Allie Goder – Last Jumua Ramadaan
AI: Summary ©
AI: Transcript ©
We praise and we glorify Allah
We send peace and blessings
and salutations
upon our beloved prophet Nabi Muhammad
We find ourselves
present and witnessing
the last Jumaa of the month of
Ramadan. And we make dua to Allah
to make us see many more Jumaa'as
and many more Ramadans,
and thus many more Jumaa'as in many more
Ramadans.
But the reality is having made that dua,
we actually realize
that this may very well be
our
last jum'ah
in a month of Ramadan, and for many,
it will be subhanAllah.
So having that thought in mind,
then this could very well be our last
in the month of Ramadan
in any Ramadan. It may be that Allah
has decreed
that our life will end before the coming
of the next Ramadan.
This tells us that we should take
as much advantage of this day as we
possibly can. SubhanAllah, we should try to squeeze
out of this day as much as we
can inshallah, showing Allah
that we acknowledge his favor. We acknowledge the
favor of Ramadan,
we acknowledge the favor of Jum'ah
and then Jum'ah in Ramadan in the last
10 days, subhanAllah.
So let's not allow this day to go
by wasted, InshaAllah. It all starts with a
niya, You Allah, and a dua, You Allah,
give me the ability to take maximum benefit
from this day, InshaAllah, You Rabbil Alamin.
So with regards
to the
last few days, the remaining hours, the remaining
moments
of the month of Ramadan,
usually,
we
traditionally we come together on the 27th night
and we celebrate it as the night of
Qadr
whilst we know that we have to seek
for the night of Qadr, the little Qadr
within the last 10
days, last 10 nights of the month of
Ramadan.
But
what happens is after the 27th night,
one of 2 things can happen. You usually
you could find yourself being 1 of 2
persons.
Number 1,
you could have exerted yourself from the beginning
of the month of Ramadan
with tilawatul Quran, with, dhikr,
with dua, with sadaqa,
etcetera,
with salatul trawiya, salatul tahajjud, especially
from the 21st night you started making tahajud
diligently, etcetera.
And then come
the 27th night after having exerted yourself so
much,
27th night it reaches its peak and then
you slowly start decreasing
and doing less
and becoming a bit more
a bit less focused
and now you're starting to think of you're
starting to think of
the day of Eid and preparation for Eid,
etcetera. So, basically,
after 27th night, you're starting to to slow
down a little bit towards the end. So
that could be
one person.
The other person could be
someone who perhaps
has not exerted himself or herself, has been
negligent.
And now Ramadan is coming to an end
and they start realizing,
subhanAllah,
only a few days, a few moments left,
and I haven't really taken advantage,
but what's the point? There's only a few
moments, 1 or 2 days left. What can
I really do, subhanAllah?
And so
to both these attitudes,
there is one answer. It's the same answer,
and that is the words of Rasulullah sallallahu
alaihi wa sallam.
Actions
are judged
according to how they are ended.
It's all about how we're going to end
of this Ramadan
that will determine how Allah judges the entire
Ramadan, subhanAllah.
So this tells us that in this last
days, this these last moments,
we should now even step it up even
more, subhanAllah,
because we don't know once again. It may
be our last moments in the month of
Ramadan.
So it's like squeezing out the last bit
that we can possibly squeeze out of this
month, Insha'Allah. So let's make that intention here
and now that we're not going to allow
us to be
of either one of these individuals
who allows
ourselves to slack down and to slow down
in these last moments, InshaAllah.
Just think and I'm going to use a
few examples in this short talk, InshaAllah.
Just think of someone who was running a
race.
Towards the end, the final 10 meters or
the final 20 meters,
do they say, oh,
the end is near,
the winning line is near, so I'm just
going to slow down now because I've run
such a good race, I've exerted myself so
much
in the entire race. There's only 20 meters
left so I can slack down now
or do they put in
their utmost do they give their utmost last
for that last 10 meters, these last 20
meters to ensure
that they,
find first position.
And you know the answer.
So that is how you and I should
be with regards to these last moments, Insha'Allah.
So at the beginning of the month of
Ramadan,
we started making plans
as to how we're going to spend our
Ramadan
and may Allah
accept our shortcomings
in executing those plans insha'allah.
But for the near, if it was sincere,
we would have earned that reward, Alhamdulillah.
Now approaching the end of Ramadan, now we
have to make plans again.
And what is the plan that we have
to make now?
The plans are
how are we going to be after Ramadan.
We need to plan that, SubhanAllah.
So the first thing is
regarding this plan, we need to find ourselves
at this point in the month of Ramadan.
We have to have we have to find
ourselves having improved.
Looking at how we started and how we
are now, there must have been an improvement
Insha'Allah. If there was no improvement,
then there is a problem, then there is
a huge problem.
And the example
that, again, I told you I'm gonna use
examples. The example that I like to to
make here is is like someone
who puts his exercise bicycle, you know, an
exercise bicycle,
which you ride on,
for exercise, obviously,
But it's not a bicycle that moves. It's
stationary.
So he puts his exercise bicycle in the
beginning of the M5
and he starts cycling.
And he cycles and he cycles and he
cycles.
And then after an hour of cycling,
he expects to be in Cape Town.
He starts in Heusenberg
and he expects to be in Cape Town
and he opens his he looks up and
he sees and he's still on the exact
same spot.
That is
the person
who entered the month of Ramadan.
And 27
days have passed,
27 and a half days have passed,
and they find that there's absolutely no changes
in them, SubhanAllah.
