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S3 E2: Why am I sinning if Shaytan is locked up? | DoubleTake Ramadan Special
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Ramadan is the month Muslims wait all year for. It’s a time when devils are chained and mosques are full of worshipers. But what does it mean if we find ourselves falling into familiar sins during this blessed month? How can we overcome that? And what does an ideal Ramadan fast look like? How can we make the most of the moments when we aren’t able to worship directly?
In this Ramadan special, host Mohamad Zaoud talks to Dr. Tamara Gray, founder of Rabata and senior fellow at Yaqeen Institute, about making the most of fasting.
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This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings. As-salamu alaykum wa rahmatullah. Ramadan is the month Muslims wait all year for. It's a time when devils are chained and mosques are full of worshippers. But what does it mean if we find ourselves falling into familiar sins during this blessed month? Can our fast still be accepted if we commit sins while fasting? And what does an ideal Ramadan fast look like? How can we make the most of the moments when we aren't able to worship directly? Welcome to another episode of Double Take, a podcast by Yaqeen Institute about the questions and ideas around Islam and Muslims that give us pause. If you haven't already done so, please subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, Spotify, or wherever you get your favorite podcasts. If you like what you hear or want to share some feedback, you can do so directly using the link in the show notes. I'm Muhammad Ziaud and today we're exploring how to make the most of fasting. With me is Dr. Tamra Gray, Senior Fellow at Yaqeen Institute. Dr. Tamra Gray is the founder of Rabatah, an educational organization dedicated to the spiritual upbringing of women by women and the establishment of the female voice in scholarship. She completed her doctorate in the Leadership Policy and Administration program at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota, and she holds a master's degree in Curriculum Theory and Instruction. Dr. Tamra worked for 25 years in the field of education before moving into the non-profit world. This is her second time joining us on Double Take, and her first appearance talking about the Hajjud Night Prayers is our most popular episode ever. Enjoy the episode. Dr. Tamra, As-salamu alaykum. Welcome back to Double Take and Ramadan Mubarak. Ramadan Kareem. Thank you. Wa alaykum as-salam. Good to be back.
Thank you so much for joining us. The first time you joined us on Double Take, we talked about the Hajjud, the night prayers. You said that praying to Hajjud could be our keystone habit and that regularly waking up at night before Fajr to pray even two raka'as could transform our relationship with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. And of course, one of the times that we remember this concept of the Hajjud is Ramadan. There's a couple of narrations about Ramadan that always get me thinking and frankly, sometimes I get uneasy with these two hadiths and I'd love to take your perspective on them. The first one is a hadith by Abu Huraira radiallahu anhu saying that the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said, when Ramadan begins, the gates of paradise open up and the doors of hell are locked and the devils are chained. Now, I work hard in Ramadan and I've experienced it enough times to know that eventually I make some mistakes or a lot of mistakes sometimes and there are a lot of shortcomings in my life during Ramadan. So, help me understand that when I commit sins in Ramadan and I'm not my best self in Ramadan, is this coming from me? Because it's certainly not coming from the shaitan, right? Well, first of all, yes, we talked about Hajjud and Ramadan, they come together. I just have to plug Hajjud, of course, because Ramadan is here because you're going to get up and eat anyway, right? So, you might as well pop on over there to the prayer carpet and do two raka'as to start establishing that habit if you haven't already. So, I just want to plug that for everyone. If you're not doing Tahajjud, now's the time to get it started and to start that new habit.
But, yes, the shaitan, actually Ramadan, one of the most beautiful things of Ramadan is that it is an opportunity for us to know our real selves. And it's an opportunity for us to identify our weaknesses, to discover what we've learned. I remember when I first became Muslim in 1985, we were entering into Ramadan and my Malaysian roommate said this very hadith to me. And she said, but listen, you know, you're not going to be perfect in Ramadan because we are very good students of shaitan. And unfortunately, that's the truth. Like he's got, shaitan's got 11 months out of the year to teach us, to create habits within us, to make us believe certain things about what we can and cannot do, about what we need to do and what we don't need to do. And so, when Ramadan comes, we're still burdened with all of that quote unquote learning. And on top of that, Ramadan is also an opportunity for us to learn what our nafs is and how our nafs influences our good and bad deeds. And so, because we have these two influences that take us one place or another, we've got shaitan. Outside of Ramadan, we have shaitan and we have our whims and our desires, our nafs, that part of the self that can be beautiful and can be not so beautiful. And Ramadan comes as an opportunity for us to separate all of that out, so that when we leave Ramadan and shaitan comes back, we've dropped the habits, we've dropped the learning that shaitan has taught us, and we've understood and been able to identify the weaknesses and shortcomings within ourselves, so that we can make those changes in Ramadan and then going forward.
So that every year, I mean, the goal is every year we push a little further on this journey, this spiritual journey. Every year, just a little bit more and learn less from shaitan in the upcoming year, reject shaitan more in the upcoming year, and hone and tone our nafs more and more, so that we become of those really strong and healthy believers. I'd love to, I mean, that's pretty clear. I'd love to understand more about the concept of nafs and also the concept of shaitan and what inspires me to do evil actions. So let's say we're outside of Ramadan. An evil action can come from three areas, if I'm not mistaken. So one is my desires pulling me, the other one is shaitan inspiring me, and the third one is, I guess, myself, just my myself and my intentions. Yeah, I'd love to understand that more. Well, the nafs, I mean, in old books, we can find many different sort of levels and stages of the nafs, but the Quran refers to three different types of nafs. nafs al-ammar bis-suq, which is the nafs that orders you to do evil. That is the nafs that is sunk into just whims and desires. It's just, I feel like doing this, I'm going to do this. I want to do this, I'm going to do this. And this is the nafs that is far from Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala that is not trying to improve the self. And that's definitely the nafs we don't want to be and we want to really stay away from. And then there is nafs al-lawwama. nafs al-lawwama is the nafs that holds itself to account. This is where most of us are. Most of us are here. So that means that we do something wrong, we feel it, our conscience is pricked. We feel that sense that it's wrong. We seek forgiveness and we try again and then we fall again and then we try again.
Most of us are here in nafs al-lawwama. Now, the place we want to be is nafs al-mutma'inna. That's in surah al-fajr, the very famous verse, ayatuhal-nafs al-mutma'inna. irji'i ila rabbiki radhiya tan maradhiya. So this is the nafs that is content. This is that nafs of peace that we are all seeking. Our nafs desires to be nafs al-mutma'inna. We hope for it. We want it. And the human being, no matter who we are, is seeking out one thing or another to try to reach that. But truly the only thing that will give us this nafs al-mutma'inna, this pleased, contented, peaceful nafs, is the worship of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, the obedience, the connection to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, having our feet firmly planted on the straight path. Now, that's where we want to be. Shaytan is here dragging us down, trying to get us into making these mistakes, making all of these things. Shaytan doesn't care how he brings us from one place to the other. Our nafs cares. Our nafs has opinions. Shaytan just doesn't want us to reach Allah. So, it tries to trip us up here and there, here and there. So, it's not exactly what you asked, but if I can sort of clarify between the shaytan and nafs and what that sounds like outside of Ramadan. So, let's take the example of Salat al-Fajr. Or let's take the example of Salat al-Tahajjud since we're the Tahajjud podcast, right? So, you get up in the morning. You say to yourself, you know what? I'm going to do this. I'm starting fresh. I'm going to start praying Tahajjud. You set your alarm. You do all the things so that you can wake up. You go to bed early. Like, you've got this. You've got this, okay? Now, when you wake up, Shaytan doesn't want you to wake up. Shaytan doesn't care about the why. He just doesn't want you to wake up. So, the first thing Shaytan might whisper to you is,
oh, it's still early. You have plenty of time. Why are you getting up so early? Just go back to sleep for a little bit. Hit that snooze button. You don't really need to get up now. And so, you listen. You hit the snooze button. Oh, now, 10 minutes later, you're up again. And now, you're like, no, no. I only have 15 minutes left. I got to get up now. So, now, Shaytan is telling you something else. Seriously, you're going to make wudu first? Oh, go to the kitchen and make coffee. No, no, no. You need to check on the kids. No, no, no. You need to do this other thing. And then, no, I'm going to make wudu. I'm going to pray. Well, then, and, you know, the water is cold. Do you really want to get wet? Are you sure? You can get wet later. The dishes need to get done. I mean, anything, anything, anything to stop us from doing that good deed, which in this example is salat al-tahashr. Now, the nefes, on the other hand, has a desire. So, that desire may be sleep. Like, yeah, sleep. So, the nefes doesn't care. The nefes is just go back to sleep. Go back to sleep. Go back to sleep. Go back to sleep. So, once you fight that going back to sleep and you insist, no, I'm getting up. I'm going to pray. Maybe you tell your nefes, hey, nefes, you can sleep later. I'm going to let you take a nap at 8 a.m. or at noon or at whatever. Like, you give your nefes some sort of calming words about when it might be able to get a nap. Your nefes should be okay. Like, you can learn how to work with your nefes. You can hone and tone it and teach it how to do better. But shaitan, shaitan keeps jumping all over the place. Shaitan wants one thing, which is to mess up our path and to move us away from everything that we're trying to do to stay on this path. That's awesome. Jazakallah khair. So, can we use the same scenario for Ramadan? What are the dynamics in Ramadan when the alarm rings to pray tahajjud given that shaitan is absent? Well, in Ramadan, what's happening,
