Introduction: First off, Ramadan Kareem!! For those who have not yet prepared for this upcoming month of mercy, if there was any time, most epic of the epic, best of the best, it’s gotta be this month, and so were here to get ourselves pumped, get the excitement going, because we never know, this Ramadan may just be our last so gotta make it the best, inshAllah!
Basics of Ramadan: There are just a few main points that need to be made about the upcoming month.
1. Ramadan is the time where everything literally changes and even though we can’t see it, sometimes you can feel it, I think especially at layl a tul Qadr, the night of worship that comes in Ramadan, you can really really sense the transquility of it. Anyways, main thing is things CHANGE. In a lecture by Waleed Basyouni, he explained some of the things that do change. One of the biggest one, as we may all have heard some sort of version of this, that Allah subhana wa ta’ala leaves the gates of Jannah open. The Ramadan is the month of change-everything changes. The gates of Jannah become wide open. So many good deeds are done that lead to Jannah and there so many different acts of worship that can lead to the different gates of Jannah
- § Each gate of jannah is dedicated for some kind of good deed (ar Rayyan for those who fast, middle gate for those who are good to parents, another gate for those who offer salah) In Ramadan, all 8 gates are completely, widely opened, welcoming every Muslim to take the opportunity to come closer to Allah.
- § It is the change with the gates of Hell too, gates of hell are closed, so many people will be freed, so many people will be forgiven. In every single night, Allah will free certain individuals from the hell-fire. (SubhanAllah!)
- § Don’t just aim for your name being mentioned once, try our best so that Allah can say our name every night, promising us safety from the hell fire. We want all of our names to be mentioned by Allah, that “so-and-so peson will be saved from the hell-fire”
- § It is the month of change-even the heads of Shaiateen are chained in this month. The Shaitan is locked up so you know in the 11 months through the year, if we do something bad, we can be like oh man, the shaitan fed this into me, or the shaitan made me do it, well this month, that is one you! You, yourself are the one that did the bad deed, and this thing I find the most scary because you discover your true self in this month and sometimes its not pretty which is really scary.
- § Major changes occur in the universes during this month. Millions and billions of angels come down to Earth, these angels ask for your forgiveness, they say Ameen to your dua’s and they will pray for the acceptance of your deeds.
- § Even on Earth, there is a lot of change. Allah, out of his wisdom, has put certain major incidents to fall in the month of Ramadan. It was not just coincident-it happened for a reason. So many great things happened in Ramadan. In the month of Ramadan, Prophet Musa moved his people to the Promised land. During the month of Ramadan, Allah revealed the books to Musa, Isa, and Ibrahim. And forsure the Quran. And the Quran has changed, reshaped the history of humanity. Major changes have taken place in this month.
- § And most importantly, this month of change, changes people hearts. You’ll see people go in to Ramadan one way, and after Ramadan its like they are a completely different person, like you know they wear hijab or something, they’ve stopped cursing, they don’t listen to music, etc etc and when that sort of change comes about with the right intention, that’s like of like an indicator that that Ramadan was spent well because Ramadan should change all of us in some form whether its inside or something on the outside.
2. Fasting-much more than food. It is a *spiritual cleansing. For so long, we have seen it as a ritual, the first thing when someone thinking fasting is oh yeah, we can’t eat form sunrise to sunset and I had been like this too, but this year I have realized that it is so so so much more. ** If Allah wanted fasting to be all about food, that’s the way it could have been described but instead Ramadan is described in the Quran as the month of Quran, because what is the biggest event that took place- the Quran was revealed so we physically fast from food, water, intimate relationships, so that we can fill our SOUL, our inside, that is starving to have a relationship with Allah, and **so in this month we stay away from physical food to fill our soul with spiritual food which is the Quran.
3. In this month, Allah takes away the halal to enable us that we can stay away from the haram the rest of the year. Staying away from the halal is hard for us cause they are near to us so in this month so if we can stay away from the halal in Ramadan, we can definitely stay away from the haram in the rest of the 11 months.
4. Major purpose in Ramadan is to get closer to Allah, to attain taqwa, to strengthen that spiritual connection, spend a lot of time by yourself, getting to know Allah through the Quran, seeking beneficial knowledge, making tons and tons of Dua.
5. Since the whole purpose of Ramadan is to attain taqwa, we’re gonna talk a little bit about this. The word taqwa actually comes from a world that literally means to shield. The word taqwa itself means being conscious of Allah, fearing Allah but loving him and being in awe of Him.
§ And the word actually comes from a word meaning to shield so in Ramadan, when we try to attain taqwa, you build a shield for yourself, and when you build a shield what is the purpose of that shield? Its to protect yourself right, save yourself from harm? This is a whole different take on things.
§ Normally people enter Ramadan with this desire to do more good, im gonna do good and pray more, and give sadaqa, and this and that, its all about doing more, but less about getting rid of the bad. But Allah teaches us in the Quran that just as good deeds can wipe out bad deeds, bad deeds can also wipe out good deeds, so if youre doing good deeds and still doing haram, then at the end of the day you’re left with nothing right? Positive 1 and negative one make 0, so nothing is left. And Shaykh Omar Suleiman put this so awesomely, He said if you have a cup of water with holes on the bottom, and you keep trying to put water in there, similar to us trying to fill ourselves with good deeds while not eliminating the bad, at the end of the day all the water is gonna pour out of those holes and you have nothing left. He also gave the analogy of you having a thobe, in our case lets say you have an abaya right, a white one and it has a giant purple stain on in, that’s how many of our hearts are, we have so many mistakes so many impurities and then when we get so caught up in doing good deeds, all we are doing is accessorizing that abaya, we are adding sequins to it and glitter and lace and blah blah but the giant purple stain is still there, right? So our priority while still trying to attain good deeds should also be purifying our hearts.
§ Its really really easy to do goods, anyone can do good deeds, but its getting rid of bad ones that really shows how much you love Allah.
Tips:
- · Eating less for iftar,
- · staying away from oily foods,
- · waking up for suhoor,
- · increasing number of sunnah prayers or at least pray them if you normally don’t,
- · stay away from sources that waste time (big one),
- · distant yourself from people so you can spend more time with yourself,
- · when you come to the masjid don’t waste your time chatting it up, go read Quran, you have 11 months to do all of that, hanging out etc, so focus on yourself this month.
- · Set a minimum Quran reading time for yourself like minimum of 20 minutes a day or something, and read it in Arabic but then make sure you’re understanding what you’re reading too.
- · Accomplish one of your goals after Fajr, it’s a productive time!
- · Try to not miss taraweeh prayer, and prepare a little before hand if you don’t speak Arabic.
- · DO not stuff yourself at iftar
- · Iftar time is best time for dua so make tons of dua
- · make a dua list at home
- · make a list of goals
For those who wanna keep a track of everything there doing, here are some resources to stay on track:
>www.heartwheeljournal.com
>http://www.iloveallaah.com/ramadan/Ramadan_checklist.pdf
>http://blog.iloveallaah.com/2010/06/ramadan-resources/
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