Remembering Allah

بِسْمِ اللهِ الرَّحْمَنِ الرَّ حِيْمِ

 

Allah says in Surah Baqarah;

Then do ye remember Me; I will remember you.  Be grateful to me, and reject not Faith.  (2:152)

We are all living in the Divine Presence of Allah.  We know that He sees and hears everything, so then why is He telling us about His remembrance in the ayat quoted above?

It is recorded in Hadith Qudsi that Allah the Most High says, “I am with my slave when he thinks of Me and I am with him when he mentions Me.  For if he mentions Me to himself, I mention him to Myself; and if he mentions Me in a gathering, I mention him in superior gathering.  If he approaches Me by a hand's width, I approach him by an arm's length, I approach him by two arms length.  And if he comes to me walking, I hasten to him swiftly".  (Bukhari)

Whenever we engage in the remembrance of Allah by ways of praising Him and glorifying Him we are getting closer and closer to Him.

What we can gather is that Allah wants us to get close to Him.  In retrospect this is easier said than done so He actually meets you along your path to Him.  Look at how merciful He is.  If you make the smallest of efforts to attain closeness to your Creator He comes down to you.  And He further says that He sends a light by which to guide you along the straight path. 

Understand that in regular remembrance of Allah, He will guide you, forgive you and reward you.  If you keep God conscious even if you make a mistake He will forgive you.  Allah wants you to thank Him and appreciate His favours.  And He promises more blessings to those who show gratefulness to Him.

One sage told his people that that he actually knows when Allah is remembering him.  Obviously curious his people asked as to when to which the sage replied whenever I am remembering Him.

So when we engage in any act of remembrance Allah focuses something of His Divine Attention on us. 

Satan on the other hand wants to continuously divert your focus away from your Lord.  Allah says;

Satan's plan is (but) to excite enmity and hatred between you, with intoxicants and gambling, and hinder you from the remembrance of Allah, and from prayer: will ye not then abstain?  (5:91)

Remember if you put your faith and trust in Allah He will attend to you.  This is what true faith is about; trusting Allah especially when you are faced with difficulties.  Some people say that they maintain faith in Allah but you have to tie your camel.  The Sufis say that once you put your faith in Allah your ‘camel has been tied’.

We cannot question nor understand the working of Allah.  He knows that which we don’t.  What we do know is that by constantly remembering Him He remembers us and insh Allah will take care of our affairs.

May Allah enable us to demonstrate throughout our lives true reliance and trust in Him and may He guide us and protect us from situations that divert our focus away from Him.