Blessings of Allah – Sleep (Naum)
Allah SWT has blessed us with so many gifts which we take for granted. Here we look at the one blessings of Allah swt which occurs in our daily lives; Sleep.
Sleep is such a prestigious gift of Allah to all of His creation. This does not just include us humans, but all the fishes in the seas, animals on land, even the Jinns roaming around are all given rest by Allah the most merciful. Our souls are laid to rest every single night by Allah yet many of us always take this blessing for granted and have never truly appreciated it as it just seems like a natural occurrence to us.
Allah has even instructed us about the importance of sleep through the Quran and Sunnah. After a long day of working, studying etc, our bodies are tired and need rest to re-energise and recuperate for the next day. Look at how Allah switches off the world’s light for us by altering day into night, imagine if there was only daylight 24/7. How would we stay awake so long? we would certainly struggle to sleep. Likewise imagine if Allah never created the concept of ‘sleep’ for us, how would we react and feel? No doubt we would constantly be fatigued and have no energy to live in this world or even fulfil our purpose to worship Allah.
If you want to look deeper into this topic, have you ever thought about whether or not the provider of sleep (Allah), sleeps at all? The answer to this question is actually in part of our daily adhkar and in something we read regularly. When we recite ‘Ayat al Kursi’, we say ‘Laa ta’kuzuhu sinatuw wa laa nawm‘ (Neither slumber nor sleep overtakes Him).
Ibn Kathir tells us of a beautiful story about why Allah never sleeps. Once some Jews asked Prophet Musa (as) whether Allah sleeps or not. Musa (as) then asked Allah whether He sleeps or not.
Allah answers Musa, he says, “Tonight you have to stand the whole night, hold two glass bottles, and you can’t sleep.”
So Musa (as), being a prophet, does as he is instructed and stands with two glass bottles. The first part of the night passes, and his eyelids are getting heavy. Before the night can finish he falls asleep, and falls to the floor. As a result the bottles fall out of his hands and come crashing down.
So the Angels return to Musa (as) and said, “Oh Musa if Allah were to sleep but just for a moment, the seven heavens would come crashing down onto the earth like your bottles smashed the floor!”
SubhanAllah, just ponder over the greatness of our Allah swt, look at how Allah is controlling the heavens and earth at every single second of the day. If Allah was to doze off for just for 1 second, all the 7 heavens would come crashing down on our heads.
Allah has to control the planets, the heavens, the stars, the sun, the moon and all of His creatures’ needs. There are some creatures of Allah like bats who are nocturnal (sleep during the day and are active at night). If Allah were to fall asleep, who would look after these creatures who are dependent on Allah for provision?
There are many pious servants of Allah who spend their nights worshipping him when everyone else is most likely sleeping. And so if Allah were to fall asleep, who would answer these servant’s prayers? Imagine that moment when we remain sleeping at Fajr prayer time, whilst Allah has been awake all night anticipating meeting us at Fajr. Yet we remain asleep and don’t care about Allah or have not even made the intention to get up to pray.
Yes he still blesses us in our daily lives and we cannot event carry out the basic acts for him. How can we ever even think about disobeying such a merciful Lord, who is looking after us for every second of our existence. Has there been a single day in your life where Allah has not given you sleep?
No matter how much you have sinned and disobeyed Allah, Allah has never taken away the sleep that is required for rest and rejuvenation. When we sleep Allah takes away our soul from our body and all that remains is a lifeless body. In the morning Allah returns our souls when we wake up, which is why we should read the morning adhkar (dua) to thank Allah for causing us to live again after we had ‘died’.
There could be the chance that you may sleep one day and never wake up again. A day may come soon where Allah will not return that soul back and we end up waking up in our graves. Are we all ready for that day? Let us all come back to Allah now. Think deeply in your heart’s how can we disobey such a loving God?
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