Ramadhan: Month of Holy Quran

Ramadan is the (month) in which was sent down the Holy Quran, as a guide to mankind, also clear (Signs) for guidance and judgment (Between right and wrong). So every one of you who is present (at his home) during that month should spend it in fasting, but if any one is ill, or on a journey, the prescribed period (Should be made up) by days later. Allah intends every facility for you; He does not want to put to difficulties. (He wants you) to complete the prescribed period, and to glorify Him in that He has guided you; and perchance ye shall be grateful. Holy Quran (Al-Baqara, 2:185)

As a result of associating this month of Ramadan to the Holy Quran, Allah (SWT) wants us to read His Book in this month. It is not merely reciting its words but trying to understand them and learn the wisdom lying in their concepts. Do they not then meditate on the Quran? And if it were from any other than Allah, they would have found in it many a discrepancy. (Surah An-Nisa, 4:82), so that it will guide us in all our affairs, whether in worship on in social and business dealings. We should learn, guided by Holy Quran, the difference between Right and falsehood, Good and evil, justice and wronging, deviation and following the straight path.

Thus, Allah (SWT) wanted this month of Ramadan to be a month of calling, through asking the people to study Holy Quran, and the scholars to educate the people on Holy Quran, since it is worthless to read Holy Quran if one is not going to appreciate and comprehend it.

And we have seen how Imam Zainul Abideen (as) has described this month of Ramadan as the month of Allah (SWT), The Most Exalted, wants man in to change himself in this month. He should study himself to learn his weak points and strong ones, and then train himself on the good, the right and justice, as opposed to evil, falsehood and wronging. Allah (SWT), The Most Exalted, wants man to stand before Him in a sound mind that embraces truth, a sound heart that beats with mercy and love and a sound body that obeys Allah's commands in what to take and leave.

It is, according to Imam Zainul Abideen (as), the month of purification from all the evil ideas Satan might suggest to man, like making his relations with others based on harming them and deviated from the straight path. Man should purify himself from the inside; the outside cleanness of the body is not what purification actually implies. The real purifications are that of the mind, heart, tongue, goals and relations, so as to stand before Allah (SWT) - when nothing does one any good except his good deeds - with a heart void of disbelief and hatred.

Imam Zainul Abideen (as) stresses too that the month of Ramadan is the month of Islam. In the month of Ramadan, all Muslims should uphold the responsibility of Islam by leaving all what Allah (SWT) has ordained, revealed or conveyed to His Holy Prophet Mohammad (saw) so that it will be a month in which man lives a spiritual and humanistic life. O you who believe! Answer (the call of) Allah and His Messenger when he calls you to that which gives you life; and know that Allah intervenes between man and his heart, and that to Him you shall be gathered.

This month of Ramadan is also the month of peace, in which the Muslim should prove that Islam is the religion of peace. Allah (SWT) has made the greeting which the Muslim says to others to be: "peace on you". And the tradition has related that a greeting has 70 rewards, 69 of them are for the one who says it first. Allah (SWT) wants our greeting to others to be one of peace. They should train on this greeting in this world to move to Paradise, having been accustomed to it, because peace is the salutation of the people of Paradise. The angels also will greet the believers in Paradise with the word of peace, the gardens of perpetual abode which they will enter along with those who do good from among their parents and their spouses and their offspring; and the angels will enter in upon them from every gate: Peace unto you for that ye persevered in patience! Now how excellent is the final home!