Abdur Rahman ibn Yusuf Mangera – Have You Forgotten Ramadan

Hamdu lillahi OPR demean or Salatu was Salam ALA. So you didn't, I'm

humbled or early, he was asked me he will build, of course, some

limit to Sleeman cathedral and Elomi been another word.

We've just come out of the month of Ramadan. And we're starting the

new year, already a month has nearly passed, there's a few days

left for this month of Shawwal to end, which shows that our time is

going really fast. And the whole purpose of Ramadan must not be

left behind. The whole purpose of it that we should have achieved in

the month of Ramadan needs to be prolonged, and extended for as

many months as possible. Inshallah, that's the whole point

of the month of Ramadan, the month of Ramadan is not just about doing

something in the month of Ramadan for the sake of Ramadan, because

in Islam, we don't really have this idea of doing something on

particular days, and then absolutely leaving everything for

the rest of the year. So what we want to do is, let's think back

and see what whatever there is that we have to do,

that we used to do in the month of Ramadan that we did in the month

of Ramadan. For example, if there's a certain additional

worship that we inculcated in our lives that we you know, made part

of our life and our daily routine, then let's see which of those you

know, even if it's a small amount, something better than what we did

last year after the month of Ramadan. That's I think, what's

most important, I know you're probably thinking, Where are we

speaking about Ramadan, Ramadan is long gone. The thing is that

Ramadan may have gone and as I said, about 28 to 29 days may have

passed already. But the whole purpose of it need not be

forgotten. And if that if this is the way we're thinking that

Ramadan is gone, why are we speaking about it? That's the

whole point. When we look at some of the lives of the pious people

before us, they used to prepare for Ramadan for six months before

it came, just so that they would be prepared for it and they take

advantage of it. And they would be they would, they would really

benefit from it as much as possible. So they would prepare in

every way, shape and form just to be totally free. And to you know,

to get the best out of the month of Ramadan. And then it says that

the for the next six months after Ramadan would finish, then their

whole perspective was about

being accepted. So their monthly, the what are the worships that

they did in that month? Are they going to be accepted? Are they

going to be? How are they going to be seen in the court of ALLAH

SubhanA wa Tada. So their whole Ficker was that their whole

concern after the month of Ramadan for what six months is that may

Allah subhanaw taala accept it from us. And that's the only way

you can actually really build onto on each Ramadan. Otherwise Ramadan

comes we do something and then we were back to normal after a month

of Ramadan. And that's not how it should be. So Allah subhanho wa

Taala helps us out by giving us certain intensive, certain

incentives rather. And if you notice that we've got two reads,

we have two aids, one is the eidl filter and the other one is Aiden

adhaar. The hidden filter is related to Ramadan and the eidl

Alcohol is related to Hajj, it's related to the month of hajj, it's

related to the first 10 days of the ager. And if you notice, it's

very close together, it's what two months and just over two months,

two months and 10 days is, you know is when eat normally normally

occurs, but that those 10 days are part of the time of worship. So

we're talking about just two months in between the two

SubhanAllah. And, you know, I used to think about this before the How

can we've got two IDs that are so close together, because you know,

you've just celebrated one as such and then suddenly there's another

one, right? So you know, you'd think that maybe that it'd be

after six months so you know you have an evenly spaced you have one

either and then you have some time afterwards and then you've got

another eat afterwards. But no, you have it within that because

the whole idea for in Islam is that yes, you've got you've got

celebration, but it's linked to worship, it's linked to close,

becoming closer to Allah subhana wa Tada. And I think Ramadan is so

powerful that one of the wisdoms of having one of the wisdoms of

being so close after that, that we have this villager is the fact

that we can try to save some some of what we've done in the month of

Ramadan and re envision invigorate ourselves during those 10 days of

the hedger and possibly even going for Hajj. So firstly, after the

month of Ramadan, Allah subhanaw taala

has told us through his prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam about