whether it's tahajjud or fasting or praying on time or doing good deeds or not wasting time or you mentioned in the beginning as well, those sins and shortcomings that show up in Ramadan. These are both things we've learned. These are bad habits we've learned from shaitan. And we have to be authentic and honest with ourselves. There are things that we are enjoying, things that we're doing, things that we don't... It's a desire not to... It's laziness, maybe. Some laziness not to do the hard work. Exercise is a good analogy for this. Everyone knows that if you exercise, eventually, you're going to get stronger and healthier. This is something that is pretty much common knowledge nowadays. It doesn't mean that everyone loves to exercise, but we all know that if we do it, our muscles are going to be stronger and as we age, we're going to age better. And the older you get, the less chance you have of things like broken hips and all that kind of stuff. And so, people will take the time and do the hard work to exercise. Very often, it's much more popular, for example, than it was in the past. Well, our spirit needs the same thing. Our spirit comes to Ramadan emaciated and weak. After a year of distance, a year of listening to shaitan, we come into Ramadan, our spirit doesn't have strength. And so, we're denying our body food and drink, while at the same time, we're strengthening our spirit. But that's not an automatic. It doesn't happen in one minute. It takes time in Ramadan. And many people come to Ramadan, and the whole of Ramadan is just trying to get that spirit healthier. The goal is get it healthy. It's now almost Ramadan. So, the goal is get it healthy, so that next and hold it. Hold that spirit in a healthy place, so that each year, you can get stronger and healthier, stronger and healthier on this path. In Ramadan, we remember what shaitan taught us. Our nafs comes to face us, and we look at it, and we say,
Whoa, I have given in to my... Like even like the sleep thing, right? When you give in constantly, constantly, constantly, to what your nafs wants, whether or not your body actually needs it or not. And Ramadan is certainly not only a month of less food and drink. It's definitely a month of less sleep. Even for the most sleep conscious amongst us. If you're going to work in the day, and you're praying tarweeh at night, and you're getting up for suhoor, and you're having iftar with family, and all of these things, it's eating into the night. And so, the sleep becomes less. Well, this is a training for the self, that to train our bodies to need less sleep, so that our... And I'm not saying you... To need less sleep, so that we can say to ourselves, No, I'm not going to choose sleep over worship. SubhanAllah, we need... The less worship we have, the more sleep we need. And it's very... SubhanAllah. I mean, there are even studies out there, not done by Muslims that I have found yet, but I wanted to do a sleep study on tahajjud, but I didn't get the grant. So, but... There are sleep studies out there for people who do meditation, and dhikr, and things like this. And it's been proven that the more things you do, I'll call them worship activities, the less sleep you need. So Ramadan comes with more worship and less sleep, and everyone survives. So we're learning something, or we should be learning something there, about how much we really can do, and how beautiful our life can be in our worship times, in the night and in the day. I'm certainly learning a lot in this episode. One is your theory that more worship equals less sleep, and actually, that's the way... There's a clear trade-off between the two, and you can train your body to... You said that last time, and I actually looked into it. The second one is, you said you're having conversations with your nafs, and that you give your nafs something to...
like a distraction or some respite. Can you just talk to that? Because that's like probably the first time in my 34 years of hearing someone negotiating with their nafs. Oh my goodness. I negotiate with my nafs all the time. It's... yeah, because, you know, a long time ago, about 20 years ago, the language that scholars used around the nafs was really, fight your nafs, kill your nafs, and all of this. And it's quite not successful. And I'm not criticizing any scholar that uses that language, but let's just say for me, maybe I have a rebellious spirit, it wasn't successful for me. So language around exercise, and honing, and toning, and upbringing, and raising, sort of with some compassion was much more effective for me. And so that's how I teach my students, that's what I do with myself. So for example, let's say I want to add something new or do something new. Well, I know myself really well now. I'm not a young woman anymore. I've been for many years of my life trying to do different things and trying to do new things. I know what motivates me and I know what doesn't. And if you don't know what motivates you, that's step one, like find out what motivates you. What is something that is going to get you out of bed at tahajjud time? What's going to get you to pay sadaqah? What's going to get you to do more Qur'an? What is that thing? So when you figure that out, then talk to yourself about those payoffs. Like figure it out, talk about it. In other words, what we want to do is change our desires from desiring things of this world to desiring things of the next world. But there's a space in the middle where we have to do those early exercises. Like you don't become a marathoner. I've never run a marathon, of course, but I'm just saying. My sister has. You don't become someone who runs a marathon by getting up in the morning and deciding I'm going to run a marathon.
