Al-Muhajiroon Magazine’s Ramadan issues

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم

Assalamu Alaikum.

“Magazine?”

Somehow, I knew that word would catch your eye.

What is “Al-Muhajiroon”?

Well, that’s the name of a bi-monthly magazine run by the sisters at the Enlightened into Islam Center in Kuwait.  [Here’s their blog.]

And it’s quite nice indeed. [Those of you who want to know more about the Names of Allah will REALLY like it. They have an article on a Name in each issue.]

You can download all the previous issues here.

Here are the Ramadan issues:

[Click on the picture to download the issue.]

1) Servitude in Fasting (Year 1429 AH)

2) What is after Ramadan? (Year 1430 AH)

3) Two Occasions of Joy for the Person Observing Saum (Fasting) (Year 1431 AH)

4) Patience and Gratitude during the Month of Ramadan (Year 1432 AH)

5) Lailatul Qadr – The Night of Decree (Year 1433 AH i.e. this year’s edition)

The Centre has also produced a couple of books. You can find them all online here.

Two of them are related to Ramadan:

[Click on the picture to download the book.]

1) The Verdicts of Fasting

2) Zakaat-ul-Fitr (The Breaking Fast Charity)

PS. It’s a total coincidence that three of the last four posts (including this one) have links to Islamic magazines.

Ramadan is over…

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم

Assalamu Alaikum.

Yup, it’s over.

[Or at least it is in the Gulf. Some of you would still be in Ramadan in which case I would advise you to milk every minute for what it’s worth before Shawwal comes.]

So, what now?

Well, unfortunately most people are already thinking of their Eid food and their Eid clothes…

What should a believer do?

Well, we need to continue being steadfast. As simple as that.

Ultimately, it doesn’t matter whether it’s Ramadan or not, our purpose of life is still the same.

Some last bit of advice before Eid (I’ll temporarily resume blogging after a few days after which I’ll go on a long break):

a) Don’t lose that Ramadan feeling.

b) Do all the sunnahs of Eid, even the little ones like eating some dates before going out to pray.

c) Please remember to pray all your fard prayers and try to pray the sunnah too.

d) Don’t forget to recite the Quran even if it’s a little bit.

e) Have fun and be grateful to Allah that you have the opportunity to have fun.

Yes, Eid is supposed to be fun and we can have fun (halal fun, alright?). It’s fine to go out and visit family and friends, etc.

However, don’t forget to be grateful to Allah for being able to do all these things. Just look at the situation of the Somalians and the Libyans. I wonder how much fun they’ll be able to have on Eid in their situation.

Just in case, you’re like “Oh, why is she depressing us with those reminders??”

Depressing you? I was trying to make you feel happy that you’re not in that sort of position…

f) Try not to stuff your face with cakes and sweeties.

I know that this is the most difficult part because every house you visit insists on giving you a bit of their oh-so-delicious pastries and you don’t have the will power to say no (until, of course, your stomach refuses to accept anything more in which case you are forced to say no after which your host glares at you).

But try anyway, won’t you?

May Allah accept our fast and our prayers and keep us steadfast on His deen.

What are five things that you hope to achieve by the end of…

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم

Assalamu Alaikum.

…..Shawwal?

You thought I was going to say “Ramadan”, didn’t you?

Why did I say Shawwal? Well, because many of us stop functioning after Ramadan because we make the mistake of only thinking of the goals that we want to achieve by the end of this month.

And then our iman (faith) takes a dive in Shawwal.

So, in order to avoid that, I thought it might be better if we included Shabaan and Shawwal in the picture.

Okay, let’s take this step by step:

1) Think about what five goals you HAVE to achieve by the end of Shawwal.

– Why make goals? If you don’t, the days will pass you by with you getting absolutely nowhere.

– Why five? Well, more than that would make your head spin. [You could do more if you wish.]

– Please don’t reply to this post and tell me (and the rest of the world) what your goals are. I think too often we share our personal goals with the whole wide world. Sometimes, that can rob us of our sincerity.

– Think of the hereafter consequences of what would happen if you don’t achieve those goals.

2) Be sure to WRITE down the goals.

Please don’t use your iPad for this purpose.

