# When Did Ramadan Become a Festival | Imam Tom Weekly

**Author:** Tom Facchine
**Published:** 2025-03-23
**YouTube:** https://youtu.be/wMrXIFXbHXY
**URL:** https://yaqeeninstitute.org/watch/series/when-did-ramadan-become-a-festival-imam-tom-weekly
**Topics:** Culture, Family & Community, General Psychology, Psychology & Mental Health

## Description
You've been told secularism saved the world from religious violence. But what if that’s the biggest myth of our time? Imam Tom uncovers the true history of how your understanding of “religion” was reshaped — not by faith, but by power.

## Transcript
**[0:00]** Ibn Al-Jawzi said, it is astonishing how some people transform Ramadan into a season of indulgence in food and entertainment. They shop excessively, cook elaborate meals and

**[0:16]** spend their nights in social gatherings rather than prayer. How far is this from the way of the Prophet (ﷺ) and his companions? Imam Ibn Rajab al-Hanbali said something similar. He said, the righteous predecessors would honor the last part of the night, in the time of suhoor, with dhikr, with remembrance, with seeking forgiveness, istighfar and du'a.

**[0:37]** But as for those who waste these moments in frivolous talk and heedless actions, they have indeed been deprived of blessings. Al-Hasan al-Basri said, Ramadan is a month of patience, struggle and discipline. If you turn it into a festival of eating and drinking at night,

**[0:54]** how will your soul feel the impact of fasting? And there's many, many other statements. That should be enough to prove to you that we have to be very, very wary of the ways in which as a community, we can fall prey to certain gimmicks. They might satisfy something

**[1:14]** that is praiseworthy in our deen, but they end up displacing a great deal more and other things that are important as well. Ramadan is not Eid. Let Eid be Eid. And let Ramadan be Ramadan. Ramadan is a time of solemnity. It's a solemn time. It's a time for worship.

**[1:34]** It's a time for discipline. It's a time for sacrifice. It's not a time to be spending your time in this frivolous type of way. So I ask, I ask from the bottom of my heart to all the believers, please be better. And I'll put myself first. There's a million things that I need to be doing better as well. But let's not fall prey to the commodification

**[1:55]** of our deen and the commodification of Ramadan and the Eidification of Ramadan, that this is a perennial problem that every generation has dealt with, which is evidenced by the fact that scholars of the past have dealt with it as well. Please rein yourselves in

**[2:11]** and focus on the worship in Ramadan. And insha'Allah, hopefully our real suhoor fest will be the first day of Shawwal at Eid al-Fitr.