You have to do a lot of work to reach that place. And if we want to be on this path in that place of ihsan, in that nafs al-mutma'inah, there's a lot of work to do. And we have to start it out so that that negotiation process starts in the beginning. Let's say you have a coffee that you love. I'm a coffee drinker. I love coffee. And so let's say there's a really expensive one that you don't usually splurge on for yourself. Go and buy it and make that your tahajjud coffee. When you wake up for tahajjud or when you do your sadaqah, like whatever the thing is that you're working on, okay? When you don't participate in wasting time activities or what have you, you reward your nafs. You tell your nafs, look, nafs, you're not going to do this thing that you love so much, but I'm giving you something else that you like. So in this case, that really expensive coffee, knowing that you are personally, your nafs and all of you is benefiting from either getting up early, doing that extra worship or leaving those sins and those mistakes that are really clouding our spirits and bringing us away from nafs al-mutma'in to nafs al-amr bil-suq. Jazakallah khair. Look, inshallah, until next episode, I'll be negotiating with my nafs. I'll let you know how I go. There is another hadith. There's another hadith that makes me a little bit, I wouldn't say confused, but I hear it often and I don't fully understand it. So I'd love to take your perspective as well. And that is, again, narrated by Abu Hurairah radiallahu anhu that the Prophet ﷺ said, whoever does not give up forged speech and evil actions, Allah is not in need of his, of his leaving his food and drink. We hear that often, like that if you're backbiting, Allah does not need your fasting. What exactly does that mean? And does that mean my, my fasting is not accepted? What exactly is the dynamic here?
Well, there are a lot of dynamics here. One of the things to remind ourselves that the word Siyam, this word of that fasting in Arabic is used in the Quran in a couple of different times, both with Nabi Zakariya and with Maryam. May Allah ﷻ be pleased with both of them. And to talk about fasting from words. To fast from speech in both cases. And so the term, it's so interesting because here we have two examples where people are fasting from speech for very different reasons, but the term fasting is used. So when we come into our own fasting, Allah ﷻ has not given us a fasting from speech. We're not required to fast from talking. But Allah ﷻ and the Prophet ﷺ has taught us that there is a real connection between stopping food and drink and stopping the words that are sinful. The tongue does two things. It eats and it speaks. And when it speaks, it causes sin and when it eats, it causes lethargy. So the lack of eating, I mean, unless we're eating haram food and then it's also causing sin. But when we're fasting, it gives us an energy. Well, it makes us tired, actually. There's a place of fasting that makes us tired, that offers us an opportunity to be more in control of our words. But we are in a time now where there's this whole cultural thing called being hangry. Which is I'm hungry, so I get to be angry. And this is something to really, I mean, as Muslims, we should be pushing the pause button on this. We should not allow ourselves to be something called hangry.
If we remember the Prophet ﷺ and his hunger and Abu Bakr, the one who gives us this hadith and his hunger and how they were really, I don't want to use the word starving because I don't know that any of us even understands what that means, but just so hungry, their stomachs were in pain. And yet they were people of the greatest manners and the greatest ethics and the greatest beautiful character and qualities and behavior. We are learning from them even today. And so when we allow ourselves to be hangry outside of Ramadan, we're making a grave mistake. Inside of Ramadan, it's even more serious. Now, that being said, it doesn't mean that if a person falls into the bad habits that Shaytan has taught us, gheeba or namima, gossiping or scandalous words or swearing or lying or any of these or excessive complaining or excessive argumentation, all of these things that the tongue has gotten into the habit of doing by the encouragement of Shaytan. It doesn't mean that if we fall into it in Ramadan, that, oh, forget it, my fast is over. I'm just going to go have a hamburger. It means that we should spend Ramadan understanding that while we are not eating in the day or drinking in the day, we also should be paying attention to what our words are as habitual words. If we if we swear all the time and use these kinds of ugly words, Ramadan is a great opportunity to seek forgiveness, a great opportunity to seek forgiveness and to just stop. It's not cool. It's not cool. It's not cool. The angels can you can you we're trying to be cool in front of human beings, maybe, and kind of show ourselves fancy.
I don't know. Like these words somehow make us feel like we're strong and in with the in group. But we're not in with the in group of angels. We're not in with the angels. And we want to be in with the angels. That's the that's who we want to be with. We want to be in with the in group of angels. And so Ramadan teaches us to control our tongue, pay attention to our tongue. Now, this hadith in particular is reminding us that a performative religion that is only to do these to just fast on the outside and not let it trickle down into our behavior is not what Allah is asking us for. To just fast because the family is fasting, to just pray because people in front of us are praying is not what Allah is asking us for. We're not asked to perform religion, but to live it. And in living it, yes, we will make mistakes, but in living it, our worship will it will come down into our behavior. We'll recognize better behavior. And most importantly, we'll recognize poor behavior so that when we recognize that we can stop it and we can move it along. And so with fasting, it's not Ramadan yet. We haven't started yet. Now is the opportunity to really think about that. What's my plan in Ramadan? How am I controlling my tongue? What are my bad habits of the tongue that I need to stop? Am I a person who swear words come falling out of my mouth? You know, in some languages, there are things that we say that are really painful there. If you translated them literally, they're really not. They're not nice. And so think about that, too. Like, think about the words that we say. If the Prophet ﷺ were to hear us, would that be OK with us that he heard us saying those things?