But alhamdulillah, tumalhamdulillah,
revert back to the Hadith we quoted and
that is what
There is still a chance even though you
were so negligent
in the 1st 27 days, you can still
make up and still gain full benefit from
the month of Ramadan
by making here near here and now that
is lasting days Insha'Allah, I need to exert
myself
for him. So
now the plan coming back to the plan
for after Ramadan, and the plan is,
Insha'Allah,
having examined
ourselves and assessed ourselves and refined that, alhamdulillah,
we have improved,
we have grown,
we have left certain things that were haram
or perhaps,
Makru.
We have left them at the door
of the last day of Sharagan. We've let
left them at the end of Sharagan. We
entered in Ramadan or perhaps during the month
of Ramadan,
we started leaving those haram slowly slowly.
In Ramadan, we found ourselves adopting new good
habits.
Alhamdulillah, making salaam on time. Maybe being more,
being more having more concentration in our salah,
making prolong our salah, making salah on time
for example. We've found ourselves reciting more Quran.
We found ourselves
giving more sadaqah. We found ourselves,
improving in our akhlaq, our character, the way
we speak to our spouses, our children, etcetera.
So we've we've
so we see this improvement.
Now the question is,
after
the month of Ramadan,
am I going to go back
to the way I I was
at the beginning of Ramadan?
And the answer is absolutely not and that
is the plan. The plan is not to
return to the way you were before Ramadan.
Obviously,
we can never ever stay in the same
state
out of Ramadan
than
the state that we were in during Ramadan.
That is not possible. But
if we can use a scale from 1
to 10.
So if before Ramadan you were on a
5
and during the month of Ramadan you grew
and you increased
to, let's say, a 7 or an 8.
When Ramadan closes,
when the doors of Ramadan closes,
we cannot go back to being a 5.
If we aim to come down from a
8, maybe we'll come down to a 7,
maybe we'll come down to a 6, but
not to a 5. There must be an
improvement
and the improvement we must try and maintain,
Insha'Allah. And that is the challenge. The challenge
is to maintain the improvement
that we have acquired during the month of
Ramadan, Insha'Allah. And it must be something conscious,
something that we need to work on, Insha'Allah.
Again, an example.
What can Ramadan
be
likened
to? Ramadan can be likened to
training for the Olympics.
You're an athlete,
and you are going to participate in the
Olympic games.
So what do you do? Obviously, you're gonna
go through a vigorous training program
to prepare yourself
to perform
optimally on the day, the Olympics.
Ramadan
is that vigorous training.
When is the Olympics?
The first day of Shawwal
and every other day until the next Ramadan,
SubhanAllah.
So we've been training for this day.
We've been training for the 1st day of
Shawwal
when
Ramadan comes to an end
and now certain things are going to happen.
And the one thing that's going to happen
is
that the Shayatin,
the Maradotu Shayatin,
the specific Shayatin
that,
enticed us
to do a Haram
that whispered
in our *
suggesting evil SubhanAllah and the main Sherpaan,
Ibelis,
they
all those Shell PON will have been tied,
and that is why we found it easier
to stay away from Haram. We found it
easier to do more good. Those Shell PON,
especially
the main Shell PON,
they are going to be released and they're
going to come back at us with a
vengeance because
if we were forgiven in this month, then
it means the entire year's work or all
the years of work down the drain and
now they're going to come
at us with so much vigor
in order to
get back what they had been working
on on the past year. Get back those
sins, fill those books again
with sins. That is what they need to
be doing, SubhanAllah.
So to that, we have to be absolutely
alert Insha'Allah.
But Shaytan,
Allah tells
us, the kaid, the plot of Shaytan is
weak.
It is weak.
It is you and I who make him
strong.
How is shaytan's plot weak and what makes
his plot weak?
As long as we have Allah on our
minds in our hearts and we are remembering
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala, shaitan has no access
to us. That's why Allah refers to shaitan
as Al Khunas.
What does Khunas mean? It means the one
who retreats.
So we will come
and you will attempt.
He
will attempt
to make his wish was to whisper in
the breast in our *,
but
no sooner does that happen
then we remember Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
And when at the moment of remembering Allah
Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala, shaitan has no option but
to what? But to retreat and therefore is
called Al Khannaiz,
the one who retreats Subhanahu Wa.
Consider
the dua that you are reciting
when you leave your home.
As you leave your home, shaytan has plans
for you outside of your home, plans as
to how because opportunities outside of your home
are so many
for him to mislead you and to get
you into haram.
And so he has his plans.
But as you leave your home, what do
you say?
You remember Allah. You say Bismillahi
in the name of Allah.
I place my trust in Allah. Whatever it
is that I need to do, I am
attempting to do, and planning to do
on this day
that can only come to pass, that can
only come to fruition, I can only accomplish
with the help of Allah, with the decision
of Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala because
there is no might, there is no power.
I can do nothing, nothing can be done
unto me except with the decision and the
power of Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala.
When I say these words, I bring to
mind these words, I bring to heart these
words,
then Allah responds.
And it is said, Wudita,
you have been guided.
Wa kufita and you have been sufficed. Your
needs are sufficed for that day. Wa kufita
and you are protected for that day.
And then, Shilpan, where is plans?
You have now put around you the shield
of Allah's remembrance.
And
Shilpan now has no option but to keep
his distance, Subhanu wa.
So
this in essence is taqwa that we have
acquired that is the remembrance. Taqwa means constant
remembrance of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. It will
be the shield for us again shayrtaan Insha'Allah.
But we have to consciously
plan. We have to consciously take assessment of
ourselves.
And once again, I come back to the
most important point regarding these last few moments,
these last few days,
and that is
let us use it to,
earn Allah's pleasure,
to exert ourselves to the max, Insha'Allah,
so that we ensure that we come out
of this Ramadan with the highest level of
taqwa, Insha'Allah. And that taqwa is in essence
the remembrance of Allah all the time, and
that becomes the shield around us, a shield
that cannot be penetrated by Shirkon, Insha'Allah.