests that oneself cannot think of: he teaches us what we can ask of God. One of the things that we ask God for, in this dua, is liberation from a number of things. I will mention to you what they are: liberation from lack of motivation and the disease of indifference, liberation from lack of enthusiasm for work – notice that it does not occur to us that these things are a disease or a malady and therefore, we should ask Allah the Exalted to save us from these maladies and to give us the cure for them – liberation from ignorance and liberation from the hardness of one’s heart.

The last one occurs when one’s heart becomes hard in the face of divine dhikrs and sympathetic advice. Our hearts become stiff when someone offers a well-intentioned word of advice. The exact sentence is this, “And save me from laziness, exhaustion and tiredness, from lack of motivation, from hard-heartedness, from indifference and negligence, and from arrogance.” We should liberate ourselves from such things. In this dua, we ask God to save us from these things.

Now, what are the consequences of these sins – these were a few sins, there are other great sins as well – for us? One of the consequences is that when we commit a sin, we lose our power and energy at a sensitive time. An ayah in the Holy Quran states: “Those of you who turned back on the day the two hosts met, it was Satan who caused them to fail, because of some evil they had done.” [The Holy Quran, 3: 155] In the Battle of Uhud, those who could not tolerate and whose hearts beat quickly for the desire of war spoils, forgot about their sensitive responsibility; thus, they turned a winning war into a losing one: “It was Satan who caused them to fail, because of some evil they had done.”

They had committed some sins before, and these sins manifested themselves there [at the battle]. —This is one stage. Our sins work, in a way, if we fail to show tolerance, or resist at a sensitive times and at a turning point. Well, we are the officials of the country. All of us – ranging from this humble person to executive, judiciary, and legislative officials, and other individuals in this chain of responsibilities – are responsible. If we act in a way that we become the embodiment of this ayah, “It was Satan who caused them to fail.” If our legs tremble or if we fail to show steadfastness at a time when steadfastness is necessary, then we will be exposed to a very grave danger. —This is another stage.

A stage that is higher, worse than the previous, is if we commit a wrongdoing which causes us to act hypocritical; in other words, our tongues do not reveal what exist in our hearts. A holy ayah reveals, “He has put as a consequence hypocrisy into their hearts, till the day whereon they shall meet Him, because they broke their covenant with Allah.” [The Holy Quran, 9: 77] If you do not honor your covenant with God, if you go back on the promise that you made before Him, this leads to “So He has put as a consequence hypocrisy into their hearts.” Of course, there is a completely logical rule to this, but there is no time to explain how a sin leads to hypocrisy in individuals.

A stage which takes one even higher, is that sometimes, our sins, our wrongdoings, and our deviations cause us to – God forbid – deny the signs of God: “In the long run, evil in the extreme will be the end of those who do evil for that they rejected the signs of Allah.” [The Holy Quran, 30: 10]—The cure for this is self-care. We should watch and supervise ourselves. We should increase motivation in our organization, and we should work harder. So, our responsibility is to work hard, to avoid sins and – to put it briefly – to show piety. Piety, which has been considered as the main philosophy and goal of fasting in the month of Ramadan, involves this.

June 14, 2016