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1094 / 1956
46
Afterlife
"You Owe Me." Free Yourself from Riba and Debt | The Other Side: Barzakh and Beyond Ep. 18
50
Afterlife
Was it that big of a deal? Your Wudu is Serious | The Other Side: Barzakh and Beyond Ep. 17
118
Roman Emperor Who Almost Became Muslim & Conquest of Jerusalem | Al-Aqsa: Past, Present, and Promise
123
General Psychology
Tested Like the Prophets | UK Tour Wembley Stadium Lecture by Dr. Omar Suleiman
141
The Blessed Land of Al-Sham: Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan | Al-Aqsa: Past, Present, and Promise
148
Life of the Prophet (seerah)
Tamim al-Dari (ra): The Palestinian Sahabi That Met Dajjal | The Firsts
155
Life of the Prophet (seerah)
Adi ibn Hatim al-Tai (ra): From Christian King to Companion | The Firsts
166
Life of the Prophet (seerah)
Zayd ibn al-Khattab (ra): The Quiet Brother of Omar (ra) | The Firsts
171
Life of the Prophet (seerah)
Tulayha ibn Khuwaylid (ra): From False Prophet to Shaheed | The Firsts
224
Culture
Israel's Ceasefire Rejection, Nurse Fired for Gaza, and the Law of Sacrifice | Imam Tom Live
343
Culture
Biryani Diplomacy: The Illusion of Political Influence & the "Flour Massacre" | Imam Tom Live
357
Life of the Prophet (seerah)
Amr ibn al-As (ra): His Wicked Father and “Better” Brother | The Firsts
363
Life of the Prophet (seerah)
Khalid ibn al-Walid (ra): The Legendary Military General | The Firsts
504
Quran
Juz’ 26: Mufti Abdul Rahman Waheed and Dr. Zohair Abdul Rahman | Our Afterlife and Our Purpose
620
Allah
Finding Faith Through the Prophet's ﷺ Conviction: Dr. Omar Suleiman | My Moment of Conviction
734
Social Justice
A Conversation with Afreen Fatima on the Plight of Indian Muslims | Dr. Omar Suleiman
745
Prophets
Why Is Asking "Why Does God Asks Us to Worship Him?" Flawed? (Part 2) | Yaqeen Whiteboard
781
Angels
Ep. 13: The Hadith of Jibreel (as) | Angels in Their Presence | Season 2 | Dr. Omar Suleiman
815
Afterlife
Sincerity Shines and Hypocrisy Blinds | Judgment Day: Deeds that Light the Way Episode 25
972
Life of the Prophet (seerah)
Anisa, Al-Numan, and Amir (ra): On A Boat From Abysinnia | The Firsts
979
Life of the Prophet (seerah)
Khalid Ibn Sa’id Ibn al-'As (ra): A Dream of the Prophet | The Firsts
995
Life of the Prophet (seerah)
Zaynab Bint Khuzayma (ra): The Mother of the Poor | The Firsts Shorts
1005
Life of the Prophet (seerah)
Shurahbil Ibn Hasana (ra): The Scribe and Commander | The Firsts Shorts
1027
Life of the Prophet (seerah)
Al-Shifa bint Abdullah (ra): The Healer and Scholar | The Firsts Shorts
1080
Life of the Prophet (seerah)
Khawla Bint Hakim & Uthman Ibn Madhun: The Righteous Couple | The Firsts
1196
Islam in the West
Dr. Ahmed Osman: The Martyrdom, Funeral, and Burial of Malcolm X | Yaqeen Presents
1549
Acts of Worship
When the Prophet Sent People Home from the Masajid for Taraweeh | Daily Reminders
1664
Identity
Keeping Masculinity from Trending Toxic - Dr. Jonathan Brown | Reframing the Gender Question
1668
Social Justice
Overcoming Compassion Fatigue, Numbness, and Burnout - Sh. Omar Suleiman | Khutbah
1708
Acts of Worship
Day 24: When the Night Draws its Curtain —The Importance of Tahajjud | Ramadan Strong
1760
Social Justice
Conflict Resolution: The Line Between Justice and Peace - Sh. Omar Suleiman | Lecture
1761
General Psychology
Spiritual Personality - Zohair Abdul-Rahman | 2018 Yaqeen/MAS Academic Conference
1776
Contemporary Ideologies
Conversations at The Carter Center: Harmonizing Religion and Human Rights
1777
Education
How Yaqeen is a Resource for Our Community - Sh. Omar Suleiman | Making Principled Progress
1783
Islamophobia
How Yaqeen Heals Internalized Islamophobia - Dalia Mogahed | Making Principled Progress
1805
Jurisprudence (fiqh)
Appreciating Scholarship: Intro to Islamic Law - Tesneem Alkiek | Yaqeen in NY
1834
Acts of Worship
Episode 6: The Highest Companionship in the Highest Garden | Prayers of the Pious
Finding Consistency After Ramadan | Webinar
How do we sustain the spiritual momentum we established during Ramadan? Join our panel of speakers as they offer tips on how to maintain consistency in our worship now that the holy month has passed.
Transcript
This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings. Assalamualaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh everyone, I was going to say welcome back to Qur'an 30 for 30, subhanAllah, my mind even went right straight to, let me say welcome back to Qur'an 30 for 30. Welcome to our post Ramadan webinar, alhamdulillahi rabbil alameen. Bismillahirrahmanirrahim, alhamdulillahi rasulullahi wa'ala alihi wa sahbihi wa man wala. So alhamdulillahi rabbil alameen, as you can see, we have the whole team here, alhamdulillahi rabbil alameen, not the whole team, but all of the speakers here, alhamdulillahi rabbil alameen. And I think that we need this with everything that's going on, and I'll say this because just to start right off the bat, I think all of us are rightfully consumed by what's happening in Palestine. And watching the news constantly and engaging inshAllah ta'ala as much as we can, doing the best that we can. And there can be a tendency when there's something like that going on to put everything else to the side in the sense of ibadah, in the sense of worship. And to, you know, say well now's not the time to talk about this, let's just do another webinar, let's do another conversation about what's happening in Palestine. And I think that it's important for us to remember, and I'll probably say this a few times inshAllah ta'ala, that it is our connection to ibadah that fuels us and that ultimately brings about the goodness that we are seeking bid'ah ta'ala for ourselves and for our brothers and sisters inshAllah. So we continue to talk about, you know, our connection to Allah azawajal, our connection to the Quran, our connection to our good deeds beyond Ramadan, while never being distant from our brothers and sisters emotionally, mentally, and even spiritually. So alhamdulillah Ibrahim, it is still important for us and I want to thank everyone that's here, alhamdulillah. If you look across your screen, I will start with, to my right, because Mufti Sahib wanted so bad, Mufti Abdur Rahman wanted so bad to be all the way on the right.
He insisted on his position on the screen, and that's just, you know, we just had to acknowledge it, or we had to just let it go. Okay, so Mufti Sahib is Ashab al-Yameen, he wants to be, Dr. Tasneem is not Ashab al-Shemal, but she just happens to be on my left right now. So Dr. Tasneem al-Qeeq, alhamdulillah, rabbi al-Amin. And of course, that's Shaykh Abdullah Uduru, who's back, alhamdulillah. And everyone's been clamoring about Shaykh Abdullah, when's he going to come back, so he's back, alhamdulillah, rabbi al-Amin. Very happy to have him. He's not going to jump into my room, I don't think he will at least, but if he disappears at some point, I'll start worrying, but alhamdulillah, rabbi al-Amin. We have Shaykh Abdullah, Shaykh Ibrahim Hindi, alhamdulillah, rabbi al-Amin. And of course, sister Najwa, alhamdulillah, may Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la bless you all. How's everyone doing? Alhamdulillah. I'm good on the right, alhamdulillah, I'm so happy. Because I'm 30 for 30, you guys kept looking down upon me, man, you guys gave me some real confidence issues in that time. I realize that what you're saying about the bottom row now, so at some point I think we're just going to have to start flipping boxes around now. Just because you've made such a big deal about the positioning now, we're just going to have to keep on switching it around. I'm just glad I'm not being on the left. Yeah, what are you trying to say by Dr. Tasneem, she finished her PhD, so now we relegate her to the left, is that what happened? No, that's because she left Michigan, that's why. You left because you left Michigan, alhamdulillah. I thought he was waiting to say that. There seemed to be some anger in that, it wasn't just like a... No, no, no, we would love for her and her husband to be back in Michigan so they can help us over here, but khair, you know, it's all good.
InshaAllah, we're going to try to make this more conversational inshaAllah ta'ala, but I'm going to ask everyone a question about particularly, you know, how we keep it going after Ramadan inshaAllah. And hopefully, you know, we'll be practical, but also inshaAllah ta'ala, everyone will be building on what was said before them. So I'm going to ask a question, and inshaAllah ta'ala, everyone is welcome to chime in. So I'm going to start with Shaykh Ibrahim inshaAllah, because Shaykh Ibrahim actually is addressing, bismillah, what I think a lot of us might be feeling about the regret with Ramadan. And sometimes we go straight to, you know, the habits after Ramadan, and we make the assumption that everyone felt like they had an amazing Ramadan. And the reality is, is that some people feel like they didn't have the ideal Ramadan. Some people feel like they didn't achieve what they wanted to achieve in Ramadan. And so my question to you, Shaykh Ibrahim, is that as people might have felt disengaged during Ramadan, they might feel disappointed with their spiritual goals. There it is, Khadija is already crying about it because she's remembering how disappointed she was. How do we move forward if we feel like we didn't have the ideal Ramadan experience? So let's sort of start there inshaAllah ta'ala, and then we'll build on that. InshaAllah, bismillahirrahmanirrahim. You know, I feel a certain affinity to this question because, you know, in most places in Canada, I think we've been under lockdown for a long time now. And certainly during Ramadan, most of us were unable to attend the masajid or see our family and have iftar with other Muslims. And it's been like two years now where we've been away from the masjid during Ramadan. I think it's in people's minds. You know, anecdotally, I sent messages to people just asking them, like, how do you feel this Ramadan versus last? And pretty much everyone felt like this one was not as good, probably because of the stress of what we've been facing. And, you know, subhanAllah, like even if you weren't in lockdown, and I know like a lot of places in the U.S. have been opening up. And so each country and district is probably different one from the other.
