The Prophet (pbuh) has told us about a people that show up on the Day of Judgment. And this is perhaps the scariest thing of them all; completely bankrupt. The prophet (Pbuh) said, a person comes on the Day of Judgment and they have their prayers, they have their fasting, they have their charity, but they cursed this person. They mocked this person, they hit this person, and they backbit this person. They have all of these wrongdoings that they committed against the people so that the people line up in front of them on the Day of Judgment and they take their good deeds away from the transgressor.

A person is left with absolutely nothing to the point that they still have those that they owe, but they don’t have any good deeds left.

And the Prophet (Pbuh) mentions at that point that those that they have wrong but still have not gotten their recourse, they will put their sins on you. And so you’ll end up exchanging your good deeds for no good deeds and then eventually being burdened in the sins of of other people because you have no more good deeds to give to the people that are lined up in front of you.

Allah has made sacred the honor of people and Allah (swt) has made sacred the rights of people. And so you have to be very careful not to transgress.

The time for reconciliation and how we start to make up with people that we may have hurt or people that we were hurt by, where there was a mutual hurting that took place.

Number one, that a person, first and foremost has to come to the conclusion that it’s not worth it. It’s not worth losing out on the pleasure of Allah (swt). I don’t want my needs to not be looked at by Allah because I refuse to put my ego to the side and reconcile with this person. So I will reconcile with this person.

The second thing is that the entire exercise of Ramadan is the preference of Allah to yourself, right? to swallow your anger and to part in the people is one of the greatest exercises of preferring Allah (Swt) to yourself.

As Wadil (Rah) says, the nufs of ego is so much harder to overcome and so when you swallow that, and when you pardon people and when you reconcile and you put your nufs down, that is the greatest show to Allah (Swt), that you are seeking Him over yourself, that you are seeking His pleasure over your own pleasure, that you are willing to go through the difficulties of that process so that you could find ease on the day of judgment.

The third thing, that the prophet (pbuh) reminded us that when we are in a place of anger, that we want to disconnect ourselves from acting while the Satan is overtaking us, what does that mean?

The fourth thing: family, right now, we are seeing a time in which people cut off their lineage and to sever the ties of kinship / Ar- Rahim is far more severe than severing the ties with anyone else, and those ties are tied to the throne of Allah (swt). And whoever severs the ties, then Allah (swt) severs them.

If the sin of ignoring your brother for three days is so severe than what then of the sin of ignoring your parents, ignoring your spouses, ignoring your siblings for more than three days?

So reconciliation with family should be prioritized, because the relationship with family is so much more sacred and so much more precious than any other relationship that you’re going to find in your life.

Number five and I don’t want to be little in any way. if a person maintains a difficult relationship or a person holds a grudge, that holding of the grudge will directly burden you and hold you back from being able to take that next step towards Allah (swt).

When you remove a grudge and when you reconcile when you get over that hump, it allows you to focus on your spirituality because we are creatures that only have a certain capacity and in our limited capacity, If we fill that capacity with hatred or if we fill it with a grudge, then we can’t sleep at night, can’t think about other things during the day, we can’t fill our hearts with the love of Allah (swt) because we’re too busy filling them with the hatred of someone else.

We can’t experience the Sakina / the tranquility of our prayers because we’re too busy focused on the distraction and the enmity and the hatred and the hardship that comes with a difficult relationship or someone that we’re upset with or someone that we feel wronged by.

Ramadan is a time for us to set new paths towards Allah (swt). It’s time for the good doers to excel further; it’s a time for the sinners to abandon their sins.

Holding a grudge is like drinking poison and waiting SubhanAllah, when a person is talking about fasting from drinking, you don’t want to drink the poison of a grudge. You wait for the other person to be hurt. But at the end of the day, you are the one that remains in a state of pain.

And so doing away with that grudge is like doing away with that poison that you have been drinking and that has been holding you back And Allah knows how hard it is to forgive, And that’s why Allah (swt) forgives those that forgive.