And so fasting, fasting in Ramadan is an opportunity to also think about the connection of the things that we say to the things that we eat and how all of this is coming together to create our self. Like we're building this self, this nafs we want, which we want to be nafs al mutma'inna. Jazakallah khair. You know, if in preparing for this episode, we were thinking, do we ask Dr. Tamra about what an ideal evening looks like in Ramadan? But we kind of know the answer to that. You've just released a series as an answer to that. Tahajjud. That's the morning, that's not the evening. Well, OK, well, in terms of the night time, the night time. So I'm going to put you out of your comfort zone and ask you what an ideal day looks like. So there's no tahajjud during the day. So what is the ideal Ramadan fasting day look like? The ideal Ramadan fasting day is a day without sin. It's a day without hurting anyone's feelings. It's a day where kindness is the rule. It's a day where our hunger isn't influencing us and making us rude or or unkind. And step by step, I would say that, I mean, if a person is working full time and everyone works full time, including stay at home moms, they work full time. So everyone, everybody has this full day. Some people have the flex time. And so with flex time, it would be really awesome. You can get your sleep in in the morning, get up and just start your day. But if you have to go to work, you're going to have to figure out that sleep. Now, Alhamdulillah, this year, Ramadan is in April. I live in the north in the United States of America. So what that means is that our nights in the summer are so short.
Like literally we were running from Tarawih to. So Tarawih was in this in June is at 11 and Fajr is at three. And so by the time you pray Tarawih and you finish it and you go back home and you make suhoor and you eat suhoor, it's Fajr and you pray two rakaat Tahajjud or a couple of rakaat Tahajjud, it's Fajr. And then you're just starting your day. So most of the time there's no sleeping at night. Now that it's April, Alhamdulillah, like there should be some time to sleep at night. Isha is at 930, Fajr is going to be at four. And there's a much longer night there. So I know I feel sorry for you guys. Like I was going to say, like as Aussies, we feel sorry for you guys because like Isha is at seven for us and Fajr is at six. Are you serious? MashaAllah. MashaAllah. Well, I mean, with that kind of a schedule, then your day should just be this beautiful day full of good deeds and full of your work. Make intention for every single job that you're doing, everything you're doing that it's for Allah. When you go to work, make your intentions for Allah. All day long, no matter what you're doing, you're fasting. So you're in worship. Make time for Quran. I think the day it's really an important time for Quran. So you're finishing that khitmah, you're reading Quran, you're working through at least one khitmah, one full reading of the Quran in Ramadan. I mean, the day is the time of work. SubhanAllah. You know, day is the time of work in Ramadan and any other time. We get our work done. We read Quran, give sadaqa, go and help somebody, take a nap. I think napping is good in Ramadan. It's one of my favorite things to do in Ramadan is take a nap. So you see, I'm not anti-sleep. Thank you so much. I was going to say, we also hear a lot about taqwa, obviously, in the Quran. The reason Ramadan was prescribed was for taqwa.
This concept of taqwa, I hear so many hadiths, so many different kind of definitions and explanations. What is taqwa, which is the purpose of Ramadan for us to attain taqwa in the eyes of Dr. Tamra? Well, I'm going to be very Minnesotan here because my favorite analogy for taqwa. And yesterday, so yesterday I took my granddaughter to something we have here called an ice palace. And it's a literal enormous palace made of ice. And the whole, I mean, the floor is snow and ice and it's just ice. You're walking everywhere with ice. And so how do you walk when you're on ice? If you go out on a lake here in Minnesota in the middle of winter and you're walking on ice or just on the street, oftentimes, how do you walk? You watch each step because you don't want to slip. You don't want to slip and fall. So you're careful. You're paying attention. You're not just blindly walking. You cannot walk on ice and be not aware of where your steps are going. And to me, that's taqwa. Taqwa is thinking very carefully about every one of our steps. And la'allakum tattaqoon about Ramadan is in order to have taqwa, we have to be thinking all day long about who we are on the inside. You're fasting, so we're thinking that we're not eating. We're controlling our tongue. We're thinking about it. Taqwa means that we have intentional behavior, intentional behavior, not just whatever I want, I'm going to do. That's nafs al amar basu. That's the one, whatever I want to do, I'm going to do. Well, if you do that on the ice, if you get on a Minnesota lake in January and you decide you're going to do whatever you're going to want to do, you'll probably end up with a broken wrist because you'll fall almost certainly.
