Thirty Day Projects for Holy Ramadan

Posted byNoorallah Juma
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Bismillahir Rahmanir Rahim
In the name of Allah, the Most Beneficent, the Most Merciful

Holy Ramadan

Holy Ramadan is a month of piety, supplication, devotion and much effort is given to purify the soul and seek higher spiritual enlightenment. Each believer charts his/her path through a set of personal activities. However, for this Holy Ramadan, we have created three projects for charting your personal spiritual search .

1. Thirty Holy Ginan Gems Augmented with Dhikr

The motivation for this 30-day project is to increase the intensity of prayers during the month of Holy Ramadan. For this purpose, a schedule page and 30 posts for each auspicious night of Holy Ramadan have been prepared. Each post consists of three parts:

  1. A Foundational Holy Ginan or Selected Verses of a Granth;
  2. A dhikr tasbi for each night;
  3. Angelic salwat which is the anchor tasbi for the project.

In the South Asian Ismaili Tradition, we have grown up with these Holy Ginans and have internalized the knowledge, wisdoms, ethics and code of conduct and personal practices. My selection of these Holy Ginans is focused on higher spiritual enlightenment and I hope these would be useful to you in your personal search.

2. Thirty Purification Gems from Pir Pandiyat-i Jawanmardi augmented with Dhikr

The book ‘Advices of Manliness’ (Pandiyat-i Jawanmardi) was translated from Persian to English by W. Ivanow and published as The Ismaili Society Series A No. 6. It has the teachings of Imam Noor Mowlana Shah Mustansir bi’l-laah II. The original text is very repetitive so I selected content and organized it into 40 Enlightenment Norms posts in 2006. For this project, I have selected 30 gems for this project so that each post has four parts:

  1. A gem of knowledge from Pir Pandiyat-i Jawanmardi, or “Advices of Manliness” of Imam NOOR Mowlana Shah Mustansir bi’l-laah II;
  2. A verse from a Holy Ginan or Granth;
  3. A dhikr tasbi for each night;
  4. Angelic salwat which is the anchor tasbi for the project.

In order to seek higher spiritual enlightenment, one has to follow to continually improve one’s standing in terms of ethics, practices and higher knowledge. These gems have been very useful to me in my personal search and have me insights into the Persian or the Farsi tradition of our Holy Faith.

3. Thirty Traits of an Ismaili Dai augmented with Dhikr

For this project, I have used the book ‘A Code of Conduct’, a Treatise on the Etiquette of the Fatimid Ismaili Mission edited and translated by Verena Klemm and Paul E. Walker, published in 2011. This book is a critical edition of the Arabic text and English translation of Ahmad b.Ibrāhīm al-Naysbūrī’s ‘al-Risāla al-mūjaza al-kāfiya fī adab al-duat. This Arabic book was written in the Fatimid Period and all references go back to the Holy Quran. For this project, each post consists of four parts:

  1. Enlightenment teachings from the Holy Qu’ran;
  2. Excerpt(s) from ‘A Code of Conduct—A Treatise of the Etiquette of the Fatimid Ismaili Mission’;
  3. A Dhikr tasbi; and
  4. Angelic salwat

We are now in globalized environment so the knowledge component from this project takes back to the Holy Quran. Thus, our identity has to incorporate this knowledge as well. This is also the remarkable achievement of Noor Mowlana Hazar Imam to bring all this literature forward through the Institute of Ismaili Studies.

By presenting all the above knowledge is small nuggets, it will be easier to sample knowledge across different time periods of the Ismaili Tariqah. This time we have presented three options and wish you great success in your personal search. Ramadan Mubarak.

Ardent Prayers for Holy Ramadan

Ardent Prayers

May our beloved NOOR Mowlana Hazar Imam, through the knowledge and barakat of the Holy Qur'an, Holy Ginans & Qasidas, Ayatul Kursi and Angelic Salwat, grant the global Jamat luminous (noorani) and spiritual (ruhani) tayid (help) to advance materially, spiritually and intellectually. May Mowla bestow Sunshine in our hearts, light in our foreheads, and the inner vision of the Truth in our intellects. Ameen.

May Noor Mowlana Hazar Imam fill our spiritual hearts with his NOOR and nothing else, and empower us to overcome fear, anxiety and uncertainty as we pass through this calamity! Ameen.

May the Almighty Creator help the whole humanity because we are all created from a Single Soul! Ameen.

Rakh Mowla je Noor te Yaqeen (Certainly, we trust in Mowla's Light only)

Haizinda — Qayampaya
(Our Present Imam is Living and His NOOR is Eternal)