Take a pen and paper and do it the old fashioned way. It feels so much better.

Trust me.

3) Please be precise when you write down the goals.

For example, don’t say “I wanna be a good Muslim.” You could say: I will memorise the last two juz of the Quran, for example. Or I will start dawah project X and set up a website for it.

4) Write down the steps that you need to take to get to those goals.

For example, if you want to memorise the last 2 juz of the Quran, you have about 80 days left so how many ayaat (verses) do you need to study per day?

Do you have a Quran teacher? If not, can you join a class?

What time of the day will you do your memorisation?

How much will you achieve by the end of Shabaan and by the end of Ramadan?

5) Start right away.

Many people just groan when I say these things to them and wail “Oh we’re too busy for this” or “We can’t be this organised.”

Just a question for these types of people: Have you achieved any of your goals in the past 3 years? If not, then don’t you think you need to change the way that you do things?

6) Look at this paper (the one where your goals are written) as much as you can.

You know, subhan Allah, I read this on a kaafir website and I was like “Huh?”

And then I realised that all my goals were on my dua list, and whenever I looked at my dua list, I would get REALLY motivated. So I realised that while we may know our goals, we sometimes tend to put them at the back of our mind.

Being reminded of them will motivate us to reach them.

7) Keep checking your progress.

You know, 5 and 7 are the toughest ones to do but they’re the ones that we HAVE to do.

8) Ask Allah for His help.

We can’t do anything without His help and guidance.

So what are we all waiting for? Let’s get started!

Post-Ramadan Teensie-Weensie Tip #4: Compare your pre-Ramadan and post-Ramadan selves

Assalamu Alaikum.

So, just how did you envision yourself after Ramadan?

Think about the following things (or better yet, write them down):

1) What were your goals for Ramadan? Did you achieve them? Why or why not?

2) How different are you from your pre-Ramadan self? Have you improved? If so, then in what areas? Why?

3) How many things have you managed to continue doing after Ramadan? For example, do you still pray Tahajjud (even if it is just 1 rakaah)?

4) What were the reasons that caused you to continue or discontinue what you were doing during Ramadan?

5) How do you see yourself next Shaban?

6) How do you envision spending next Ramadan?

Go to a quiet room and spend an hour just thinking about the above questions.

The reason that we never seem to improve (or improve at a snail’s pace) is because we don’t set a plan or follow a plan that we did set.

Also, we seem to be dependent on Ramadan to change us but that shouldn’t be the case. We can change at any time. We just need to do dua and then push ourselves to act.

Before you know it, it’ll be Ramadan again (assuming that we are blessed to still be alive) and we’ll go through the same steps again i.e. listen to a few lectures in Shaban, have high hopes for Ramadan, do nothing much in Ramadan and then flounder in Shawwal*.

[*Okay, this doesn’t happen to everybody, alhamdulillah but sadly it seems to happen to most of us.]

This time, I think we should start thinking differently. We need to:

1) Keep the next Ramadan as a deadline to achieving our goals.

2) Aim to improve ourselves even further during it so that we can achieve even bigger goals after it finishes.

I would suggest that we all listen to those pre-Ramadan lectures again. Also, please read this post. It’s very useful indeed, masha-Allah. I did that last year and that’s where I got the idea for this post from.

Lastly, please don’t get defeated before you even begin. Have good thoughts about Allah and ask Him to make you a great servant of His. Then, make a plan to achieve that.

Even if you die without having accomplished all your goals, you’ll at least have sincerely intended it, and perhaps Allah will reward you solely for those intentions.

Article: An Explanation of Things Legislated at the End of Ramadan

Assalamu Alaikum.

You know what’s sad?

I have an excellent article that I’m going to put up.

And who’s probably going to read it? The people who still want to know about Ramadan after it’s over.

Who needs to read it? The people who forget about Ramadan 2 minutes after the new moon of Shawwal is sighted.

The six fasts of Shawwal

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم

Assalamu Alaikum.

Ah, yes. Back to ibaadah. There’s still that huge mansion in Paradise that we want to occupy, correct?

The second thing that people start to discuss after Ramadan ends (the first thing being Eid) is the fasts of Shawwal.

Allow me to provide a summary (please check the links provided for more details):