Tonight is the 24th night. Eid has been announced — next Friday, insha’Allah. That means 29 nights of Ramadan this year. Which means we have five nights left.
Before anything else — stay out of the arguments about moon sighting. Online or otherwise. This is not the time. There is a hadith that the Prophet ﷺ was once shown the exact night of Laylatul Qadr and was on his way to tell the companions — when he found them arguing among themselves. And Allah caused him to forget it. That knowledge was lifted because of the dispute. Arguments in the community literally cost us Laylatul Qadr. Don’t be that person. Not in these last few nights.
Quick Recap Before We Move Forward
Last night we covered the four adabs of du’a from ayat 55 and 56:
The external two — tadarru’, humility of body and word, and khufya, keeping your voice low and not screaming at Allah. The internal two — khawf, fear that Allah might ignore us the way we’ve been ignoring Him, and tama’, that deep aching hope that He — and only He — can answer.
Both pairs working together. The outside and the inside. The posture and the heart.
And then ayah 56 ends with a statement that stopped us last night: inna rahmatallaahi qaribun minal muhsineen — indeed, the mercy of Allah is near to those who are muhsineen.
We said we’d come back to it. So let’s.
Who Are the Muhsineen?
Ihsan. We go back to Hadith Jibril — the hadith where Jibril came to the Prophet ﷺ in the form of a man and asked him about Islam, then Iman, then Ihsan. And the Prophet ﷺ defined ihsan as: to worship Allah as if you see Him. And if you cannot see Him — know that He sees you.
That feeling of being permanently, completely seen. Not watched in the surveillance sense. Seen in the sense that matters — that Allah knows. That nothing is hidden. That what you do alone in the dark is exactly as real as what you do in front of people.
A person with ihsan finds it hard to misbehave. Because wherever they go, they carry that awareness. They are, if anything, better in private than in public — because they’re not performing for anyone. They are performing only for Allah.
The Prophet ﷺ is the living example. When he led the jama’ah in prayer, he kept it relatively short. He was always conscious of who was behind him — the elderly, mothers, children. He would actually turn and look at the congregation before beginning prayer, taking stock of who was there, adjusting accordingly. When Mu’adh ibn Jabal once led a prayer and launched into a long portion of Surah Al-Baqarah, the Prophet ﷺ pulled him aside after and said: ya Mu’adh, what is this fitna? There are people behind you.
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But when the Prophet ﷺ prayed alone? Abdullah ibn Abbas narrated that he prayed behind the Prophet ﷺ one night. First raka’ah — Surah Al-Baqarah. Second raka’ah — Surah Ali Imran. Ibn Abbas eventually had to break his wudu, renew it, and come back. The Prophet was still praying. No audience. No performance. That is ihsan.
And then there was the lady of the bukhur. There was a woman at the Prophet’s masjid whose duty was to bring incense and make the masjid smell beautiful. No name recorded. Just her role, quietly, faithfully. One night she passed away. She was washed, shrouded, and buried before Fajr — the companions didn’t want to disturb the Prophet ﷺ over someone they considered insignificant. After Fajr he turned around, noticed she was absent, and asked where she was. They told him. He said: why didn’t you wake me? And then he went to her grave and prayed Salatul Janazah over it.
The cleaner. The incense lady. He noticed. He cared. He went. That is ihsan expressed outward — toward the people around you.
