5 ways to make this Ramadan extraordinary!
Assalamualaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuhu,
My dear
friends and students,
Welcome to our long-lost
friend: Ramadan. How we have missed the days of self-restraint and
the nights of mercy and delight! After eleven months of sinning, we
now have the opportunity to avail ourselves of a month of mercy and
forgiveness. For those whose duas have not been answered, the month
of answered duas has arrived. For those who have drifted away from
the soothing night prayer, or who have never achieved it, the month
of the blessed taraweeh has arrived. Welcome to our Lord's mercy:
the month of Ramadan. No doubt each and every one of us approaches
Ramadan with a special excitement. Alas for many of us, however:
the excitement is met with fear and dread instead.
Will this Ramadan be like the
previous ones where I failed to truly take full advantage and mend
my ways?
Will this Ramadan only
demonstrate to me how far away from Allah I truly am?
Will it be yet another month
that passes by without my taking full advantage of it?
If you are feeling this way,
know that you are not alone. Many of us feel this way and do not
know how to tackle it. As a result, the fear and dread are enough
for us to avoid setting new goals and higher aspirations for this
month. As a result, we find ourselves at the end of the month in
the situation of having failed to benefit from this opportunity and
languishing in sorrow at the thought that we will never
improve.
I too used to get these
whispers and thoughts in my mind. However, I overcame these
thoughts with the help of Allah. Here are five things that I have
done to tackle these "Ramadan blues". Let me share them with you;
perhaps the suggestions may benefit you, and help you to overlook
the past and focus on the future.
Good thoughts
about Allah: I remind
myself that my Lord is most Generous and Kind. He loves me
sincerely. The proof is that even when I disobey Him He still
provides for me. That is why He is giving me yet another Ramadan;
yet another opportunity to get closer to Him again. He loves to
forgive, and His best friends are those who seek His forgiveness
the most. He has brought me to another Ramadan so that I can have
yet another chance at Laylatul Qadr, and yet another chance to make
my duas accepted at the time of iftar, and yet another chance to do
Hajj with Rasul-Allah (sall-Allahu 'alaihi wa sallam) by doing
umrah in this month. He has brought me to Ramadan to sooth the
sorrows in my heart with His remembrance, and for me to be reminded
of the nights in my grave by the solitude of i'tikaaf; by seeing
how it feels to be alone with Him in the mosque. He wants me to
lighten the load on my mind, so that is why He has given me the
month of the Qur'an: so that I can relive the amazing Word of my
Rabb (Lord and Master). The salaf (pious predecessors) would beg
Allah for another opportunity for Ramadan, so how fortunate I am
that He has given me this chance once again. How fortunate I am
that He has given me the chance to know when this month is, so that
I can take advantage of it. How fortunate I am that He has given me
the yearning in my heart to meet my Lord in this month - and I know
that the one who loves to meet His Lord, Allah subhaanahu wa ta'ala
also loves to meet him.
Forget the
past and focus on the future: I remind myself that past deeds are
just that; a matter of the past. I live for the future, not the
past. The past will be forgiven insha'Allah if I can mend the
future. My concern should be the next deed that I do, because Allah
loves to forgive; so I can have every confidence that He will
forgive the past because I have nothing but regret for my past
sins. The most important consideration for me is what sort of
amends I make now. I remind myself of what Imam Ibnul-Qayyim (rahimahu-Allah) said in
his Nooniyyah:
By Allah I am
not afraid of my past sins,
For indeed
they are upon the path of repentance and forgiveness;
Rather my real
concern is that [in the next deed] this heart
Might cease to
act upon revelation and upon the noble Qur'an.
Evaluate
previous attempts in order to plan a strategy to make it work this
time: I remember that
it is illogical to think that my future chances of success are a
reflection of my failures in the past. My past inabilities only
show me what to do better this time so that I can increase my
chances this time around. So if I tried to pray taraweeh every
night but failed, I should look back at what happened in order to
learn lessons from those failures. Was it that the Imam's
recitation was not good? If so, then let me try to find a mosque to
go to whose Imam recites better. If I failed to complete reciting
the whole Qur'an last year, let me look at why that was the case
and how I can change it. Can I put up reminders to read the Qur'an,
or shall I buy a few more copies of the Qur'an and put them in more
convenient places, such as one in my car, another in my briefcase
and another on my table, so that I have a mushaf always on hand? If
I missed getting up for fajr last Ramadan, why did it happen and
how can I change it? Perhaps I should buy more alarm clocks, so let
me go to the store right now. Perhaps I should SMS my friends to
start a fajr prayer-calling group so that each day one of us is
responsible for waking the others up. Perhaps I should make my
suhur my heaviest meal so that my body feels hungry at suhur-time
and so I get up more easily.
Reward,
challenge and penalise myself: I can plan and prepare to reward
myself if I finish this Ramadan satisfactorily. So I tell myself
that if I can make myself pray all my prayers at the earliest time
this Ramadan and recite the Qur'an five times this month, then I
will buy myself a new laptop; if I can recite it ten times then I
will go away with my family for a holiday, or some other
significant reward that I know I would definitely like to treat
myself with. I warn myself that if I fail to at least recite the
Qur'an five times in this month, then I will donate a thousand
dollars to charity. I remind myself that even Allah's Messenger
sall-Allahu 'alaihi wa sallam used to give worldly rewards to those
who excelled in battle: e.g. half the war-booty from the raids to
the Muslim knights who had taken part in the raid; he (sall-Allahu
'alaihi wa sallam) would consider it a great sin upon the one who
fails to join the obligatory battle. In the same spirit of reward,
challenge and penalty, I would do this for my children and my wife
as well by helping them with a reward if they do something
extraordinary this month, and a penalty if they did not even do the
minimum extra level. In this way I can give them an added incentive
to do good in this limited time of Ramadan. I remind myself that
ultimately we must do it for Allah and never for a physical prize,
but associating an emotional desire with an action and fear of a
punishment at the non-performance of it will cause that action to
be foremost in the subconscious part of my mind. I remind myself
that the worst thing about not making this Ramadan special is going
to be something worse than the penalty I have stipulated. It will
be the disappointment of a Ramadan wasted, and the risk of Allah's
wrath.
Create
peer-pressure and responsibility: I remind myself that if I make my
friends and family aware of some of my goals, then they might help
me. So I share some of my goals with them, ensuring that I am doing
it to engage their help in performing it, not in a spirit of
boasting. I hope that this will give me added support and
encouragement to ensure that they help me in achieving the good
things I have set out to do. If they do not help, at the very least
they should not mind when I excuse myself from their service or
company in order to spend some time on working towards my
goal.
I hope that some or all of
these things will help you to look upon this Ramadan with a fresh
outlook. Make lots of dua to Allah that this Ramadan will be
special for you, for your family, and for the Ummah of our beloved
sall-Allahu 'alaihi wa sallam. I am interested in hearing from you
if you have other things that you do to focus positively at the
advent of another Ramadan.
Jazaakumullahulkhair and my
duas for you and your family for a fantastic and blessed Ramadan,
insha'Allah;
wassalamualaikum wa
rahmatullahi wa barakatuhu,
Tawfique
Chowdhury
Director
General
AlKauthar
Institute and Mercy Mission World
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