But even if you weren't in lockdown, I think sometimes there's external stresses that can happen, right? Like a death of a family member, for instance, or problems at work or problems with your kids. There's so many external factors that sometimes knock us off course during the month of Ramadan or they deflate us during the month of Ramadan. Even what's happening to our brothers and sisters in Palestine. I think for some Muslims, it energized their ibadah, made them make even better dua, make them pray even deeper. But for some people, it might have just knocked them off course, and they just might have felt very deflated. So now that Ramadan is over, and you're kind of looking back, and, you know, we're talking about moving forward with momentum. A lot of people are going to be thinking, what momentum? Like, I didn't have any momentum during that month, or I really felt deflated, or I didn't achieve the goals that I wanted to achieve. And I think about a hadith of the Prophet ﷺ when he said, إِنَّ ذِي رَبِّكُمْ فِي أَيَامِ الدَّهْرِ نَفَحَتْ Which is a bit difficult to translate. The Prophet ﷺ says that during the days of the year, there are, you know, it literally means a breeze, but there are gifts from Allah ﷻ. And what the scholars intend, you know, interpret this to mean is that there are seasons in the days of the year, seasons of the forgiveness of Allah, the mercy of Allah. There are days of the year that are better than other days, right? And so the Prophet ﷺ says, فَتَعَارُضُ لَهَا Like, expose yourself to these days, engage in these days, that perhaps you might get some of the mercy of Allah ﷻ during them. And so there are days, you know, there are seasons of the mercy of Allah, of His forgiveness, of His blessing. And so imagine for a moment, you owned a business, and your business was a seasonal business. So your business, for instance, is a tourist, you know, focused or centric business. And let's say because of COVID lockdowns or other things that might have happened in your life, other stresses that occur in your life, that happened during the season, your business ends up suffering, right? You end up looking back at the end of the season, you're like, I didn't make as much money as I should have made, right?
I didn't do as well as I should have done in my business. Here's the thing, it's natural to feel disappointed, to feel like you've missed out, but dwelling on it too much is not going to benefit you. Dwelling on it too much is not going to make your business better, right? Instead, the only solution is to plan for the next season, right? To say, okay, maybe part of the reason I didn't do so well during Ramadan, maybe part of the reason why I was knocked off of course, quite easily, is because I didn't strengthen myself beforehand. Like I didn't strengthen my business before the season, so when I came in season, I was easily knocked off course. And so maybe what I can do is for next season, I make sure that I'm better prepared. I make sure that I'm prepared enough that whatever comes my way, I can still have a certain amount of focus on my business, or in this case, on our Iman, on our connection to Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la. And so if you feel like you weren't focused enough this past Ramadan, if you feel like you didn't take advantage of the season of Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la, of His forgiveness, of His blessings enough, it's probably a sign that we didn't prepare enough beforehand. We didn't strengthen our Iman enough, we didn't engage enough in dua, we didn't do enough salah, we didn't do enough night prayers. And so when we were faced with stress and with anxiety, it knocked us off course and we didn't do as well. And so feeling bad about it probably is not going to be too helpful. Instead, what's important is for us to resolve ourselves moving forward, to try to be better prepared. And Alhamdulillah, SubhanAllah, even that hadith that I mentioned, it doesn't specify Ramadan, although of course Ramadan is one of the seasons of the forgiveness of Allah, it is the month of patience, the month of Qur'an, the month of dua. But at the same time, there are other days in the year that are also important. So coming up soon, there's going to be the 10 days of Dhul Hijjah. Can we prepare ourselves for those 10 days and do better in those 10 days, and then build as we try to get to the next Ramadan. And that's something that should weigh on our minds throughout the year. Like the Salaf, as we all know, for half of the year they used to pray for Allah to accept what they did in the previous Ramadan, and for the next half of the year they would pray for Allah to allow them to witness the next Ramadan.
So their whole year was a lot of planning around the concept of Ramadan and trying to do the best in that time. And so what's important for us inshallah, even if we haven't done that well during the past Ramadan, even if we feel like we failed a little bit, it's important for us to realize we need to resolve to do better, resolve to prepare ourselves better, even if it's by doing small things throughout the year to inshallah build our iman, and to strengthen our iman, that next Ramadan, whatever external factors come our way, inshallah we're able to overcome them bi'ithnillah. Jazak'Allah khair. Inshallah, would anyone like to jump in bi'ithnillah? I mean, Shaykh Omar, of course when you say that, just say, I know the guy with the turban on my right has something to say, just say it, just spit it out, just every time that happens just say that. I didn't say that, I assume inshallah that, you know. I mean you said it behind the scenes, you know, like so khalas, you literally said it indirectly behind the scenes, so I mean, if that's what you want. If that's what you want. So, you know, one of the most important qualities of a believer is this حُسْنَ ضَنْوَةَ اللَّهِ سُبْحَانَهُ وَ تَعَالَى Right? Whatever I did, you know, اللَّهَ مَا هَذَا الْجُهِدُ وَعَلَيْكَ التُّكْلَانِ Oh Allah, this is my effort and the results are in your hands. I could, oh Allah, you know, you're the one that gives me ability, you're the one that put me in this situation, and having the حُسْنَ ضَنْوَةَ after the عَمَل is such an important aspect of our deen, that oh, you know, I could, this is what I could manage, what I managed to do, and then leave it. The idea that a person has that Allah did not accept, it's true, we should not mistake in the fact that we should not just be arrogant after doing good deeds. You know, that's true, that a believer is إحسان العمل, you know, he has the excellence in his deed all the time, he tries his best. At the same time, he has حُسْنَ ضَنْوَةَ بالله So, what Shaykh Ibrahim said, you know,
I feel for my fellow Canadians who are right across the border, because the environment of Ramadan is in the Masajid. You know, they had 36 Eid Salahs in Windsor, 36. Try to put that, right across the border, 36, because 10 people were coming, they started the Eid Salah right after Ishraq, and they went all the way to Al-Asr, because they got that in some Madhhab, it's allowed to Al-Asr, I'm just messing with you, it was till Duhur. Shaykh Umar is like that, someone, you know, they did it till Duhur, like right before Duhur. And then, SubhanAllah, I mean, you can't even feel the vibe for Eid, 10 at a time, 10 at a time, you know. So, Shaykh Ibrahim, you know, to all the fellow Canadians, and to all the people all over the world, whatever you did in Ramadan, Inshallah, Allah will accept. You know, keep your head up, and, you know, the good deeds you did in your home, could be much more rewarding than the good deeds a person did in the Masjids. You know, sometimes it doesn't even matter what gathering you're part of. Sometimes you can be part of the gatherings of Dhikr, but still rich among those who are negligent. And sometimes you can be part of the gatherings of people who are negligent, but be rich among those who are remembering Allah. So, Inshallah, you know, it was a challenge for all of you, all wherever you were, and Inshallah, Allah accepted all your deeds. I think now it's about, if Allah gives us an opportunity to go to the back of the Masjids in the next Ramadan, or after these few months, we will show Allah that we are worthy of being back here. That's a sentiment that I think we should develop, Inshallah. Yeah. My sisters wanted to go. I don't want to take from, Inshallah. This is like the perfect transition for whatever I'm going to share later, Inshallah. So please, Shaykh Abdullah, go ahead. So, if that's the case, since it's a perfect transition, but I think, Inshallah, Shaykh Abdullah, go ahead. Bismillah. Let's hear what you got to say, Inshallah. Okay. No, it's just, Inshallah, that's a beautiful, beautiful hadith, it's beautiful in the meaning, it's to cherish those beautiful days, and it reminds me, SubhanAllah,
that I always tell myself, firstly, in the communities, to be a spiritual opportunist, to take advantage of these beautiful days, and then take a look back at the Shari'ah, and you see how within the Shari'ah, Allah is always, always giving us an opportunity to, quote-unquote, do the right thing, or to do better, or to always increase ourselves in different ways. I mean, whether it's fasting, whether it's charity, as he mentioned, you know, the days that are coming up, meaning the 10 days of Dhul Hijjah, we have the 6 days of Shawwal, we always have the last third of the night, you know, you have, during the day, even continuously fasting. So there's always opportunities, but it's just, again, you know, and what's interesting, he said, لَنَفَحَتْ and it's a beautiful, beautiful word that is, you know, like a breeze, or something that you're waiting for, and of those that have made hajj, when it's hot, and it's after dhuhr, and you're in Mina, and then that breeze comes, SubhanAllah, there's nothing like it. So using that metaphorically is a beautiful, beautiful thing within our lives. And SubhanAllah, it could even be your perception. Your nafha, maybe someone else's, maybe it's totally different for someone else, but it's just to remember that there will always be better days, and to cherish those better days, whether it's universal, being what's in the sharia, or personally, inshaAllah. Allah knows best. InshaAllah. Sheikh Abdullah, is 30 for 30 one of your nafha? Or is it just like... Oh, I still have two nafha, I still have two, yeah. It's 30. I have a question on this front, before we move on to Dr. Tasneem, inshaAllah. It's a question after question, but I think for a lot of us, Sheikh Ibrahim, and I'll maybe direct it to Sister Najwa as well, particularly because, honestly, I think in the States, we were having a beautiful Ramadan experience, and then Palestine did consume, like what broke out in Al-Aqsa, you just felt like a turn in the Ramadan atmosphere, and the Ramadan mood, and of course, it's not like we want to enjoy a spiritual high, and everything being so perfect, when everything is not, and ignore it, and that that spiritually took us away.
No, but it changed the entire atmosphere of Ramadan, that last week where people typically, where all the conversations are, 27th night, and last 10 nights, and don't forget 29th, 30th, but I think Palestine was weighing heavy on a lot of people, what was happening in Al-Aqsa, especially seeing the images out of Al-Aqsa, so I think a lot of people felt like they were going, they were on an incline, and then they just kind of, they neglected, if you will, some of their goals in that process. I'm not sure, Sister Najwa in particular, you have anything to say about that, right? The way that we can feel paralyzed by that, right? So it's, spiritually speaking, if you don't care when you see what's happening, then that's a problem, right? So you should care spiritually. If you don't, that's actually an indictment, but how do we deal with sort of, some of us were paralyzed, and then we're now regretful because we were paralyzed. I'm thinking that we missed out particularly on the best part of Ramadan. You know, something that was said that really stood out to me, it's even before with Palestine, people told me over and over that this Ramadan was more challenging than last one. I don't know if it was the shutdown or the fatigue from the pandemic, but a lot of my clients, there are students, and it hit right with finals. Or, you know, my peer group, a lot of people with parents, where they would want to go, including myself, want to go to pray to Tarawih, and then you have your baby crying, and it's like, oh my God, what am I supposed to do? And so we have these circumstances that prevent us from being able to do all the things that we want to do. But going back and thinking about the best of Allah, that maybe he'll even reward us more for having the intention, for working harder, striving harder to do those exact same deeds. And may he reward us, even though some of us felt paralyzed or we felt like immobilized.
