Prepare for Ramadan – #2

Auto-generated transcript:In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. All praise belongs to Allah, the Lord of the Worlds. Peace and blessings be upon the most honorable prophets and messengers. Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him and upon his family. He is the most merciful and merciful. I remind myself and you, my brothers and sisters, this month has come as a month of mercy and a month of guidance. Ibn al-Qayyim al-Jawzi and Ibn Jawzi, they said that anytime you feel lazy in Ramadan to worship Allah, remind yourself that it is a numbered period, number of days. Allah the Almighty said, Ayyama ma'du daat, the days are numbered. So if I am lazy, the time doesn't stop. And once the time has gone, the leverage with that time also goes. Now the best way of ensuring that we get the maximum benefit from Ramadan is to make goals for Ramadan. So make goals for yourself and say what is my goal for reading Quran? How much additional Quran will I read? We are supposed to read Quran every single day of our lives. But in Ramadan, make a goal to say how much more will I read? In charity, how much more will I give? For example, if you make a goal and then make a timetable for that and break it down into sub-goals. For example, if you say, and you should say, try to do that, that in Ramadan I will do one complete Khatmah of the Quran. I will read the entire Quran from the first page to the last page and complete it in the month of Ramadan. So that is thirty Juz. Now if you are going to do that, then one way of doing it is to make a goal to say, after every first Salah, I will read five pages. In the Usmani Musaf, one Juz is twenty pages. So after every Salah, if you read five pages, you would have read twenty-five pages for the day, which means that you will be a little bit ahead, which is a good thing, because if the month comes with only twenty-nine days instead of thirty, you still would have completed the four An. Otherwise you get stuck with one Juz and last minute you have to read. So five pages a day after every first Salah. It's very easy. It's not difficult at all. Try it, InshaAllah, and Allah makes it easy. Even if you have hesitation in reading and you have some difficulty with reading, this is the time to change all that. So in thirty days you try it, InshaAllah Allah gives you fluency. Make dua to Allah swt, Allah will give you fluency, InshaAllah. Charity, make it a habit to give something every day. Every day in Ramadan. No matter what it is, five cents, something every day. Make it into a habit, inculcate that in your children and so on and say, some charity I will give every single day and the purpose of all of these is to carry this forward throughout our lives. So every day in your life give some charity. If you can't find somebody keep a walk, keep a walk, keep a bowl or something, put the money in that. So that's gone for the day. When you find someone you can give it. The whole point is to create goals to change our life going forward after Ramadan. The idea is not to change our life in Ramadan and go back to the old way. Change the goals going forward. Allah swt as I mentioned gives this month for us to leverage change, to make it easy to change and to give us additional rewards for changing. And therefore let us make the maximum of that and not waste any time at all. I remind myself anew that the most fundamental belief in Islam is the belief in resurrection after death on the day of judgment and the belief in meeting Allah swt. Take any of the other parts of our creed, including tawhid, risala, the creed of the oneness of the worship of Allah swt, the creed of Rasulullah swt, the prophet Muhammad swt being the last and final prophet or anything and ask so what? Why should I believe that? Because I will meet Allah. Why should I believe in Allah? Because I will meet Allah. Why should I believe in the prophet Muhammad and follow him? Because I will meet Allah.