How I survived Ramadan in Africa without water & electricity – Abdur Raheem McCarthy

Regarding benefiting from a model and reflecting on a bit on the benefits, I want to share a story with you. That happened to me

when I graduated from Medina, and I had fast it to that time 13 Ramadan's one of them in Kuwait, and 12 of them in Saudi Arabia. So I'm used to the environment. After I graduated, I decided to go to Sudan.

And I worked there, and as an international and international school as an Islamic Studies teacher, and also with some different data organizations.

But obviously, as I was settling in, it took time for things to happen. And that's life, sometimes things don't happen right away. So I was waiting for my AC unit to come and Ramadan started and didn't come. It's very, very hot, you can imagine, you know, the heat that you're feeling now, not having AC. On top of that, it was a time where they had a problem still with electric, so electricity would cut off. So in the middle of the day, you have no AC and then the fan that you have, which is blowing hot air anyways, that cuts off, and that there's some time in the building, if it was a nice building where I'm living. If there's no electricity, there's no way to bring the

water up to the top. So then eventually, the water finishes as well. So now you're here with no electricity, no water.

And as I was in this situation, and it's hot, and you're just you know, sitting there sweat pouring out of your body, any any water that you had to hydrate yourself during the fast, you know, during the nighttime and before a time, so it's all gone. Now, you know, it was very difficult. I remember the Hadith of the Prophet Alayhi Salatu was Salam.

adjuvant the Emory movement, the number who kulula Okay. It's wonderful the affair of the believer because all of his affairs is clear. And asked myself Biller, like Where's the light on what you're going through right now. But I started to reflect.

And I started to reflect deeper and when I came up with so many benefits about what I was facing, I didn't like it. If I could change it, I would have changed it but still, there was a lot of benefit in it. I said I'm benefiting from these lessons I'm being taught. And in fact, I remember that all of the lectures that I was asked to give whether it was an English and Arabic during the month of Ramadan this month, I immediately that I said I can't do it. I was I was suffering during the day so I'm not gonna have the energy to be able to go and speak. So I said and once I get settled in the future next Ramadan, I'll speak if we're here in sha Allah Subhan Allah, the last weekend or last

Juma of Ramadan, I prayed with one of the machete and that was in the towards the end of the masjid as it came in. And it means the mission was full before then. Yeah. So we prayed in the back mashallah huge masjid, and the

shaking at the end of his whole birth. He said, hamdulillah we're honored today we have a guest with us. Our brother shot, I'm going to hear McCarthy from America. He's here with us today. And I'm not I'm trying to hide now, because I'm afraid he's gonna tell me to speak. And he said, Hamdulillah, the after session that we have after every after Juma. He's going to take it this week, and he's gonna give us a talk.

He didn't tell me I haven't prepared anything. I haven't given another talk during Ramadan. So I have something ready that can use. So I said, What do I have ready. And I'm thinking, I don't know what I'm gonna talk about. So I get up to walk to the front of mission as he calls me after the salad. And I still don't know what I'm going to talk about. The only thing that I had that I thought about recently was these reflections of the difficulty that I was facing, with no electricity with no water and ham that I became a complete lecturer after Hamdulillah that was able to speak and talk about some of the benefits that we gained. So Ramadan, there's many if you will, you shouldn't

reflect on it. I recall that we sat down and I was giving a I gave a lecture like every year called the boot camp of Ramadan. And we added first of all, like, you know, 37 things that eventually became 40 and then it got into the 50s Because as you reflect on it, you see there's so many things you're training yourself and you're benefiting from this blessed month, and that's what we need in shallow Tana. To focus on is how we can better ourselves how we can benefit from these lessons that were being given during the blessing month Ramadan shall if there's any questions that the brothers who have inshallah can see we can entertain some questions now. With the time we have remaining

inshallah