Abdur Rahman ibn Yusuf Mangera – How to Beat the Post Ramadan Blues
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Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has allowed us
to come through this month of Ramadan that
we've just had mashaAllah.
And what a beautiful month it was and
the lights of the month of Ramadan and
so on.
Now the thing is that I don't know
if I was able to explain this but
Imam Ghazali mentioned something that really made life
a bit easier for me because you know
when you're fasting you feel broken, especially by
Asr time, by late afternoon you feel weary,
tired, you feel lethargic, you feel like sleeping,
does anybody still feel fresh mashaAllah all the
way until Iftari time and they're exactly the
same, they can do, anybody like that?
So I used to feel really bad because
you know when you listen to these stories
or read these stories in Fada in Ramadan
and these people who mashaAllah they're just so
energetic and they accomplish so much, so you
feel a bit bad.
Why am I like that?
Okay maybe it's health issues but what else
is it?
So you start feeling bad about that.
So Imam Ghazali said actually no that is
designed like that.
Ramadan is designed to break you, not in
so many words, Ramadan is designed to break
you which means that it's to cause hunger,
to make you hungry and to make you
sleep deprived.
Why?
What do you get out of doing that?
The benefit of that is that when you're
not like that and you're well fed and
well slept and you're fine, then you're a
lot more confident and you're just more negligent
in that state.
You're just focused on the dunya in that
state.
Whereas when you're broken, you're wondering, it makes
you think why am I doing this?
I'm doing it for Allah.
Do I have to do this?
What do I get out of doing this?
And then mashaAllah Allah gives us this amazing
excitement at Iftar time.
What a dopamine rush that Iftar is.
It's an amazing rush that is.
Can you imagine if you had Iftar every
hour and you got the same feeling that
you get once a day?
That would be amazing.
The purpose of that is to break you
and make you think and reflect, to understand
what the real purpose of it is.
So when you're not so hungry and the
nafs is being deprived, it helps us to
overcome it and overcome the bad ideas and
reflect.
That's why this is the time to make
resolutions.
This is the time to make resolutions because
we've actually gone through such a stressful time,
but it's a positive stressful time.
Sleep deprived, deprivation, food deprivation, lots of worship
and so on.
That's why after Ramadan can be different from
what it used to be before Ramadan.
At least that's what Allah's design is.
But unfortunately, we go back to doing exactly
everything the way it is.
Let's not lose that.
It's been a week only.
Let us not lose that opportunity.
Let us maintain at least some aspect of
that Ramadan and let us prolong some of
the things and extend some of the things
and endure with some of the worships that
we didn't avoid and the paradigm shift and
the difference in our thought process.
That's very important.
He's got a call yesterday from some brother
I've never met before, though I've talked to
him many times, so I kind of know
him, but I've never met him.
And he happened to be in Umrah for
the first time.
He's a businessman and he's in Umrah and
he's been on my case for like a
day or something.
I need to talk to you.
I said, OK, fine.
I gave him some time and we spoke
and he said, you know, I've been here
for this many days.
And aside from the first time I saw
the Kaaba, I just don't feel that same
thing and that same urge to just go
there all the time as all of these
other people are going, you know, crowding around
the black stone and getting to the door
of the Kaaba.
I don't feel that urge.
And I don't feel that same sense.
So I listened to him.
Essentially, that was his comment.
Like, why don't I feel like that?
Am I just completely messed up?
So now I try to bring some sense
into it because I've had that experience.
So what I what I what we mentioned
is, I said, number one, I think I
don't know what you're comparing yourself to because
I'm not in your mind.
I'm not having your experience.
I'm not with you.
I can't sense what you're sensing.
I don't have your experience.
But maybe just to put some perspective of
it, are you comparing yourself to what you
have read in Fadhail Hajj?
He's a Tablighi brother, and I know he
was in Jamaat like just two months ago.
Have you read Fadhail Hajj and you're listening
to all of these amazing stories in Fadhail
Hajj?
Fadhail Hajj has some amazing stories, really inspiring
stories, exceptional stories.
I said, all of those stories are exceptional.
Otherwise they wouldn't have been in that book.
I hope I'm right.
They're not your regular stories, they are exceptional
stories, that's what they mentioned there of the
people's experiences of Hajj and what they experienced,
what they saw, what they witnessed.
So if you're going to compare yourself to
them, then, you know, that's going to be
a big shock.
So stop comparing yourself in that sense.