And it's interesting that you mentioned that because with Hussain in particular, you have people who completely became paralyzed, and it was very difficult for them, and may Allah reward them for that struggle and just maintaining that, for them to be able to continue that. And it's probably you had other people who, that need, although it was very painful, it brought them closer to Allah. Like Allah, we are so in need of you. This, I mean, who can change the circumstances except Allah? So you had people who gravitated towards him as well. But going back to knowing that Allah knows what's in our hearts. He knows the struggle that we have. And so if it's harder for you to pray, if it's harder for you just to do anything, him knowing that and taking comfort in that, and that just making du'a afterwards, we all make istighfar after Ramadan, but making istighfar and then making du'a that Allah accepts the best of us, whatever we're able to do. I would just add to that, we know the Prophet ﷺ said, the one who has difficulty reciting the Quran is rewarded double. So sometimes the difficulty increases our reward. Even though our actions are lesser, you're reciting less Quran than the person who is easy for them. Allah can reward you more. So, yeah, I mean, it's stressful times. It's difficult times, but like, you know, Sister Najwa said and Mufti Abdur Rahman said, like it doesn't mean that the reward is going to be less. And Allah knows our circumstances, knows what's in our hearts. JazakumAllah khair. I think that's very important inshallah to sort of a key point is many of us focus on the feeling and not the fact that number one, we are dependent on Allah's mercy. And number two, we look at our actions and our deeds and how to continue those deeds inshallah ta'ala. And so it is an understanding that in Allah's mercy, Allah recognizes not just the final output, but Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala also sees the struggle to get to where we were getting to. So if it became harder to do certain things, if it became harder to read,
harder to engage, then inshallah ta'ala, we pray that that's all part of the acceptance. So Dr. Tasneem, and if you can please speak in non-PhD terms, inshallah ta'ala, if you can just keep it, you know, inshallah ta'ala, basic for us inshallah. Which habits should people focus on after Ramadan? So now that, you know, Ramadan, you were engaging in so many different acts of worship and you're maintaining all of them, or you were trying to maintain them throughout the month, but maintaining them throughout the year is not realistic. And as Shaykh Ibrahim said, these are nafahat, they're breezes of mercy, they're seasons of mercy. So now that the season, that season has passed, we have another nafahat away of the six of Shawwal and things coming up, the hijjah and so much. But what do people prioritize now in terms of what they keep in terms of actual habits and deeds after Ramadan? So I think the way this conversation is going was perfect Ali, jazakum Allah khayran, because the hadith that I wanted to focus on, or part of the hadith that I wanted to focus on was the fact that lan yudkhila ahadakum a'malahul jannah No one is entering Jannah based off of their actions. So I think that when we want to talk about the deeds that we're going to be doing after Ramadan, that it's really we need to show to switch our perspectives a bit and really focus on this discussion that we're having that no matter what you did, all of Ramadan, we spent our days fasting, our nights awake in prayer. And for those of you who didn't have even the best of Ramadans, you were doing something different, at least one thing. If it wasn't reading more Quran, it was definitely fasting for most people. It was trying to do your best. It was that mentality that you were in. So something was different about Ramadan. But no matter whether you were one to be doing just your bare minimum and you felt like your Ramadan wasn't all there, or you were that person that had one of the best Ramadans of your life, at the end of the day,
no matter how much effort you put in, that effort, those actual deeds aren't what are going to bring us into, will take us into Jannah. That it's Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala's mercy, that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, who He is, that that is what's going to take us to Jannah. And that was something that's really emphasized, especially the last 10 nights of Ramadan. If you think back to the main dua that the Prophet, peace be upon him, encouraged us to recite in the last 10 nights of Ramadan, Allahum innaka'afoon kareemun tuhibbu al'afwa fa'afoo anna. Ya Allah, you're, you know, you're the most generous, you love to forgive who you are, the mercy of who you are, of the love that you give us is such that you want to forgive us and we're begging Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, as a result, please forgive us. And so when you really focus on that mentality, that the purpose of Ramadan wasn't so you could, you know, compete with others to get in as many good deeds. The deeds themselves, of course, that's something that we're encouraged to do and we want to do, but don't lose sight of that end goal, which at the end of the day, is to recognize Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala for who He is. It's to recognize that this month is out of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala's hand, that it was, it's as a result of Allah's mercy and His beautiful attributes, His love, His care, His generosity, that is what gets our Ramadan accepted. And so when you think of this, when you have this mentality, it really helps prepare for, you know, what am I going to do after Ramadan? What are those habits? Because again, sometimes what happens is that, you know what, I didn't have the best of Ramadans, or you know what, maybe I had a great Ramadan, but you know, life is kicking back in, things are getting busy. It's not Ramadan, I don't have the blessing of Ramadan, the vibe, the energy, the shayateen, the demons are back out, now what? And what happens is that because of this, sometimes we look at our actions, our day-to-day actions, and we belittle that, that you know what, if I couldn't do my juz' of Quran every single day, I was reading 20 pages of Quran every single day, I was reading one page, I was doing something that was beyond my norm, because
I can't keep up with it, then it's all or nothing. We have this black and white mentality. And again, we have this mentality because we don't have this big picture in mind that it's not about your actions, it's about Allah's mercy. And in that very same hadith, you have my absolute favorite, you know, reminder from the Prophet ﷺ, that after the Prophet says that, you know what, nothing, none of your deeds are getting you into Jannah, is what? That what happens next is that the Prophet ﷺ says, إِنْ حَبَّ الْأَعْمَالِ إِلَى اللَّهِ أَدْوَامُهَا وَقَلَ that the best of actions, Allah ﷻ, are those that are consistent, even if they're small. There's a very important connection between these two, because when you recognize that all of your actions don't really matter except that it's Allah's mercy that's entering into Jannah, and then Allah ﷻ is telling us exactly what He wants, that you know what, I'll tell you what's going to get you into Jannah, it's that just do something consistent. Because when you're doing something small and consistent, you're constantly reminding yourself of Allah's mercy. You're constantly reminding yourself of that real purpose, and that purpose is pleasing Allah ﷻ. Allah ﷻ is giving us that free pass, here, this is what's pleasing to me, doing something small but consistent. And with that in mind, when you're thinking about the habits that you want to embody in the next few months, and I'll wrap up with this, it's the fact that you want to think about everything you're doing this Ramadan. There had to have been one thing that you felt that really pushed you, that really moved you, compared to everything else. And so for some people that might have been reading tafsir, reading the reasons that some of the Qur'anic verses revealed. For some of you that might have been getting up to pray at night. For some of you it might have been the fasting. Think of that one thing that made you feel a little extra good inside. And it doesn't have to be something that made you cry, or something that made you change your life, but really something that brought you just that one inch closer to Allah ﷻ. And now
focusing solely on that, if that was reading Qur'an 10 pages a day, just try to read one page a day. If you were reading one page a day, read one verse a day. And again, a lot of times the reason we refuse or we sort of neglect doing that, you might be thinking to yourself, come on, one verse a day. I just came out of this month and I was going hard. What's the point? I might as well not do anything. But when you have that mentality that it's not about the action. Allah ﷻ, you just remember me often, do good things often, and I will do the rest. I'll get you into Jannah. That is really, if we have that mentality, we're going to start off small, we're going to start off with the little. We're just going to do one verse every single day. And then I promise you, in a few months, in a few years, you'll realize how that one good deed will snowball into really long-term habits and things that we can, that looking back will be entirely different people as a result of that one simple action. So really, I think just focusing on the big picture, reminding ourselves what the purpose of the month of Ramadan was, what the purpose of any of our actions are, and inshallah, Allah ﷻ will do the rest and we'll enter Jannah through His mercy. Jazakumullah khair. Allah bless you. I see Mufti Saab wants to already, he's like, let me add it. Let me start. So Mufti Saab, what's your thought? Jazakumullah khair, Dr. Tasneem. I think, you know, as growing up, I suffered this a lot too. This is something that's very close to me. Like, we were always immersed in good environments like for so long, an extended period of time. Like, we were in a boarding school for like seven months and you come home and you're eating hot Cheetos, watching Detroit Red Wings and Joel and Serena. Like, we just came from like the highest of the highest to the lowest of the lowest, right? But, you know, one of our aunties, subhanAllah, she's a great auntie, she said to me that, you know, she said to me that praying Maghrib Salah at Joel and Serena is more rewarding than praying at her school. I was like, okay,
khair, you know, like, think about that. Like, she was like, it's like, I don't know where she got that from, but there's a reason why that, you know, that famous du'a about, you know, the sahih hadith, intimidy, that, you know, you don't get that, the one million reward deeds and one million sins forgiven and, you know, one million darajat, ranks, you know, one million good deeds, that Allah forgives one million sins, Allah raises one million ranks, if you recite this du'a when you enter into the masjid. These, this reward is given to the person who recites this du'a when entering to the mall. So sometimes, like, going into these places, like that, you know, that Ramadan vibe and everything that's happening in Ramadan, so you come out of Ramadan, Dr. Saleem mentioned, then you feel like, what's the point now, it's all or nothing. No, like, just reciting la ilaha illallah wahdahu la sharika lah, lahul mulk, walaul hamd, yuhyi wa yumeet, wawahiyun la yamoot biyadihil khayruhu ala kulli shay'in qadeer, that's one narration of this du'a. I mean, that's it, you recite that when you enter the mall, like, it's fine, you're in the mall now, but the fact that you remembered Allah, even this little, in the mall, you're getting those rewards because you got that in the mall. I mean, if you enter into the masjid, that would not have been the same, you know, the same reward. And so, like, what you're saying, Dr. Saleem, it makes sense, because you come from institutions, you come back, you go Umrah, Hajj, and then you come back, like, you know, you're like, I remember one time when I went for Hajj, I think it was with Sheikh Omar Saleem, I came back, and I went straight from the airport to Wayne State University for my class. And I remember the night before, I was praying Isha in Madinatul Munawwara, right in front of the Jannah. The next day, I was praying Isha Salah with my sweater on the ground next to the staircase in the campus. Wallahi, the next day. And I couldn't, I was like, man, like, so that, you know, this, and if you don't, this is one of my favorite statements of a Sahabi, because it's so, like, it hits me all the time. The idea that even Sahaba went through this. Like, they never were on
one level all the time. They even went through this. Ustaid bin Hudair, he says, لَكُنتُ مِنْ أَهْلِ الْجَنَّةِ وَمَا شُكَكْتُ فِي ذَلِكَ If it wasn't, if I was in any of these three conditions all my life, I know for sure I would have been a person of Jannah, and I would have no doubt. Meaning, there were three conditions in his life where he felt like he reached the top. And that doesn't, that means that he wasn't always there at all times. And he says, حين أقرأ القرآن وحين أسمعه يقرأ When I recite the Qur'an, or when I hear it being recited. وإذا شهدت خطبة رسوله صلى الله عليه وسلم When I am there at the sermon of the Prophet ﷺ. وإذا شهدت جنازة And the third thing he said is when I would attend a janazah. You know, these three things. I mean, you know, nowadays we don't attend the janazahs the same way. A graveyard is a silent place with a loud message. You know, that's what Shaykh Sulaiman Allah says. Right? So it's a silent, a graveyard is a silent place with a loud message. So these three conditions, if I'm in one of these three, ما شككت في ذلك. I would be, I would have no doubt I'll be a person of Jannah. So Dr. Dasneem, what you said, that's true. You know, we have this feeling that Ramadan, do everything, but now I don't get the same vibes on the street. That's true. You had that feeling, but there's so much you can do after. And you will still get the reward for it. And inshallah, you felt that before. So you're always going to try to get back to that feeling inshallah. SubhanAllah, I just got to know people are going to ask about the du'a by the way. لَا إِلَهَ إِلَّا اللَّهُ وَحْدَهُ لَا شَرِيكَ لَهُ الْمُلْكُ وَلَهُ الْحَمْدُ يُحْيِي وَيُمِيتُ وَهُوَ حَيٌّ لَا يَمُوتُ بِيَدِهِ الْخَيْرِ وَهُوَ عَلَىٰ كُلِّ شَيْءٍ قَدِيرٍ And we'll put it inshallah in the comments as well. By the way, just something very interesting about that du'a in that sense is that the only addition to the common iteration of that du'a which is لَا إِلَهَ إِلَّا اللَّهُ وَحْدَهُ لَا شَرِيكَ لَهُ الْمُلْكُ وَلَهُ الْحَمْدُ يُحْيِي وَيُمِيتُ وَهُوَ حَيٌّ لَا يَمُوتُ
He gives life, he gives death, and he is ever living and he does not die. And one of the wisdoms of that is that the Prophet ﷺ taught us اللهم لا عيش إلا عيش الآخرة Oh Allah, there is no life except for the life of the hereafter. The fact that you bring yourself to that when you go to the marketplace, when you go to a place where... And I get asked the question by the way all the time like what if I say a du'a when I enter into like Amazon or online shopping since things have changed? You know what, say the du'a. Allah is more merciful and generous. But the idea was when you walk into a marketplace, even physically, it's so easy to quickly get distracted. Like if you've ever seen the traditional souq, it's so loud. You know, like it's so loud, it's so distracted, it's bargaining, it's all types of things going on. And even without all of that, like you walk into the marketplace, you're so distracted and it's like you're reminding yourself of الباقيات الصالحات You're reminding yourself of the things which الباقيات الصالحات, what Allah mentions in the Qur'an of the righteous good deeds that stay are what the علماء بتفسير mentioned, what Dr. Tasneem was just talking about the small consistent good deeds, particularly dhikr, particularly the remembrance of Allah. So the fact that when you go there, you still remind yourself that life, true life is not in these things. True life is beyond these material things. And that's why, what does Allah reward you with? This incredible reward, right? So in many ways, I think the message here is to do these good deeds outside of Ramadan can even be more rewardable in the sense of your spiritual traction and movement towards Allah سُبْحَانَهُ وَ تَعَالَى You never know even the reward that may come from Allah سُبْحَانَهُ وَ تَعَالَى because it's so much harder to do these good deeds outside of Ramadan. So Ramadan magnifies because of the virtue of Ramadan. But after Ramadan, consistency magnifies because of the, I don't want to say lack of virtue because every month has its virtue, but because of the downtime, if you will, that everyone is taking after Ramadan.
I'd love to hear from inshaAllah ta'ala. So inshaAllah, Sheikh Rahim, Sheikh Abdullah, tifadhalo. No, inshaAllah, ta'ala, there's a lot in there. I mean, subhanAllah, how he mentioned, you know, when coming into the sukkh and if we just ponder over the different supplications and their connection with the events, there's a reason behind it. Whether we know it or not, there's an ultimate reason behind it. As you alluded to, as you mentioned, yuhyi wa yumeet and then distractions. And subhanAllah, you know, distraction is that which is this from traction that when we look at the word in English, traction means that you have something, you know, tightly knit or something that you have. But distraction takes you away from that, detaches you from that. And I mean, even when you mentioned Amazon, subhanAllah, you know, I can get more distracted online and on Amazon than going into the store, you know, physically because you're, you know, the related items, you click on that. Oh, OK, then you click on this, you click on that. Next thing you know, it's Lahore and you just click on, you know, right after fajr. So that is definitely a distraction with all this social media. This is all kinds of distractions. But subhanAllah, just seeing how the ad'ia, the supplications are tied to a particular event, whether we know what it is or not. We know that al-Hakim, that the all-wise, you know, gave that to the Prophet ﷺ and the Prophet ﷺ said that for a particular reason, which is so profound, meaning that we can always have an opportunity to continue learning. And then lastly, that beautiful hadith from Dr. Tasneem, which she mentioned, one of my favorite hadiths, subhanAllah, I always tell this to my kids, to new Muslims, to myself, is that, you know, subhanAllah, don't ever be, لَتَحْكَرَنَّ مِنَ الْمَعْرُوفِ شَيْئًا Right? Do not belittle any good deed at all. And realizing that, you know, I was just reading the other day, I can't remember which book it was, but it was talking about how we should learn from children, from babies. Because naturally, naturally within our fitrah, when a baby tries to, when tries to stand and walk, they will fall, but then they'll get right back up. And I'm almost sure you're sitting with Khadijah right now. Yeah, hafidhahullah, man.
You see, they're getting up and they're falling. They're getting up and they're not going to give up, because they see it all, they're not going to give up. We should take lessons from that, you know, and take it just slowly, but surely, and realizing that we will be, idhni Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, obtain our goal, inshaAllah. The determination of babies, man. The azeemah of babies, allahu akbar. They are determined. Shaykh Ibrahim, Sister Najwa, anything from you before we go on, inshaAllah? You know, something that just stands out for me is just, subhanAllah, when we look at du'a and dhikr throughout the day, it's in the mundane things. It's in the everyday things. It's, you know, a lot of times we associate these spiritual highs with Ramadan, or, you know, the bigger things. But it's that consistency throughout the day, when you go to the bathroom, when you go to the marketplace. Those are the things, those are the small abadah that really add up at the end of the day. And that gives hope too, that, you know, even if you didn't have the best of Ramadan's, all that opportunity, just in your everyday, every night that you have to work on that. You brought up Khadijah, Shaykh Abdullah. I always, subhanAllah, try to think about Khadijah never had a Ramadan. Hamza, first Ramadan, right? Badr. You know, like, so the point is, is that, subhanAllah, think about the sabiqoon even that didn't have a Ramadan. But their place with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. So we're not dependent, our station with Allah is not dependent on one of the seasons of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. Though we certainly avail ourselves of them. And truly, I think what you just mentioned, Sister Najwa, JazakumAllah khair for that. That reminder that it's in the daily things. Shaykh Abdullah, what's one word that you would use to describe the other 11 months of the year compared to Ramadan? That's a great question.
I think it would be, you know, really, for Ramadan for me is, I mean, it really ties to the hadith that Dr. Tasneem mentioned, you know, really discipline is to be someone that is conscious of wanting to be disciplined. But, you know, when you're disciplined in something, that means you have an ultimate goal or purpose that you're trying to get to. But ultimately, that cannot really be fortified unless there is, you know, value. So I value a certain thing that I want to get to or to please. So in this case, you know, we want to, we value Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and who He is and what He loves, you know. And it's interesting, I think Shaykh Hussam Taimiyyah, he mentions in Urbudiyyah, he mentions that true love is not obtained until you love what the Beloved loves, right? So that's something that's very important in regards to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. When we love what He loves and the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam loves, it's not something that's going to be overnight. And there may be some things, you know, that in our chest, we don't understand why or it may not be something that we're privy to or, you know, fond of from the sharia. I mean, we're human beings, but it's important to realize that, okay, this month of Ramadan, I've done something amazing. You know, we don't realize the fact that we have fasted for more than 12, almost 16 hours. You haven't ate or drank. You haven't done these things. And then the next month, you go back to eating and drinking. But if you just take a look back, just at that reality, you left all of that for something. Now, why did you do that? That's what you should constantly remember and then see that, okay, I'm able to do this for 30 days or however many days, 15, 20 something days, whether it was from an excuse or whether, you know, you tried your best but realize that it's possible. And I think that's important for us, for Muslims to remember is that in these 11 months, we should look at Ramadan as a catalyst for numerous personal possibilities.
And fasting is just one of them. You know, and one thing that I really wanted to capitalize on in the community and for myself initially is, you know, subhanAllah, the concept of sleep in particular. I don't think that's talked about a lot when we talk about Muslims and human beings and sleep and how sleep, some individuals say, specialists say that it's even more important than exercise and diet combined. And we see within the sleep of Islam, you know, the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, he would sleep in the first part of the night and he would wake up in the last third, generally, generically. And even the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam did not like to engage in frivolous talk immediately after Salatul Isha. So he would take his time and go to sleep and he would wake up in the last third of the night. So looking at yourself and seeing, okay, which aspect of my sleep can I refine? Because it's all inclusive. You know, we talk about Ramadan, we could talk about, you know, diet and what you break your fast with, which is primarily important. We could talk about, you know, a lot of guys and people coming up and talking about working out in Ramadan. What should I do? What should I not do? Again, back to the Hadith of taking those little deeds and seeing you personally, where you thrive and where you shine. Like what I tell new Muslims in particular is like, okay, which Salat would be easiest for you in the beginning to start with? Are you a morning person, evening person? Start with that and then throughout in the beginning, middle and end, always ask Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la to keep you firm upon that and to stay upon it. So within these 11 months, it's about what personal practices that you have that you can be consistent on and ask Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la to keep you firm upon it. So along with the Hadith that Sister Tasneem was mentioning, there's another Hadith that I always love to mention as well, which is the Hadith in the Sujood, يَمُّ قَلِبُ الْقُلُوبِ ثَبِّتْ قَلْبِ عَلَىٰ دِينِكَ The Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam used to say in his Sujood, and it's interesting that his wife Aisha heard this when he was saying this in the middle of the night when she woke up and she would reach for him and she touched the bottom of his feet and that's what you hear him saying
Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. So particularly when looking at that particular act of yours, and I particularly wanted to touch on sleep but due to time constriction, looking at how we can use that to be something virtuous for us in these next 11 months. So that word really comes to my mind and it's a very, very important word which is very comprehensive, is discipline. And I usually define that as constant acts of control to reach a particular goal, right? You have this acts of control to reach that particular goal and it is guaranteed بِإِذْنِ اللَّهِ سُبْحَانَهُ وَتَعَالَى by the permission of Allah if one is sincere for Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala for instance if you say, okay, I want to sleep early in the night to wake up the last third of the night because I was doing that in the last 10 nights, right? It doesn't have to be the last, the rest of the 11 months, it could be one night out of the week that you say, you know what, I want to wake up the last third of the night and I want to ask Allah for this. I want to wake up the last third of the night and I just want to put my hands up in dua and then the next month I want to wake up the last third of the night and then pray two rakaat or pray winter. You know, something that will assist you in that, I think inshallah, is something that is very, very good. So when I think of the 11 months, I think of the word discipline but when we think of this word discipline, we have to take a step back and look at our purpose and what we really value. When we say Allah, but personally when we say Allah, what does that mean for us personally? It may be one particular name or attribute of Him that really hones in, is really personal for you. Actualize it in your life and think about it and within these 11 months, be around the people, be around the places, inshallah, bi-idhnillah, that will assist you in being consistent in that particular action, inshallah ta'ala. And that's something that I really want to remind all of us, inshallah, is to think of the word discipline and being consistent on that for the sake of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. And we will, by the permission of Allah, with good thoughts as we mentioned,
we will reach that particular goal, inshallah. JazakAllah khair. SubhanAllah, the hadith at the end, the hadith that was mentioned by Dr. Tasneem that's been alluded to a few times, the end of it is, tablughu, you'll reach your destination. salidu wa qaribu wa ghduhu wa ruhu wa shaytanu min al-duljati wa al-qasda al-qas tablughu that if you continue to act with this idea of balance and moderation and determination, keep making your progress towards Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and you take advantage of the early morning and of the evening, then you will reach your destination, like an assurance from the Messenger salallahu alayhi wa sallam. And I think that one thing you mentioned that hit me right away was trying to be around the people and the places. And this is something I said in the Monday night reminder too, and I'll mention it here, bringing some of the Ramadan ingredients into your shawwal is so important and into all the other months, bringing some of the ingredients of that Ramadan. What were the places? Who were the people? What were some of the things that really brought life to my heart and that really spiritually charged me in Ramadan that I can still bring outside of Ramadan, particularly in shawwal, where six days of fasting at least, because you have make-up days, you may have make-up days, so that's one-fourth or one-third of the month you can be fasting. And if you just think about that with everything else, the day that I fast, for example, what if I read the same amount of Quran the day that I fast in shawwal that I did in Ramadan, my typical day in Ramadan? What if I bring that? Because there are different strategies, right? So I take this much every day of shawwal, or my day of fasting in shawwal, what if I bring the same amount of Quran that I used to bring in Ramadan? What if those are the days, for example, I choose? You mentioned once a week. Let's say you choose once a week to pray qiyam.
And obviously, taraweeh has its own thing, but how do I bring that about that particular night? So some of the Ramadan ingredients are very important, inshallah ta'ala, for us to incorporate as well. In regards to the mention of sleep, because for those who know me, I take my sleep very seriously. But I was really surprised to find, I remember when we were reading through Ibn Qayyim's Medaraj al-Sadiqin, when he's talking about corruptors of the heart and how can you rectify some of the diseases of the heart, he talks about sluggishness as one of them. You're sluggish because you're tired, you're overeating, and all of that. And he specifically mentions the need, this medical need at the time, a thousand years ago, for eight hours of sleep every night. And I think that, I remember, was a really big turning point because at that point in my life, having been an undergrad, every year before that, throughout high school, throughout undergrad, I was always told, sleep is for the weak. If you're sleeping, that means you're not productive. That means there is this correlation between you don't have enough goals or motivation that you're willing to sacrifice eight hours of night every night for sleep. And I really, I think, like you were mentioning, Shaykh Abdullah, it's important to think of sleep as vital to enhance our worship and to gain that discipline. It really changes your life when you're able to manage. Of course, not everyone has the luxury of sleeping eight hours, but making sleep a priority and not sacrificing it if it isn't necessary. Really think about it as our holistic well-being, our health, the way we eat, the way we sleep, the way we work out, all of this is vital to not just ritual acts of worship, but the degree of worship we do in all of our acts, whether that's through our work, through our relationships, through school, really thinking about it as this big picture
of how you want to feel and the strength you have to contribute in every aspect. No, mashallah, mashallah. No, it was sleeping is something, you know, it's something that I just think about. I remember I was thinking about, I was like, subhanAllah, the things that are beyond our control within ourselves that we can't even control. There has to be a wisdom behind it to where it's beneficial for our existence. And sleep is one of them. So we cannot belittle that. And studies are showing that, like I said, it's highly important. It's very important literally for your brain, for, as I say, brainwashing. It cleanses your brain, even for weight loss. I mean, if you look at it, it's called melatonin. That's an element, that's, subhanAllah, a hormone that is released. It even helps with weight loss, and it's secreted really in the darkness, subhanAllah. So there's a lot of benefits behind sleeping in and of itself, and there has to be because Allah ﷻ has placed it within each and every one of us. So it's an amazing thing, and I could go on about that. JazakAllah khair. It's really, really important that Ramadan is a time, particularly of sleep, that we can really study ourselves and see what is best for ourselves, inshaAllah, O Taala. Sheikh Abdullah, is it true that you don't actually work out? You just said sleep is more important than food and working out. You just sleep a lot. That's all it is, right? That's how muscles grow, right? That's what I'm hearing from you. Just sleep, and then you'll naturally wake up, and biceps and triceps and everything will just... Well, see, the key is you have to dream about working out. See, when you do that... It's like a shafi'i, rahimAllah, his dream about, you know, niqash and ilm, you know, knowledge and faith. You dream about lifting weights, and you wake up, and then it just... Oh, no, Mufti Abdur-Rahman is raising his hand. For the last five minutes. Oh, I thought you were frozen.
I thought you were trying to do a face palm. No, no, I was raising my hand in this conversation, you know. So, yeah, I mean, you know, when Allah SWT mentions the qualities of believers in Surah Al-Mu'minun, He also mentions the qualities of people who were on the other side, you know, the disbelievers, the people of Makkah. And subhanAllah, He could have mentioned any quality. Like, they have a whole bucket list of bad qualities. And so if Allah highlights one of the bad qualities, that means there's something wrong with that. And He mentions, مُسْتَكْبِينَ بِهِ سَامِرًا تَهَجِرُونَ They were arrogant, and Samiran, they were people of Samurah. What does Samurah mean? Some people, they would talk at night. They would gossip at nighttime, stay up late at night. So Allah took out time and put it in the Quran to highlight... I mean, subhanAllah, He could have mentioned... Like, when you read that, He could have mentioned anything. With Takabbur, He mentioned Samurah. Like, seriously, like that. I mean, that is enough to tell us we gotta watch ourselves. Because if the people of Mecca, their bad quality was, they used to sit and indulge in Samurah, which is after it becomes dark at night, so maybe right after Isha Salah, just sitting and chilling and gossiping. This was mentioned as a bad quality of the disbelievers of Mecca. That means that's something we cannot incorporate because it will have a very bad impact on our lives. So, you know, just to go off of what Sheikh Abdullah and Dr. Seymour mentioned. That's very powerful. It's kind of like the opposite of, وَالَّذِينَ هُمْ عَنَ اللَّهُ يُمْعَرِّضُونَ The believers are, you know, when it comes to speech, idle speech, they're very, very particular about not engaging in idle speech when you're talking about the others. And you just think about spiritually what that does to you, by the way, the late night gossip and the way, you know, when people get into these long chats, right, in the comments section somewhere or wherever social media outlet or WhatsApp or whatever it is, just how spiritually detrimental that quickly becomes and the time that it wastes and the spirituality that it diminishes as well.
Because I think that's related as well to sleep. You're thinking about, oh, you know, well, we're supposed to be staying up at night and, you know, the Sahaba barely slept. And they were awake in Qiyam when they were awake. They weren't awake, you know, wasting hours in gossip. And I think that when we look at the Prophet's, the injunction to try to sleep after Isha, for example, those are very powerful concepts, you know, how intertwined they truly all are. I think people are going to go online and start now Amazon and looking for the right mattress because that's what they got from the post Ramadan webinar is how to sleep better. And while you're at it, you find that perfect white mattress. You might find a matching turban, white turban, just wrap the, you know, have it right inshallah to match your bed. Related, in the related section. Make sure you say that. Use part of it as your pillow and the rest for the blanket inshallah to. Shots fired from Sheikh Abdullah, man. Sheikh Abdullah does not usually fire shots at people. He just took one at you, so. It's all good. Next time I'll just come with the problem of a punching bag and a turban on top of it. Sheikh Ibrahim and I are in the middle. Back to you. Sheikh Abdullah reaching across this way, right? Yeah. Reaching across the screen. We have a therapist and a doctor on each side to mitigate. It's all good. We're covering all grounds. Sister Najwa, we need tools and strategies. True tools and strategies. I mean, we've talked about the mercy of Allah. We've talked about the feeling.
We've talked about, you know, the importance of consistency. But some tools and strategies. People do want to turn these habits into long-term ones, right? And they've definitely been exposed to some of their potential in Ramadan. What are some tools and strategies, inshallah to Allah, that we can take from this all? Yeah, so first and foremost, what Dr. Jassim said is internalizing that whole idea of that the most beloved deeds to Allah are the ones that are consistent, even if they are a few. And taking that, internalizing that, because, you know, after the high of Ramadan, people begin to feel unmotivated. You know, there's a few days afterwards with the adjustment. But, you know, when we look at that hadith, and we also look at research, we know that the people who are more likely to continue maintaining strides towards their goals are the ones that do them consistently. And one of my favorite tools for, you know, staying consistent and trying to work towards goals is make it hard for you to say no to that goal, or make it hard for you to say no to that good deed. And so when we look at habit forming and routines, you know, there are three or four major parts of establishing a habit that becomes automatic. The first is usually there's some kind of cue or a trigger. Then there is the behavior itself. And then there's the reward or the gratification afterwards. And a lot of times in these discussions we're looking at, we just talk about the behavior. Okay, well, let me do this, let me do that. But we don't look at the cue or the trigger right before, because that, if you can get that, that lays the foundation. It makes it easier for you to be able to carry on with those good deeds after Ramadan and throughout the entire year, inshallah. So if I were to give some examples, if you were one of those people who gave money every day during Ramadan
or every night in the last 10 nights, what can you do so that you cannot say no to that good deed? If you go to the bank or if you go even to, you know, when you go to the grocery store, ask if you want to withdraw money. You can set the foundation by once a month when you have that opportunity, you're there anyway, you're at the bank or the grocery store anyway, withdraw $20 in $5 bills and put it in your pocket. And make the intention every time you go to a Friday prayer, for the people who can go to Friday prayer, and make the intention that every time you go, you're going to give $5 that day. You have set the foundation. How can you say no to that? You're going to the bank or store anyway. You're going to Friday prayer anyway. You have your wallet anyway. You're going to pass by the donation box anyway. So you're setting that foundation of, well, how can I say no to that? So it's going to be more likely that you're going to give. If you're one of those people who decided to do two sunnah prayers during the day or maybe even at night, you know, make it in a way that you can continue to, that you cannot say no to yourself. So it might be, you know, praying Isha on the earlier side so that you have, that you're not tired, that you have the motivation to be able to pray two, four rak'ahs right after Isha. InshaAllah it will count as qiyamah for you. Or if you're one of those people that gets up for Fajr prayer earlier, you know, you're making wudu right before Fajr comes in, just five minutes earlier. If you can, you know, catch one rak'ah before Fajr comes in, then you have sustained that habit. So you're putting yourself in situations that, it makes it very easy for you to continue on. Even like reading Quran. If you were reading Quran daily, if you can, you know, there's the Quran apps, move it to your home screen, right next to your Facebook app or whatever app, so that when you come on and you're bored, you know, literally your thumb, it's half, a quarter of an inch from that app. So you're more likely to be like, you know what?
Let me just open up that app and read a few ayat. So making it easy for yourself to maintain those good deeds and focusing on being consistent, even if they are a few, you're much more likely, not even just inshaAllah, but for the whole entire year inshaAllah, that you'll be able to sustain these things. And you know, inevitably we also, we all fail. I think it was Dr. Hasim who was also talking about black and white thinking. It's so easy for us to say, well, I didn't do it this day or two days went by and I didn't do whatever that good deed was. And so using but statements, meaning that, you know, today I didn't pray my sunnah prayer, but tomorrow inshaAllah I will. Or maybe I didn't pray my sunnah for Fajr, but I will for Isha. So not making it a final thing, then not having that black and white thinking that even if I mess up a few days, inshaAllah, you know, there's more opportunities for me to continue. It's not necessarily about I have to do every single day, but it's consistency, whatever that might look like. And there might be days that's more clustered, weeks where your deeds are more clustered together, but it's continuing even when you fail, even when you, you know, you're struggling, getting back up and doing that deed. And lastly, I would also suggest, you know, writing it down, writing it down helps. I don't know about anybody else, but I write down goals and I write things and I leave them to the side. And sometimes time passes by and I'm like, and I see it and I'm like, I can't, I can't believe I wrote that, you know, like that was actually really good. I should have put it somewhere where I would remember. So, you know, picking two or three things, deeds that you want to work on. If you pick too many, you know, whether you're in the field of business or even psychotherapy, you don't ever want to have too many goals at one time. You want them to be measurable. You want them to be small and just two or three, write those things and then like put on a post-it note and put it on the back of your door. So inshallah that you remember,
and that you're more likely to not forget and that you can continue revisiting those deeds long-term. Because the idea is that, you know, we don't want to come back to Ramadan, Ramadan each year the way we left off. You know, that has a lot to do with the highs and lows. But if we, you know, have that Ramadan, and of course we're going to come down from that high, that's completely natural. But even if like we're 1% better than the year before, that is improvement. That is really good. So that each year inshallah, even if you stick to some really small deeds and you're consistent, you're coming back to that Ramadan, to the new Ramadan better than before. So instead of like having this high and low, you know, this up and down, up and down, you have your ups, but you know, it's almost like there's stairs. And inshallah, like you're getting better and better as the time goes by. Assalamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh. Very helpful tips. SubhanAllah, and actually something you mentioned that honestly it's immediate and it's very practical was the social media apps and the Qur'an app, right? You know, you just think about the wisdom from the Qur'an and the Sunnah of the entire idea of putting barriers between you and sin, and then exposing yourself to the nafahat, exposing yourself to the breeze of mercy from Allah. But then, لا تتبعوا خطوات الشيطان Don't follow the footsteps of shaitan. You know, اجعل حاجز Put a barrier between you and the ma'asiyah, the disobedience of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, wherever you can. And sometimes taking certain apps and putting them in one folder, for example, or putting them to where you have to make a few extra clicks, whereas the right ones are very easy for you to access. And honestly, that's a good strategy. In this case, what you're saying, put your Qur'an app right next to the app that you typically would use. That way, it's like, you know, your thumb might accidentally open the other one,
hopefully the good one, inshallah ta'ala. It'll keep you busy and engaged with the night time. زاك الله خير Very, very helpful tools and strategies. Anyone want to share any comments, inshallah? Then we'll go to Mufti Saab, inshallah. I just have a quick comment. I think maybe it's just the disciplinarian in me coming out, but recently I was listening and some fancy French philosopher put it simply. He said that a goal without a plan is just a wish. And I hear this a lot. People are always asking, you know, so how do I make sure I get these things done? I can't for the life of me. I can't get up for tahajjud. I can't review my Qur'an. And the first question I ask them is, did you go to sleep? Is it time to go to sleep? And they're like, oh, 2 a.m. And I always laugh at this because when we think about goals, when we think about planning, you really have to make this full effort in doing so. And things aren't just going to manifest because you thought about it and you wanted it, but it's something that you have to actively plan for. And that's the easy part. Planning is the easy part. And then when it comes to executing that action afterwards, like putting the app right beside your Facebook app or whatever it is, it's going to become more natural and it's much, much easier for you to incorporate. I was just going to tell because our fellow Canadian over here, I'm also Canadian and he's also Canadian. We just let him sit there and he's not speaking. So you have to speak because it's not us Americans taking over. He's still on the screen coming towards you. It's like a transition. He's holding like this across the screen. One thing I was thinking about that everybody really kind of touched upon is how important it is for people to know themselves and know their own habits and know what they do and know what they're good at, the ibadah that they like, so that they can lean into that, to know the faults that they have so they can find ways and strategies to avoid it.
And it reminds me of the verse in the Quran, وَلَا تَكُونُكَ الَّذِينَ نَسُوا اللَّهَ أَنْسَاهُمْ أَنفُسَهُمْ Don't be like the people who forgot Allah. So Allah caused them to forget themselves. And it shows us that when you are not, you know, when you're far away from Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la, you forget yourself. You lose track of yourself. And to be closer to Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la, you count on yourself. And you have to think about yourself, what you like, what you don't like, what you do in your daily life and how you can improve yourself. And so everything that we're talking about really requires the person to think about themselves and to really evaluate themselves and know what their habits are, know what their inclinations are. You know, the scholars have a statement. I know they use it in different contexts sometimes. بَأْمَنْ عَرِفَ نَفْسَهُ فَقُدْ عَرِفَ رَبَّهِ That whoever knows themselves will know their Lord or has known their Lord. And so there's so much about knowing your own self, really understanding yourself, your psychology, what you like, what you don't like, what you're able to do, what you're not able to do in order to help you improve. And so I just thought that's so important. And knowing yourself is really a route for you to be able to know Allah ﷻ. Sheikh Omar, that verse right there is the, you know, the foundation of the entire philosophy of Iqbal of Khudi. So if you told me to comment on that, it'll take three hours. So I'm not going to give any comment on that idea. But Sheikh Ibrahim, you have to, if you look into Iqbal's philosophy of Khudi, like the once self-actualization, he literally, he read this verse, and from this verse, all of his poems about Khudi came from there. And that's one of his, you know, main points of his philosophy and his poetry are around that. I think he gave us a small reminder about that in one of the Yaqeen videos. Just to say a few words about that as well, Sheikh Abdullah Adoro, between his face palms and his shiny teeth and his, you know, broad body and sitting like this,
he sometimes, sometimes he throws out gems, you know. And one of them, I remember, I was watching the Yaqeen video and he mentioned something. He said, and I bet you he doesn't even remember, you know what the funniest thing is? On my, when I was doing my Miftah with my brother online, and the Qur'an, like Reflections Daily, I mentioned, so Sheikh Abdullah once said this, and I mentioned the statement, and my brother was like, I said that? And he was so excited, I'm like, no, not you. I was like, if I had to say it, I would say you, he got so excited. He's like, yo, I said that? Like, yo, put me down. I was like, no, not you. It's on live. It's one of the last few nights of Miftah. And so Sheikh Abdullah Adoro once said, subhanAllah, I'm quoting him in front of him. He once said, sorry man, you know, he once said that the bridge between motivation and action is discipline, which is so powerful, man. Like, you know, I'm not sure if you remember him saying that, but like, you know, you're motivated, and then you have the act, then the bridge between that is discipline. And then I heard this from another person, which I always love quoting people, but I just don't remember who I heard it from, but it was a beautiful thing. They said, if you want to develop discipline, because discipline is not easy to develop, it's a difficult thing, you know, my arm is hurting me from 6,000 shots I took two days ago, you know, in basketball, not like shots in basketball. So, you know, it's the art of discipline. Like, you know, the idea is a pain of discipline is far less than the pain of regret. Like, I would rather shoot 6,000 shots and get hurt than miss the buzzer beater or lose all day. I mean, that's 100%. So that scholar once said that if you want to develop discipline, a good way of doing that is always pray all the salahs in the first 10 minutes when they come in. You know, that's it. Like, that's discipline right there. Unless you're praying in the masjid. Right when it comes in, the Prophet ﷺ was asked, what's the best of all these? And he said, praying salah at its earliest time.
So imagine in your time, in your mind, you have 10 minutes, that's all I have, versus I have the whole night to pray isha, right? That in itself will give you more discipline. So just wanted to throw that out there as well. As Haji Najwa was talking about plans and goals, you know, Sheikh Abdullah mentioned discipline earlier and thought it might be a good way to, you know, add that in there. The pain of discipline is greater than the pain of regret. Very powerful. MashaAllah. It's not mine, someone said that too. Okay, okay. You know, I'm going to know that, you know, once you start quoting Sheikh Abdullah in Urdu, like once you start translating Sheikh Abdullah Uduru's words, his gems into Urdu, you could write a book on Sheikh Abdullah Uduru's gems in Urdu. Come on, man, we want to see Sheikh Abdullah, do you speak Urdu? Uh, uh, no. What are your words? Do you have words in your arsenal? When you say, you have to do this, right? It's, it's, it's... And then... You have to... There you go. I realize you can get away with like, and just like, you know, just use those words and you can get away with it. But Mufti Saab is going to make a whole book of your gems in Urdu. MashaAllah. In poetry form, inshaAllah. In poetry form. With that, inshaAllah, Mufti Saab, give us your top two post-Ramadan habits, inshaAllah ta'ala, that we can, we can all, inshaAllah ta'ala, benefit from. So give us two things, inshaAllah, in English, please, that we can all do, inshaAllah ta'ala, after Ramadan, that are part of your post-Ramadan that we can all learn from, inshaAllah. InshaAllah. This is for all my Urdu brothers and sisters. I will rap with you in Urdu. Oh, man.
We will talk in Urdu. We will talk in Urdu. Okay. We will talk in Urdu. We are in Punjabi. How does that sound? All right. Hey, hey, Sheikh Umar, you can't cut that out. I'm going to end up doing the Shariah bubble. You're killing us, man. All right. I'll do it in English, okay? Okay. I'll do it in English, no problem. I'll take it easy on you guys. So, Bismillah ar-Rahman ar-Rahim. So, Sheikh Umar had to give me two because he knows that I'm not going to stop at one. So he was generous with me and said two. So I'll say this. You see, I think of Ramadan as the plane is taxied at the airport. You see, you have hundreds of employees preparing this plane to go, right? You have the people with the baggage. You have the people in the boarding pass, check-in, all that. And when the plane takes off, you have the pilot, co-pilot. You have less employees working while it's at flight than you do while it's on the ground. And so I think that Ramadan, you have all these ways to prepare yourself. You have Taraweeh. You have fasting, Quran. You have all these different things that prepare yourself to fuel yourself so you can take this flight after Ramadan. Iqbal, he mentions about this. In reverse to a bird, he says in this famous poem, he says, In the last part, he says, He talks about this human being as a bird. And he says, So hopefully this month of Ramadan was that for us, right?
All the sins, bad habits, we could shake them off. And then now it's time for the flight. So yes, we don't have all those different acts, but that's not supposed to be with us the entire year. Now it's time for flight, inshallah, until the next Ramadan. And among the many things that we speak about in Ramadan, I don't know why this was so dear to me, this Ramadan in Itikaf. And I said to the people in Itikaf, this is one thing we all have to try to do after Ramadan. It's so easy, but the reward is so great. Once the Prophet ﷺ was sitting there, and he said, وَدِدْتُ أَنِّي لَقِيتُ إِخْوَانِي I wish I could meet my brothers ﷺ. And Sahaba asked him, أَوَلَسْنَا إِخْوَانُكَا رَسُولُ اللهِ Are we not your brothers? And then he said, أَنْتُمْ أَصْحَابِي You're my companions. وَإِخْوَانُنَا الَّذِينَ يَأْتُونَ بَعْدِي وَدِدْتُ أَنِّي رَأَيْتُهُمْ He says, you're my companions. My brothers are those who come after me. I really wish I could see them. SubhanAllah, if Umar ibn Khattab said, you know, you could take everything away from me, but that one statement of the Prophet ﷺ telling me, لَا تَنْسَانَ مِن دُعَائِكِ يا أُخَيَّ Or in the hadith, ya akhi, he says, oh Umar, don't forget me in your du'as, oh my brother. And he called me his brother. The fact that he called me his brother is so dear to me. It's more dear to me than anything in this world, whatever it contains. And the Prophet ﷺ called us his brothers, even though we don't deserve this. But he said, I wish I could see my brothers. He said, no, my brothers are those who come after me, and I wish I could see them. But you know what? وَأَنَا فَرَطُهُمْ عَلَى الْحَوْضِ I'll be waiting for them on my pond. And the Sahaba asked, Ya Rasulullah ﷺ, وَتَعْرِفُنَا أَوَ تَعْرِفُهُمْ Another hadith. Are you gonna recognize these people? Like you've never seen them. So how are you gonna recognize them? What characteristic, what would be the feature that you'll recognize them through?
And you know, if he said through the white turbans, خلاص, you know, I'm all set. I got it down. But he didn't say that. He didn't say hijabs. He did not say turbans. I mean, I've already thought about my, inshallah, my conversation with the Prophet ﷺ. I have a feeling when he ends up seeing us, I mean, like, what's up with this turban? Why do you have it seven times on your head? And I'm gonna say, I was like, I thought that's what you did. You know, that's not, I wasn't doing it because I wanted to become, you know, I thought it was a style or that was in, you know, no way. I mean, I got, it was worse that I had it. But I just, I was doing it because I thought maybe he was like, I only tied it three times. You have it all wrong. But all we could do is make the effort, inshallah, he would appreciate our effort, inshallah, he would just give us the hug and say, you know what? Good job, you tried. But no, that's not through our turbans, through our clothing, through all these different things he's gonna recognize us through. He says, I'll recognize you. He says, I'll recognize you. Naam, I will recognize you. Tariduna alayya ghurwal muhajjaleena min athar al-wudu. Laysa li ahadin ghayrikum. He says, I will recognize you. You would come to me with bright faces and bright hands and feet on the account of the traces of wudu, ablution. This mark, nobody else will have. SubhanAllah. To, it just, how will we, wudu is not just an act that we do to just to pray salah. But think about every time you do wudu, this is going to be my recognition. The Prophet shallallahu alayhi wa sallam will recognize me through my wudu, through my traces of water on my face, on my hands, on my feet. This is how the Prophet shallallahu alayhi wa sallam will recognize me. And if I don't have this, then how will he recognize me? That's what the Prophet shallallahu alayhi wa sallam said, another hadith, man istata'a aminkum ayintu illa ghurratu falyafa'al. A person who could, you know, make his, perfect his wudu, then he should do it, she should do it. And when the Prophet shallallahu alayhi wa sallam was asked about the, you know, when he was, he said, alaa adullukum ala ma yamhullahu bihil khataya wa yarfa'u bihil darajat. Shall I tell you about something that can wipe away your sins? How many times have you heard this in Ramadan?
This will wipe away your sins. Layatul Qadr will wipe away your sins. But this is not specific to Ramadan. There's so many deeds we can do after Ramadan that will give us the same reward of wiping away our sins. And this will be a means of elevation in Jannah. Say, Ya Rasulallah, please tell us. His isbaaghu al wudu al makari. Despite difficult circumstances, still doing wudu. That's the first thing. SubhanAllah, you know, if all of us can plan our entire day staying on wudu, it'll make us, it'll make our worship easier for us. It'll make us remember Allah easier. We won't have to hesitate for praying salah. Every time we, we will also plan our diet better because we won't eat and drink things that will, you know, make us, I literally, last year, my father told me this, my dad is, you know, he's, inshallah, all of us will see him one day, but he says things that are so powerful for me. He says, Durman, just stay on wudu. When he said that to me, the first thing that left my daily consumption was coffee. I used to drink five cups of coffee every day because it would break my wudu so much I have to do wudu more. And now, when I travel with youngsters throughout the country, like every time you stop to pray, they all go have to do wudu. Just the fact that you can do wudu and stay on wudu. Don't think of it as some, just a normal act of worship. Rather, this is a means of your sins being forgiven. This is a means of your elevation in paradise. And this is a means of you being recognized by the Prophet salallahu alaihi wa sallam. Isbaahul wudu alal makarih. I mean, if we could just take this, inshallah, and stay on wudu throughout the day, everything, the idea, the thought of sins will also leave our body. And I thought about this because the first five surahs that were revealed in the Quran, four of the five are in the last two juz. And in Surah Mudathir, Allah says, وَثِيَابَكَ فَطَحِّرَ That's one principle from that. And I thought about this because why is the last four, the first five surahs that were revealed in the Quran, four of the five in the last two juz, because, and that's the last surahs you're reading in Taraweeh, in Ramadan.