And God forbid, if you go to the wrong place, you fall through the ice. It could be even worse than that. And so when we live our lives with taqwa and we're careful, we protect ourselves. We save ourselves from falling. We save ourselves from pain. We save ourselves from trouble. We save ourselves from how we can harm ourselves. So that's taqwa for me. Very Minnesota analogy. That's awesome. It's also, I'll be using it. It's going to become an Aussie analogy very soon. Do you get ice in Australia? Somewhere, somewhere in the desert. You have to come to Minnesota to walk on a lake. Inshallah ya rab. No, we have no lakes in the desert. I was going to ask about people who explain Ramadan as saying, you know, it's a time to feel like the poor people. We fast so that we can be more empathetic to those who are less fortunate. Is that a correct definition or is that a correct explanation of why we fast? Well, I mean, the word correct, I mean, certainly. I feel like you're going to be Minnesotan again. Well, I guess I'm sort of in a Minnesota. I'm here. I'm in Minnesota right now. But what I want to say about that actually is that, to say correct, if that is something that is helpful to someone, Alhamdulillah, then if that's helpful to help them in their fasting to feel like I'm, I'm empathizing with people who don't have what I have all the time, Alhamdulillah. But as far as the purpose of fasting, I would say that the purpose of fasting is, as we said earlier, Taqwa. And the purpose of fasting is a remembrance of Allah Subhanu wa ta'ala, Lidhikirillah.
The purpose of fasting and truthfully, you're breaking your fast every evening. You're not really feeling the feeling of the poor. What we are really feeling during the day is the feeling of deprivation. And the poor are not always, deprivation for the poor is very different depending on that sort of level of poverty. We're quite ignorant, I would say. People today that are not poor are ignorant about all the different kinds of deprivation of poverty. And we are certainly impoverished of spirit. In general, the world today, we are in the deepest deprivation of spirit. And so I didn't really like the analogy very much myself personally, because there are many people who are poor in poverty who are not impoverished of spirit. And while, yes, they would certainly enjoy having more, not just enjoy, appreciate, and they have a right to having more access to food and vegetables and fresh vegetables, and like all the things that we, that sort of this upper middle class domination of the world has access to. But at the same time, we should feel sorry for ourselves that our spirits are so depleted and so starving. And we have access though. Ramadan is access to all that we need. And, but we have to recognize that we are depleted. And we need to take advantage of it. Sorry. We just need to go to that banquet of Ramadan. Like the banquet of Ramadan for our spirit is not a thousand different dishes on the table at iftar. Limit the food you eat at iftar. I really want to suggest this to everyone. You asked me about my ideal day. When you are feeding people, you're inviting people, be generous. But when you're just feeding yourselves and your family, teach your children, teach yourselves,
work together to have food that is light, that is not extravagant. And I mean, I say this understanding that when we are raising children, we want them to be excited about Ramadan and they want certain treats and all of this. So we do need a balance. And, but there's, there's something to be said for, for not gorging. Don't gorge when Maghrib comes. Let's stay at the banquet of Ramadan instead of the table banquet, the banquet of Ramadan, which is Quran, dhikr, qiyam, siyam, of course, fasting and sadaqa. You said earlier that the days of Ramadan are also work, like you get your work done. I spent eight years in the Middle East during Ramadan and the whole, the whole community, the whole society transformed. So obviously restaurants were closed and whatnot, but work-wise, work was reduced to five hours a day and you get 10 days off just before Eid. So it was literally very breezy. Here in Australia, and obviously the same in the US, UK, Canada, it's not like that. Many people have serious jobs that are very consuming. Sometimes they do 10 hours, 12 hours. Some people are breaking their iftar at work and maybe it's even eating into their taraweeh time as well. So how do we, how do we make the most of Ramadan in those scenarios where we don't have the luxury of taking a break and slowing down? Well, one thing I will suggest that for anyone who can choose when to take vacation time off, if you can take off the last 10 days of Ramadan, do so. It's worth it to participate in that, to partake of the banquet as much as you can of Ramadan.
But when you can't, make sure that you're every day coming back to that intention. That whatever, whatever you're doing, wherever you are, that you're making the intention, Lillah, I'm doing this work. Let's say you're a nurse and you're working second shift and you're working from two o'clock in the afternoon to 11 o'clock at night and you're coming home, you're exhausted, you're barely praying taraweeh, putting suhoor on the table and then praying fajr and going to sleep and then getting up and doing it again. And you're feeling like I'm just not getting a lot done. Set reasonable goals. You can still read one khutbah in the month if you know how to read the Quran. You can still make all of your intentions that everything you're doing is for Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. And the two things you can do all the time when you're fasting, you're getting that reward, but also dhikr and making the tongue. It also helps us to avoid the sins of the tongue. If you make your tongue, if you bring your tongue to the habit of dhikr all month, La ilaha illallah is the tahleel, is the dhikr of Ramadan because it's the time we want to deepen our tawheed and strengthen it. So it's an opportunity to say la ilaha illallah hundreds and thousands of times every day without counting because you're going around and all the things that you do. Let's just make sure that you're doing that. And then you're racking up those rewards and you're polishing your heart throughout the day while you're at work. Fair enough. My final question before we hit into the rapid fire set of questions that I know you loved. I'm not good at those. No, you are great. You were great. I'm going to put myself in the shoes of my nine year old niece who is watching this theoretically because she's forced by her uncle. And she's going to say two things. She's going to say mashallah, what an amazing seerah poster you have behind you because I know she'll like that.