He was talking about Tawaf, you know, and
so I said, number two, what you have
to understand is that don't compare yourself to
other people as well.
You don't know why they're going for the
black stone.
I would have been love.
Allah forgive us.
But maybe we've gone and tried to kiss
the black stone just to show how macho
we are, that we can get through it.
It's a possibility.
I'm a big guy.
I can just get through, shove everybody out
of the way.
Let me show you how to do that.
And believe me, once I did it, I
know actually it was I got to the
Multazam and when I got out of that,
Shaitaan just overcomes you like, look where you
are.
It is all of these guys and you're
right there.
I would have been lying in a shape
on your regime.
So you have no idea why people are
going there and we're not we're not underestimating
everybody's intention, but let that not make you
feel bad as such.
Right, so that that was just to kind
of bring him down.
However, the other side of the story is
that Hajj is a journey of love.
And if you don't know what love of
Allah is, you're not going to get half
of what you're supposed to get there.
Why should you go around seven times around
the Kaaba?
Because you're unfit.
So at least do some exercise once in
your life.
No, you go around because that's the house
of Allah.
Your your love of Allah is what takes
you to his house because that's as close
as you can get.
When you have a lover, you want to
be as close to them as possible.
Anything you love, you want to have it
in your possession.
If it's a human being, you want to
hug them.
People hug their cats and their animals because
they love them so much.
So you hug them.
You want to kiss them.
You want to be close to them.
So when you're going around the house of
Allah, you are essentially saying, this is as
far as I can come, Ya Allah, I'm
going around your house and only a crazy
lover would do that.
I know you're not inside, but this house
is attributed to you.
I can do that because, you know, let's
just say that you are going past your,
you've got somebody who's very special to you,
who lives in, who lives in Leighton and
you're just going past Leighton.
You just see the board.
What are you going to think of when
you see Leighton?
The board, you're going to see Leighton Stone.
You might remind you're going to see one
stone on a big deal.
We see Leighton.
Yeah, he or she lives there.
You're immediately going to think that.
So going around the house is essentially that's
what you're doing.
Then if you get, I told him, go
to the Multazam, I said, get to the
Multazam, put your chest there, hug it like
the Prophet ﷺ did where he showed us
how to do that and put your, put
your cheek there and then you'll see that
that is the most experience.
That's the most amazing experience, to be honest,
that that's amazing.
That is what the Prophet ﷺ did.
Allah has allowed us to do that.
That is the love.
That's the physical love we can show.
If you want to translate that into a
physical love and if you want to kiss
something, go and kiss the black stone because
humans have this desire to do these things.
I said, you need to go Umrah, he
was in Umrah, I said, you need to
go Umrah multiple times or you learn love
at home and then you go and you'll
see the difference or you go and you
learn it there.
Similar, somebody else contacted me about just over
a week ago.
I've been doing dhikr, you know, my own
dhikr sessions, my own dhikr amount.
And mashaAllah, sometimes I feel it and most
times I don't and I can't bring that
presence.
So I said, it's not really something you
can turn on and off all the time.
That the presence of Allah, you can't turn
on and off.
Sometimes you can bring it on, like if
you're really focused.
But I said, the whole purpose of these
adhkar are to get us into the presence.
That's why we sit down and say la
ilaha illallah, subhanallah.
Otherwise, that's not the real dhikr.
The real dhikr is to always be thinking
about Allah, but we don't.
So we sit down and we forcefully do
it or put ourselves, compel ourselves to do
it so that we're always remembering him.
So what the person was saying is that
when I'm doing this, I'm not sometimes in
the present where you're not going to be
because it's not our state yet.
That's what we're trying to create.
So now don't stop dhikr because you don't
feel that because the dhikr is to get
there.
A lot of people say, I don't feel
right, I don't feel it.
So what's the point of doing it?
You're doing it to create that effect.
You're doing it to always think.
That's why you're doing it.
With anything else, you get bored of the
same thing.
But with Allah, the more you do, the
more he will finally come and allow us
to have that presence.
So hopefully that gives us some understanding of
this.
May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala give us
the tawfiq and give us really allow us
to go to his house and to really
benefit from there.
The point of a lecture is to encourage
people to act, to get further, an inspiration,
an 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 their basic
level, so that we can become more aware
of what our deen wants from us.
And that's why we started courses so that
you can actually take organized 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 listen to lectures, but
you need to have this more sustained study
as well.
Jazakallah Khair and Assalamualaikum Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh.