Rerouting…Training our Nafs (inner temptations)

Many people have heard the Hadith that is narrated in Bukhari stating that in Ramadan the devils are chained up. This hadith is a Sahih Hadith , however many people question that there are many bad deeds that continue in Ramadan so what does this Hadith mean? There are various explanations about the chaining of the devils. In a nutshell we should understand that shaytan is not the only one who inclines us to do bad and he is not stronger than us- we have made him stronger. Our nafs or temptations have become so weak that we give into every wrong that we see. This Ramadan lets make an effort to make ourselves strong and evaluate ourselves. Ramadan is a time to reflect upon our actions and see how strong our faith is. We need to stop treating Ramadan as a one month to be good and then do whatever we want. It’s time to use these blessed 30 days to train our nafs. There are so many articles about how to train your body to eat healthy. A similarity in all of the articles is consistency makes the difference. Nafs is no different. It is important to be consistent and get ourselves in the habit of doing good and abstaining from wrong. Rerouting our mindset to analyze our inner self is what will make the difference. In Arabic this is called “Muhasiba Nafs” which literally translates into “accountability of oneself.”