And then she's going to ask you, Dr. Tamra, I'm starting my life and my parents, they go on about Ramadan. How do I set the foundations right from a young age to ensure that I make the most of Ramadan? Well, first of all, I was so excited with that beautiful question. And I love nine year old. Nine year olds are just awesome. They're thinking in pure ways. And it's really that's a great question because a nine year old could come up with a question like that. And I think I would say to her. That this is a month, this is the month of the Quran. And so what can you how can you start on your Quran journey in this month? And I would help her focus on Quran in this month. Help her work with her parents to think about when she can fast. A nine year old, sometimes a nine year old can fast the whole day. It depends on where they are, what time of year it is in Minnesota in the summer, that would be hard for them. They're not going to be able to fast all day for nine year old. But in January, they totally could do that. But they could also fast for part of the day. I would get that. I would talk to her about being involved in Sadaqah and all the extra reward of every good deed. Maybe think about what can be a good deed we do every single day and certainly help her. She isn't already established a regular prayer pattern. Maybe she can get a special place in her house that has for her prayer, special prayer calls just for her. A nice smell that she likes. Maybe all of this is in her room, her own Quran that's hers that she can read from. Maybe we're going to have a Bismillah and Ameen party for her. I think for a nine year old, one of the most important things to do is to feel that a nine year old wants is to feel that they're being treated like the grown up that they feel they are.
We know a nine year old isn't grown up yet, but nine year olds do feel grown up very often. And so I think I would talk to her about setting her own plan and how can I support her with that plan. And I bet she could set a better plan than I could, but she would still need my help as the adult in her life. Well, I'm not your niece, but your help. I'm thinking about my eight year old granddaughter to remind her and reconnect with her and invite her to Sadaqah and invite her to those good and beautiful experiences. And I also say that if for our eight and nine year old girls, we want to make sure if we're taking them to Tarawih, that we're taking them to a good experience. Because some of our masjids do not have places for women that are good experiences. So maybe it's time now to talk to the masjid about that, to make sure that it's a good experience, to make sure that... Or to just hold Tarawih at home and pray together at home or do a pop-up masjid in your neighbor's basement or something, your neighbor's living room, your neighbor's garden. You guys have somewhere in Australia, here in Minnesota, we're not doing anything in the garden right now. But because we want to create beautiful Tarawih experiences, we have a pop-up masjid here at the Rabatul Cultural Center and women come to pray here. It's for women only. Women come and we pray together here. And we ensure a beautiful experience for women. And a lot of women have told me, I've never prayed Tarawih before or I've never had this experience before. But the beautiful thing about that then is they can go and now they know what Tarawih is supposed to feel like. And so they can bring that to their masjid communities and hopefully find that space. I think most masjids... I'm going to have Hosna Zain for our masjid boards and say, I would say that most of the board members want to make the experience good for the men and women.
But if they don't know the experience women are having, they can't do that. So... Awesome. We could go all day. And inshallah, we will in another episode of Double Take because you're going to be a regular inshallah, Ya Rabb. And we look forward to having you again. But we're going to change gears and wrap up with a serious rapid fire set of questions. So I hope you're not hangry. No. No? OK. I don't get hangry inshallah. What's the last book that you are reading? I think it's called Ordinary Virtue. I was trying to remember because I know you asked me that last time. And I've been actually I've been down a couple of different rabbit holes of reading. So I'm preparing some classes for next fall, and I've been reading all sorts of different books about spiritual formation, both from the Christian tradition and from ours. And then I've also I'm really interested right now. Oh, I know the book that I read very recently by Howard Gardner. It's called Truth. What's it called? Truth something. It's Truth in the title. It was a good book, even though I can't remember the title. And then the other one, I think it's called Ordinary Virtue, but I might be mistaken. And it's about virtue. Like it's a whole study around virtue in the Western world. And how do we define virtue and how do we think about virtue? I like to think about stuff like that. So these are the kinds of things I like to read. OK, is there anyone that you would love to have iftar with this month? That I would love to have iftar with? Oh, I'd love to have iftar with my my teachers in Damascus, my friends. May Allah make that a reality.