the six about the six fasts of Shawwal and the benefits of that

are hugely Great. One thing to clarify since you know this is a

women's program is that

can you keep the six fast as Coda for the myths fast of Ramadan? Can

you make make up six fast for your Ramadan mischievous and consider

them to be your first for sure well, and although some of them

are may may may say

see that it's okay to have dual intention, the primary intention

being for your cover, and then the fact that it appears in the month

of Shawwal, then that means that you are also keeping the six

faster sherwanis you get rewarded for it. But the stronger opinion

seems to be the fact that no, and the reason is that if you look at

the the six, first of Shawwal, the whole idea of the six first of

shareholder proposal was said, whoever, first Ramadan, then he

follows it up, then he or she follows it up with six, first of

Shawwal, then it is as though they have, they have been rewarded for

the entire year as though they fasted for the entire year. And

the reason for that is that you've got, let's just say, each of the

30 days of the month of Ramadan, if you if you times that by 10,

right, so what do you get, you get 300, right, you get 300. And then

if you look at the six, first of Shawwal, and if you tie if you

three times that by 10, you get you get 60. So that's 360. So that

the equation there is that if you keep 30 days of Ramadan, me the

whole month and six days, then it's as though you fasted the

whole year, because Allah subhanho wa Taala wants to reward us for

the rest of the year as well. Obviously, there are other

benefits of this fast as well. So according to this calculation,

it's really that you the foster show will need to be kept

separately from the cut off. And that means you should also try to

do your cover as soon as possible, although they can be done at any

time. Right? They should be done at any time. But the main thing is

that the foster show well, it should be kept separately from the

Kodava. So if you are going to keep the show on fires during the

month of Ramadan, sorry, during the month of Shawwal as such, then

it needs to be intended to be for sure one only, and then you can

keep your covers before it or even if you're going to keep them after

it may be in the winter or whatever, your cadavers, they just

need to be separate. That is the stronger opinion. And that seems

to be more in accordance to what the intention of the hadith is. So

that's that's what I would go with that the foster show will need to

be done separately and individually, as opposed to the

cadavers which need to be also be done separately and individually.

So then we have you know, we have the Chihuahua. So what I would,

what I would really encourage right now is that we take one act,

at least one act of what we are doing about Ramadan, and one act

of what we abstain from in the month of Ramadan and try to

prolong that. So if there are five or six things that we are doing,

in addition, in Ramadan, I mean, there are lots of things that

we're doing. I mean, you think five or six things we were doing

Tala, we were fasting, we were

we were reading extra Quran, we were probably giving extra sadaqa.

You know, we were donating, we were maybe cooking for somebody,

maybe, you know, you know, maybe helping somebody out, we could

have been doing lots of things, right, helping our children

helping our, you know, encouraging our husbands maybe encouraging

other people giving some Dawa. These are all different things

that people feel like during the month of Ramadan. So if we were

doing any of that, let us take one of those, at least one of those

things, and at least let's start doing that at some level for the

rest of the year. Because it's the whole purpose of Ramadan is that

it's a training ground in that sense. Then on the other hand,

what we've got is something that we need to abstain from. So if we

abstain from watching too much TV, if we abstain from listening to

music, if we abstain from just talking too much, right, just

gossiping or just, you know, wasting our time on the phone, you

know, for an hour or two hours. I mean, that's another major

problem. I get people who call me and they say, they say to me, can

you call me back please? Like what happened? Why, and apparently they

don't have minutes. So I'm like, where's your minutes gone? I'm

sure you're not a poor person. But what happens is that they finish

off their three, four or five, 600 minutes in the in the month just

talking. Because I mean, if you're gonna hold a conversation with

each person for 45 minutes, then you can imagine where you're,

you're gonna be able to speak to about with, with 400 minutes,

you're gonna be able to speak to about six people. And then that's

it. And then after you're struggling, that's why people hold

conversations on texts afterwards. And I really don't like that

because it's just so informal, right? I get questions by texts.

I'm like, you know, I please email me, because I mean, the text is

not a way to ask questions. It's just too informal. It's just to

cut that the way it is. And there's just no, there's just no

other, there's just no other minute. Right? So

you're wasting time basically, we're talking about wasting time.

The other one. The other thing that we probably abstain from

during the month of Ramadan is going out hanging out at the mall,

right? Shopping Centers, you know, and just just going and hanging

out, they just window shopping, right? Or even shopping for that

matter, which is window shopping. That's another thing we probably

have stemmed from in the month of Ramadan, there was just no time,

right? There's just lots of things like that, that we probably

abstain from during the month of Ramadan. Let us take at least one

of those and try to implement that for the rest of the year because

that's the whole point of it. Right? And now I'm telling us, you

know, I'm speaking about this three and a half, four weeks after

the month of Ramadan. And, I mean, I think the benefit of that is the

fact that if we spoke about his straight after a month of Ramadan,

you know, you still got the virtue of the month of Ramadan within us.

So we feel more inclined, but then it kind of starts wearing out. So

we just reminding ourselves three and a half weeks afterwards. And

there's a benefit to that because there's a, there's an origin to

that. What happens is the Prophet salallahu Alaihe Salam said that

when somebody goes for Hajj and he's coming back, then go and say

salaam to him, go and say Sanjeev shake his hands right away. If

it's a woman coming back for the women could go shake your hands

and ask her to make a stiff arm for you go and tell them to seek

forgiveness for you. Right, so the problem is I'm literally that

specifically said that when somebody comes back from Hajj, go

and make Salam, and shake their hands, ask them for forgiveness,

ask them to seek forgiveness for you from ALLAH SubhanA wa Tada.

And the reason you do that is because they have been forgiven.