And to me, it was that, yes, you know, that was the beginning of the Prophet's journey. Ramadan is not an end, but it's a beginning. And from there, that comes at the beginning, revelation with Surah Qalam. And from there, I take a second principle, which is so easy, brothers and sisters. It's like, it's not that difficult to do. And that is, both places, Allah mentions the first two stories in the Quran is one of the people of the garden, Ashab-ul-Jannah, and the second is of Yunus Alayhis Salaam. And in both places, He mentions the word Musabbihin. Tasbeeh. And so the principle from Surah Qalam I take is, just take out a few minutes a day. The Prophet ﷺ said in a hadith that, should I not tell you something? أَمَا يَسْتَطِيعُ أَحَدُكُمْ أَن يَعْمَلْ كُلَّ يَوْمٍ مِثْلَ أُحْدٍ عَمَلًا Should I not tell you something? That every single day, not only Ramadan, not only Qadr, when we do all this math and, you know, the equation on Qadr, every minute, every second. Should I not tell you something that you could do every single day that will give you the reward of the entire Mount of Uhud? And they said, وَكَيْفَ نَسْتَطِيعُ أَن نَعْمَلَ كُلَّ يَوْمٍ مِثْلَ أُحْدٍ عَمَلًا How is it possible that we can do the deeds of, that will equal Mount Uhud every single day? نَنْ نَحْنُ أَضْعَفْ مِن ذَلِكَ وَأَعْجَزْ يَا رَسُولُ اللهِ We are weaker than that and we're more incapable. حَدِيثٍ تَبْرَانِي صحيح حديث. And Nasa'i also mentions this hadith. And he said, this is by Imam Hussain. And he said, كُلُّكُمْ تَسْتَطِيعُونَهُ The Prophet said, all of you can do it. This goes about the idea of, there are small things that are so powerful that you can still do that, it won't take too much of your time. وَكَيْفَ ذَلِكَ They asked, how is that possible? They said, just say, لا إله إلا الله أَعْضَمُ مِنْ أُحَدٍ وَسُبْحَانَ اللَّهُ أَعْضَمُ مِنْ أُحَدٍ وَاللَّهُ أَكْبَرُ أَعْضَمُ مِنْ أُحَدٍ Just the three things. لا إله إلا الله will give you more reward than Uhud. سُبْحَانَ اللَّهُ
will give you more reward than Uhud. اللَّهُ أَكْبَرُ will give you more reward than Uhud. Just take about five, ten minutes a day in your day. Maybe right when you get in the car to go to work, or right after work, or right during lunch break. It's those few extra minutes that you put in that makes, that separates the great ones from the average ones. Just a few extra minutes. It's not three hours or five hours. It's just that one hour before the game that Steph or MJ or someone's shooting around that makes them better. It's not like they're spending 50 more hours. It's just a little bit more time. A little bit more. It just takes a few more minutes. You recite this, the Prophet ﷺ said you get the reward of Uhud every single day. So these are the two things I would leave you with. That if we could, the ملائكة are not just coming on Laylatul Qadr. إِنَّ لِلَّهِ الْمَلَائِكَةُ يَتُوفُونَ فِي الْطُّرُقِ يَلْتَمِسُونَ أَهْلَ الدِّكْرِ They're not just looking for people worshipping Allah on Laylatul Qadr. But they're looking for people doing dhikr of Allah every single moment. And when فَيْتَ أَوَجَدُوا قَوْمًا يَذْكُرُوا اللَّهُ تَعَالَى When they see people تَنَادَوا هَلُمُوا إِلَى حَجَدِكُمْ They tell the other angels come, come. Here's the thing that you're looking for. Here's that person. Here's that brother. Here's that sister. So it's not, these are not specific for Ramadan. Stay in the state of wudu throughout the year. Take out a few minutes every single day. Do Tasbeeh. Allah mentions this in Surah Qalam. The first principle is from Surah Mudathir. And the second principle is from Surah Qalam. I was given this much time. I think I already took more time than that. But if we have more time, some other time, we'll talk about the other principles from the Surahs. But these two I think, if we can, they're so simple. The Prophet ﷺ even gives hadith لَيَذْكُرُونَ اللَّهَ قَوْمٌ فِي الدُّنْيَا عَلَى الْفُرُشِ الْمُمَهَّدَةِ That there are people who'll be reclining on their turbans, you know, as pillows, and the other side of the turban over their bodies, and the nice comfortable, he didn't say turbans, but nice comfortable blankets and mattresses, they'll be remembering Allah ﷻ, and them remembering Allah on these comfortable pillows and mattresses, that will lead them to the entrance to the Jannah. You don't have to be like in a difficult place. You could be doing it on your mattress. And finally I will say this, people always say, you know, do I have to be attentive?
You know, I try to do dhikr, I try to do astaghfirullah, I try to say subhanAllah, but my heart is not with my tongue. And subhanAllah, it's a good point, and we should try to make our heart attentive as well. But don't become despondent and hopeless. One great scholar, Shaykh Ashar A.T. said once, that actually even if your heart is not with your tongue when you're doing dhikr, you should do shukr to Allah ﷻ that at least one limb of your body is remembering Him. So it's fine, you know, a time will come when your heart will be there as well. But the fact that your tongue was given the ability to remember Allah, you should actually thank Allah for that. Just continue doing these two things, you know, as my takeaway from this Ramadan, to do it every single day, stay in the state of wudu at all times, and try to remember Allah in the days and nights, taking out time every single day. InshaAllah it will be a means of our ascension throughout the year, inshaAllah. JazakAllah Khairan Mufti Sahab. May Allah reward you. And what I'd like to do inshaAllah Ta'ala, just sort of in conclusion inshaAllah, is everyone, you know, just sort of give your last 30 seconds, one minute max inshaAllah Ta'ala, just, you know, quick sort of takeaway inshaAllah. If you have one, and I will start inshaAllah Ta'ala, actually I'll just open floor inshaAllah between Dr. Tasneem, Shaykh Abdullah, Shaykh Ibrahim, Sister Najwa inshaAllah. Any last word of advice inshaAllah as we wrap it up? I think the thing is... Sorry. That's what happens when I don't assign someone, I just leave it open floor. I was just going to play off of the last thing that Shaykh, sorry Mufti Abdur-Rahman mentioned. You know, at the end of the series of verses about Ramadan and fasting, Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la says, لَعَلَّكُمْ تَشْكُرُونَ So as we end the month, we have to be thankful. Even, you know, if you felt like you did all of your du'a or you did very little, any moment that you had where you prayed to Allah, any moment where you made du'a, any moment where you gave for the sake of Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la, any moment where you were able to turn to Allah, you were only able to do that because Allah wanted you to do it. And so to be thankful for the opportunity
to worship Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la is something that should fill our hearts at the end of Ramadan as we look back, ask Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la I ask Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la to make us all thankful to be able to worship Him, alhamdulillah. Ameen, ameen. I think for me, the thing that stands out the most is that there are so many simple deeds that we can do that have such a big impact. And that's, I think, from Allah's mercy that it almost levels out the playing field. Some of us are more motivated than others. Some of us are stronger than others. And so to have simple du'a, to have simple adhkar that can elevate us to such high degrees, to me that's from the mercy of Allah and something that we can all take advantage of. You know, that it's super easy for us regardless of who we are and something that we can just integrate into our day-to-day life just very easily, alhamdulillah. Dr. Susneem, Sheikh Abdullah, Sheikh Abdullah, Dr. Susneem, bismillah. I was muted. But what Mufti Adil Khan was saying in terms of wudu, one easy way to get started is actually just by doing wudu before you go to sleep. And this is something a friend very randomly, she had mentioned, oh, you know, by the way, you know, 10-15 years ago when you go to sleep, if you have warm, wudu, the angels are spending all night making du'a for you, praying for you. And I remember when she told it to me in passing, I'm like, who could give up on this opportunity? You could literally go to sleep and someone else is doing the work for you is as much patata for your forgiveness. So don't undermine that. And really, if you make it a habit, then it's naturally become a habit in the daytime. You always want to have your wudu. Start off small, start off just that night before you go to sleep. Always go to sleep with wudu and think about that as you're doing. I know sometimes it's so hard, you know, if you got into bed, you're like, oh, I'm so comfortable. I really don't feel like getting up a picture in your mind that like, hey, I'm about to sleep for the next six, seven, eight hours, I might as well just have someone, you know, literally spend all night making du'a for
me. It's a free pass. It's so easy. And it's a win-win situation. So start off small. And that's that's somewhere I'd recommend. Yeah, I'd say supanala, you know, she mentioned at the very end, just welcome the uncomfortable moments, uncomfortable moments, as you know, some say, get comfortable with being uncomfortable, because in order to start a new habit, it's going to be uncomfortable in the beginning, it's going to be stressful. But, you know, look at the light at the end of the tunnel. And that's what we talked about with discipline and being consistent. And that's why I love the hadith that she mentioned, because he mentioned consistency, that he encourages you and says just a little bit. So reflect to connect and reflect on yourself and use those reflections in order to be consistent to connect to Allah subhana wa ta'ala. I already spoke a lot, but all I have to say is ya rahmukallah, Sheikh Umar. Yeah, that's I was sneezing, but I muted myself to sneeze. I know, but I can't say ya rahmukallah. Yeah, mashallah, you heard my alhamdulillah even with me on mute. Very special, man, mashallah. May Allah reward you. And may Allah reward you all. Beautiful advice. I think all of us kind of needed some some relief time to think about renewal, of our hearts and our souls. And with that, inshallah ta'ala, I want to remind everyone to please tune in. We're starting the first back up inshallah this next week. We also will continue to have more conversations inshallah ta'ala coming up. So, you know, follow the social media outlets inshallah ta'ala, stay tuned. We have some very important roundtables and conversations coming up on some of the issues inshallah ta'ala that we can all benefit from. And this certainly was very beneficial to me and grateful to all of you for taking the time out inshallah ta'ala to allow us to maintain the thrust that we sought in Ramadan. May Allah ta'ala keep our hearts firm on his path. May Allah ta'ala keep our focus upon him. May Allah keep our longing towards him. May Allah ta'ala allow our final abode to be in the presence of our beloved Prophet
salallahu alayhi wa sallam in Jannat al-Firdaus. May Allah be with our brothers and sisters in Al-Aqsa in Palestine and Gaza and our Uyghur brothers and sisters and all of our brothers and sisters that are struggling around the world. May Allah ta'ala help our brothers and sisters wherever they are to overcome their oppression. Allahumma ameen.
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