When I say a funny Ramadan story, what's the first thing that comes to Dr. Tamra's mind? A funny Ramadan story? Feel free to be Midassodian in your response. Well, I mean, funny Ramadan story. When I first became Muslim and I would go to these dinners and I would be so confused because there were I was so confused by Ramadan in those first early years because we were fasting and I understood we were fasting. And then I would go to this food, all of this food everywhere, so much food. I'd be so confused by the juxtapositioning of those two things. But I remember one time, I mean, I don't know, maybe this isn't funny, but looking back on it, I guess I'm embarrassed. So I decided it's funny. Somebody gave me soup and I like soup. I'm a soup person. Minnesotans love soup. And so I started eating the soup and it had all sorts of things in it that I don't eat. May Allah forgive me. It's just because I didn't grow up on a farm. But, you know, all those inner parts of animals and I did not know what to do with this soup. It's not really a funny story. I don't know. I can't think of funny Ramadan stories. I have to have to work on my funny with Ramadan. I have a Lebanese background, so we eat all sorts of body parts of the animals. So I can relate. Any tips? I mean, you've raised a family, Mashallah. Any tips for waking up a family for Suhoor? Smells. So what I used to do for my very first Suhoor of Ramadan, we always had homemade cinnamon rolls because I baked, but I wasn't like a prolific baker. I had other things I was doing most of my life. But that first morning we had homemade cinnamon rolls and there is nothing like a cinnamon
roll baking in the oven with fresh homemade cinnamon rolls in the oven to get people climbing out of their beds and coming to the kitchen asking, what's that? What's that? What's in the oven? So really, that's I mean, that's like three in the morning, you'd be baking. Oh, yeah. I mean, if anyone knows how to about cinnamon rolls, like you have to start those early because you have to it's a yeasted dough. So I would start at the minute and there's a planned thing. I'm a planner. But yeah, three in the morning for sure. That's when you put them in and then they come out, they're hot and the kids are all getting up. And everyone's getting up for that because it smells so good. So anytime there's good smells going on, it's usually an easier way to get people up. That's also you. You worked on the translation of the Sira book by Sheikh Samir Azaid. What's your favorite memory from that experience? I think my favorite memory from that experience when we had it was a very long process. It took nine years. And we worked with her. She was alive at the time. So we worked with her and we would go to her with questions about Arabic. And you know, you're saying this, but what does it exactly mean? And have conversations about what it means. But the there was one time where before it was really ready, we printed out a sometimes called an ARC, an advanced reader copy. That ended up needing a lot of editing. But there was this advanced reader copy and I brought it to her. And she was already ill. But she was so happy about it. And I kept telling her it's not ready yet. Like we still need to do a lot of editing. It's not going to come out tomorrow. This is just the step one. Anyone who's done publishing knows that every step is painful and long.
But her joy in knowing that this book was going to be in English was palpable. And that's my happiest memory. That just seeing the joy that brought her in her life to know that it was coming out. One final question. If you had unlimited resources to put together the ultimate resource for Muslims, what would it be? I might change this question. You spoke earlier about the grant that you didn't get for the sleep study. If there was a grant on the table, what would you use it for? I'm going to give you a two part answer. So I really would like to do a sleep study for around Tehiju. I would like to hire people who know how to do sleep studies. Obviously, I'm not a scientist. But I would like to hire people who know how to do that and study the effect of Tehiju on practicing Muslims. Because if you think about sleep studies and what they tell us about how long we need to sleep, they've never been done on Muslims. They've never been done on people who are doing worship. And so I'd like to set up a study that really looks at what is the impact of Tehiju on the physical need for sleep? How does it benefit us physically? And what is that relationship between sleep and prayer and all of that kind of stuff? I would love to do that. I would be very excited about writing up something like that and connecting it to early stories of companions and Sahaba and Tabi'een and all the people who were really serious Tehiju prayers and just looking at their lives and the success in their lives that might be linked to those nightly prayers. That big real, that would be a, that grant is like 50, 60,000, maybe 70.
But a really, really big, like if you want to, if you're talking in the millions, I get to, it's a dream question, right? I think I've been thinking a lot about this. What do we need? Like what do Muslims need in 100 years? What does my granddaughter need? What do her granddaughters need? Mostly I'm thinking about Muslim women and what Muslim women need in the future. That's kind of the way I spend my day. But I think, and I've been looking at education and the world of education and what's happening in different parts of the world and how are people, what's happening in the academic world, what's happening in different universities in the United States that are popping up here and there or expanding here and there. And if I had, if someone just called me up and anyone who's listening to this, who would like to do this, you are more than welcome and wanted to donate three to $5 million to Robata, I would do a university. I would do a real university journal, accreditation, undergraduate degrees, graduate degrees. And I'd graduate Muslim women around the world in not only Islamically scholarly topics to be local female scholars with secular topics as well, give them an opportunity to be strong. Which tells us that women who go to all women's universities, they become leaders. And yeah, I would love to, I would love that opportunity to give that kind of education. I think, I think that the signs are here. If we look at what some of the evangelicals are doing in the United States and what different religious groups are doing around adult education and university style education, the signs are here that we need to be paying attention. As Muslims, we can't always be chasing after everybody. We've got to get out there and do the thing first. We have to pay attention that university life is changing and the digital community is important.
And what people are going to need 50 years from now is different than what they need today. And they're going, the kinds of things they're going to need. We as Muslims have to learn how to provide these things. And so that would be my big dream. Inshallah, it's made a reality. Dr. Tamra, it's always a pleasure having you on Double Take. Thank you so much. And I hope you have a fruitful Ramadan. Ameen, and you as well, everyone who's listening, inshallah.
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