But you have to do this process as we said, Coppola yet for the beta

before they enter their house. And the reason for that is once you

enter the house, essentially what that means is once you get back to

your normal activities, then you start polluting yourself again,

you know that we start failing, we start slipping, we start getting

involved in stuff, it's just the nature of the world. But when

somebody has come back from Hajj, and they just still coming back on

the journey, there's a there's a certain level of spirituality, we

need to use that spirituality. Now I'm telling us after a kind of

period is over, because once a month of Ramadan finishes, you

still got that level, but then it starts diminishing because the

shaytaan is back out and things are happening. Right. So I'm

trying to remind ourselves right now, so may Allah give myself and

everybody else that Sophia to do something of the month of Ramadan,

and abstain from something that we abstain from in the month of

Ramadan, and may Allah make it easy for us, may Allah make it

easy for us. And the whole point of this is that if we can extend

this until the next month of Ramadan, then inshallah that will

be of great benefit. One of the things is mentioned to me once is

that the benefit of Ramadan, or the effort that the person had

person had put in on himself in the month of Ramadan, the first

Ramadan it extended from what he can remember for about three

months. And then he saw He saw himself slacking. But then the

next month, he tried even harder during the month of Ramadan. So

for about seven months, he said, I reap the benefits of this month, I

didn't have the thoughts that I had before. But after about seven

months, that's when I started getting these thoughts again,

right. But he goes at least the benefit was right where he said is

that at least the benefit was that my troubling times my times of sin

and so on that have fought of sin and, and indulgence in it, and

whatever then only was for the, for the seventh part of the

seventh month, the eight 910 11 1211 And then Ramadan came

again. So which means that it was only about five months that year.

Right. So essentially, what he's saying is from his experience, and

I'm sure this is absolutely should be the experience of everybody is

that the more harder you work in Ramadan, that's how longer you the

benefits of it can extend the mind stay straight, and then it starts

faltering again. And that happens obviously, through reading lots of

Quran and so on. I know Ramadan is gone, right. But then there's

other ways of doing this as well. Right, which is that we continue

to do certain acts that we're doing in the month of Ramadan. So

they act as milestones and, and boosters. You know, like for

example, if you have a Wi Fi, a, what you call a router, right?

That we that you use for your Wi Fi for your computers at home. Now

what happens sometimes, if you've got a very large building, it

doesn't always that the signal is not the same throughout. So what

you can do is instead of getting another router, you can actually

get these what you call boosters, as such that you can that are

connected to the router, but then they give out their own signal. So

then they take you that extra step that extra distance. So you could

if your router is on the first on the ground floor, then you could

have a booster on the second floor, the third floor and that

way you can use the same signal throughout so you just prolonging

it. Likewise the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam and a

group approached him and said that we've got this we've got this

issue in our place there's there's a there's a place that we want to

build convert into a masjid, can you give us something that you

know we can we can take with us, Professor Lawson prayed in some

water gave it to them. Now what they said is that the journey is

very long. And it's it's really hot outside, right that the

temperature is really high. We think that the water that you've

given us in which you've in which you've you're blessed as such,

it's going to diminish, it's going to decrease, and when we get

there, we won't be able to use it. So the Prophet sallallahu sallam

said something very interesting that you can use today, right for

your zum zum. And whatever else if you really have to, he said it's

okay to do Hubble Ma, which means extend it with additional water.

So you've got the original amount of water that I've given you. Now

what you can do is if you see that it's diminishing because it's

evaporating or it's spilling or whatever the case is, you know,

when you're taking it in this large journey, you know, maybe in

those they didn't have it or you know, airtight containers and

things of that nature. So is that it's okay, you can extend it. Like

if you have to use even a bit of it, that's fine. You can extend it

add other water, right? So even though it's diluted, you still get

the benefit of it. So what we're speaking about here is that the

benefits of

Ramadan need to be continued and extended. And the way we can do

that is, I think one very easy way to do it is to fast, at least

three days of each month, which is very strong sun to fast three days

of each month. And those are specifically the middle three days

of the month, the 13th 14th and 15th Moon, there are some

differences of opinion there, but that's strong 113 14 and 15 you

fast, the other one is fasting if you want even more humor and

especially as we go on to the shorter days of the Mondays and

Thursdays the benefit of this is that it will keep us closer to

Allah subhanaw taala May Allah give us the tofi read a bit of

Quran you know, we may have read a lot more during the month of

Ramadan but right now we must do also as much as possible Read,

read reports of the Quran maybe inculcate certain certain things

in our life where we read certain sources, certain milk in the

evening. So they are seen in the morning sort of get have weekly

extend these things because if we don't, it's not going to it's the

benefit is gone. We need to extend the spirituality that nor the

light of the month of Ramadan. So it it helps us throughout the

point of a lecture is to encourage people to act to get further an

inspiration and encouragement, persuasion. The next step is to

actually start learning seriously to read books to take on a subject

of Islam and to understand all the subjects of Islam at least at the

basic level, so that we can become more aware of what our deen wants

from us. And that's why we started Rayyan courses so that you can

actually take organize lectures on demand whenever you have free

time, especially for example, the Islamic essentials course that we

have on the Islamic essentials certificate which you take 20

Short modules and at the end of that inshallah you will have

gotten the basics of most of the most important topics in Islam and

you'll feel a lot more confident. You don't have to leave lectures

behind you can continue to live, you know to listen to lectures,

but you need to have this more sustained study as well as Zach

Allah here and salaam aleikum wa rahmatullah wa barakato.