"Rooting" for Allah

by Hakim Archuletta
September 13, 2007

What an amazing time, Ramadan. I still marvel at how different the experience is every year and how so many people observe with such commitment, a practice that is in some ways so strange and maybe even crazy to anyone looking from the outside. And even for those who find it difficult, no one denies the blessings they always find in Ramadan.

There are such secrets in Ramadan, so much happens in us and such lessons from Allah SWTA for us. One aspect I find unique is the fact that while we can say it is something we do every year; it is, more interestingly, something we do not do. This particular aspect, of it being a unique non –action in some way begins to approximate a truth of our relationship with Allah SWTA. All of our acts of worship and purification are actions, things we do and this one, by not doing in some ways indicates the impossibility of worship as truly befits Allah SWTA. The fact that we express this by not doing, somehow speaks our complete inability to meet such an awesome Reality appropriately. And yet, having said this, at the same time it so very personal! Only Allah in His Wisdom could design such a practice with such perfection for us. In some ways, this represents an essence of our condition - of being created and weak, and yet with the mandate of worship as our only reason for being.

We understand that Ramadan is another practice to purify and cleanse our body spiritually and physically. “The year is a disease and Ramadan is its cure” The Prophet, SAWS said. How is it that? How does it cure? To understand is to help the medicine do its work even though there may be healing simply in the taking of it. If we see healing as a process of becoming whole, then we see it as discovery, change, knowledge and transformation.

Allah is teaching us in Ramadan.

Turning to Him, instead of material things, is an obvious aspect of what we can learn in Ramadan. Turning to remembrance of Him, happens every time we feel hunger and rather than eat, abstain from it. We can look even more closely at what this is might mean. When experiences are particularly meaningful or repeated and we adapt to them accordingly, we call it conditioning or patterning. Immediately after our birth in this world, we experience some major events, instrumental in patterning by virtue of being so primary. First, there is breathing itself, a monumental task we must complete. Depending on its ease or difficulty, it may dramatically affect us and play greatly in our conditioning. All mammals take part in this activity and all have varying degrees of difficulty or ease in it. After the birth and breathing are accomplished, the next impulse designed in us By Allah SWTA is what is called the “rooting” impulse, the drive to find the breast. It happens for us as a kind of sideways, swimming movement naturally towards the breast. We know where it is and even have the impulses in the nerves and muscles to make that journey. Even if the baby is assisted and taken to the breast, or even if taken away, the rooting impulse is there. Some midwives and birthing experts say that the rooting impulse is best allowed to play out to some degree and see it as a valuable developmental experience. Many believe that all of the natural impulses designed in us By Allah, SWTA are best kept as intact as possible, respected and that when thwarted can, by offence to His design, create problems. The rooting experience is a first task in this world, one of seeking and finding! What a primary drive for us all, what an elemental one played out ever after in so many ways.

This impulse, and the pattern in this of i)want, ii) get and iii) ok in suckling then becomes a major part of our life, for those first days, weeks, months and a great part of all we know, and who we are. Along with being held, being cleaned, the new sounds, smells and all else that affect these most primary impulses and feelings, the pattern is begun. Want- Get –OK, three aspects of the pattern that will be with us for years to come.

In Ramadan, this infantile pattern is, ideally, broken and a new pattern allowed to emerge, a new seeking and finding. We no longer need the breast, we no longer need food, no longer need but very little of the material world and we find satisfaction in the closeness of Allah for whom we are fasting in the first place. The fast then becomes for Allah and “for Allah” in the direction in which we turn.

Jalaludin Rumi said “the world is a breast” and for many, the infantile wanting, needing of a breast in the form of someone, something, anything, outside of ourselves continues. This finds its way into such sophisticated, complex and usually confused ways of acting out in which we, at best, only find partial or temporary relief. The seeking of knowledge can even be a seeking of the breast if we hope for its support other than that of Allah SWTA in gaining it.

If we are successful in this turning, we begin to see how the stuff of this world, be it milk, wealth, sex or success, whatever, is not what sustains us, what does is Allah’s Command. At every moment without which we would, in our very bodies with all its complex and miraculous ways of maintaining balance and function, move into annihilation and out of what we call existence. Anyone who studies the body or medicine knows this even if they do not recognize the implications of it. It is not food that sustains us; it is not the material of this world at all. His Protection and Rahmah holds us closer than our mother did to her breast, it continues, and is ongoing, be it in states of hunger, difficulty, ease or pleasure, in conditions of abundance or poverty. “He is closer to you than your carotid artery” Qur’an. How do we forget this?

Want, Get, and feel OK, this is what we start Ramadan with, the “disease of the year”.
One sheikh said, that even the poor are greedy and only for bits of string and beans, beans or Mercedes, string or kingdoms, none bring peace in themselves. We so often speak about “materialism” as Muslims and we preach against it but when it comes down to it, we quickly rush to explain that material wealth is not in conflict with being “spiritual” and that is true, but have you made the courageous journey in turning to Allah, really, and not substituted the things of this world for that turning in yourself? Have you truly found peace in yourself, whatever your material status?

Insha Allah we gain more than hunger and simply “getting through” the month of Ramadan. And when you break your fast, observe how beautiful, how delicious and how satisfying that single date and a small sip of water, taken with family or a dear brother or sister, is. And ask your self: “What is Allah SWTA teaching me here and what is it I really need?”


I recommend, at anytime and as frequent or infrequent as you can (not necessarily during Ramadan) as a lesson, the meal of a simple piece of bread and maybe a few small sips of water. I recommend that this meal be taken with the condiment of reflection and as much recognition and presence of awareness of the incredible reality in this simple action as a means to awaken the sense in ourselves of the truth of our reality. This is presence with the self, with what Allah SWAT has created in ourselves, presence with the awesome process that took place in the growth of the plant that gave the seed that produced the flour that was made into bread and that by His command and as a portion of our rizq arrives before us with our name on it. As seasoning I suggest an awareness of the thousands and thousands of nerves, in place by His Design, enabling such taste and smell in that experience, knowing that this simple piece of bread is so much more than that so we might then say, with genuine honesty, maybe in a way that once and for all we truly mean, by certainty, Alhamdulillah!