While making New Year’s Resolutions is not a common Islamic practice, making promises is a part of Islamic tradition. The Muhammad Asad translation of Chapter 48 Verse 10 of the Holy Qur’an reads, “Behold, all who pledge their allegiance to thee pledge their allegiance to God: the hand of God is over their hands. Hence, he who breaks his oath, breaks it only to his own hurt; whereas he who remains true to what he has pledged unto God, on him will He bestow a reward supreme.” This verse refers to the pledge that the companions of the Prophet Muhammad gave him at Hudaibiyah when it was unknown whether their fellow companion Uthman had been killed and they faced the possibility of an attack by the Meccans.
While there are differences in how this tradition of making promises has been followed, such as Shia Muslims pledging their allegiance to the Imam of the time and students pledging allegiance to follow the guidance of the shaykh of their order, there is the commonality of making a promise to Allah — a pledge to submit our will to God’s will — to do our best to follow Allah’s way as we understand it. Accordingly, we can all benefit from making and renewing our promise to Allah as part of our welcoming the new year or otherwise.
- Perform wudu (the ritual ablution).
- Read aloud one or both of the following.
A short bayat (promise)* to strengthen our relationship with Allah:
I promise Allah to be one of His children, to carry His religion, the religion of unity and of all the prophets. I promise Allah to be honest, to be sincere, to walk straight for the face of Allah, to care about my body, my heart, my soul, and my spirit. I promise Allah to carry the message of peace and love and mercy and justice, the message of all the holy prophets all my life. I promise Allah not to make any separation, and to carry love for all people. I promise Allah to walk in His way, the way of all the prophets from the prophet Abraham to the prophet Moses to the prophet Jesus to the prophet Muhammad, blessings and peace be upon them all, and not to make any separation between them.
Al-Bayat al-Kubrah (The Big Promise)* — a promise to renew our commitment to embody the message of Islam:
I promise Allah and His prophets that I am content, Allah is my Lord, complete surrender to Allah’s will (Islam) is my religion, Muhammad is a prophet and a messenger, Abraham is a prophet and a messenger, Moses is a prophet and a messenger, Jesus is a prophet and a messenger, the qibla [the direction toward the Kaaba at the Sacred Mosque in Mecca] is the direction of prostration, the Qur’an is the guidance from Allah, and the believers are brothers and sisters.
I promise that I will not associate anything with Allah. I believe in His angels, His holy books, and His messengers. I make no separation between His messengers.
I accept that Allah created people from mud, their father is Adam, and Eve is their mother. There is no difference between them. In the eyes of Allah, the noble ones of humankind are the most righteous and virtuous.
I promise Allah that I will care the message of unity that was carried by all His prophets. It is what Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) carried. It contains the message of Peace, Love, Mercy, Justice, and Freedom.
I promise that I will work on helping those who are poor and who are needy and that I will work for the message of unity.
- Perform two rakats (the prescribed movements and recitations of a cycle of the obligatory Islamic prayer).
*Both above promises are based on those issued by Shaykh Muhammad al-Jamal ar-Rifa’i.
— Habib Todd Boerger