Fatima Barkatulla – Reach your Personal Ibadah Goals

			Our next speaker, and again, it's absolute pleasure to have the sister with us. Florida, Fatima
barkatullah. Someone who has studied Arabic and sung studies in Egypt and she continues to study the
Islamic sciences. She has been a key contributor to the discourse surrounding Muslim women in the
West, contributing to many shows on various platforms Michelle Lund, she's someone who travels
		

			extensively to to to share her reminders and the wisdom with people across the UK and today
inshallah she will be speaking to us regarding maximizing our personal other during the month of
Ramadan. sada Fatima
		

			Ali consider my
		

			father when you're ready.
		

			Okay. I will be learning him in a shape Ani regime Bismillahirrahmanirrahim
		

			and hamdulillah salat wa salam ala rasulillah. Dear brothers and sisters Assalamu alaykum
warahmatullahi wabarakatuh. It's a pleasure to be with you today.
		

			I'm going to be speaking to you and Charlotte about meeting our personal goals during Ramadan,
especially, you know, this Ramadan, in lockdown, we're all at home and
		

			having to deal with the new normal, which is slightly strange, you know, not being able to go out
maybe a lot of the shops are closed.
		

			The massages are closed.
		

			You know, it's really a unique situation. And so I think it's worth us taking a few moments to plan
and think about Ramadan. And I think that's where it starts. You know, when you have a bar the goals
and you have any goals and you want to meet those goals. The first thing is to make a plan.
		

			Because our Deen encourages us a lot of power that allows the sort of La sallallahu Sallam
encouraged us to be intentional about things right? In the moment that marylu Binette actions are
backed by intentions, right? And every soul will have what they intended. So brothers and sisters,
in being intentional is about planning isn't it? So I think the first thing that's really important
if you want to meet your other goals, any Ramadan, especially if you're a busy mom, you're busy
parents, you know, you've got all the kids at home, it's really important to be intentional and make
a plan for Ramadan. And I would encourage everyone to make a plan, especially for the first week of
		

			Ramadan, a very detailed and meticulous plan. What do I mean by that? I mean that you literally you
write down somewhere, you know, maybe you get a piece of paper you write down for the first week,
when all the prayer times are when you're going to plan to pray as a family, right. So it doesn't
have to be the exact beginning of the time, but you can decide it, you know, like a particular time
for each of the prayers, you could even write that up and put it put it somewhere, you know, so that
everyone when they when they're walking past it, they can see, okay, that's the time we're going to
be praying together in Gemma.
		

			Also, so in your timetable, you write down the fixed things, things like well, the prayer times,
etc. If our time of course, so for those things that are not going to move around much or the
they're going to be like fix things during the day. Okay. And then for the first week, you make a
quite a detailed plan, you know, when do you plan to wake up? When do you plan to,
		

			you know, do the different activities that you would like to do.
		

			And then when will you start preparing for a start, you know, all of these things, they, they have
their right now we have to give out, we have to give our dues to each aspect of our life so that we
can be balanced. And I know that, you know, sometimes we overcomplicate some of these things, right?
So we make dinner into a very big, very big thing. Of course it is important as far as important.
And we want to give our families healthy and nutritious meals that are homemade, etc. But I think
one of the things we have to take care of this Ramadan is to become more simple, you know, to make
life simpler, right? So, simplify life, whatever it whatever that looks like for you. So if that
		

			means Okay, we're going to, you know, for example, in preparing for eat, we're going to keep things
very simple this time, you know, we don't have to do all the lavish stuff.
		

			We are going to focus on family, we're going to focus on each other. We're going to
		

			maybe play games, we're going to do simple things. We're going to maybe wear the same clothes. We
will
		

			Last eat, right?
		

			Even, that's something that people often don't do. They think they have to buy new clothes every
year. It's not necessary at all, you know. So these are the sorts of things I know that us moms are
going to be thinking about.
		

			During and coming to the end of Ramadan, I think it's really important for us to start simplifying
our day, the entire day, make it very simple. And then
		

			the next idea I'd like to share with you is to create a personal a badass space, right? So if you
can create a personal about the space in your house, so for me that's going to be in one of my in my
bedroom, and it's going to be literally a space that I'm going to keep clean, free of any kind of
mess or anything inshallah have a prayer mat set up there, have my, you know, my mom was half there,
ready? Okay, maybe some do our books, maybe a Koran journal, write a journal that just basically a
notebook that I have, that is a foreign journal, okay? And that is going to be like my little space,
okay, so that I can retreat from the family at times, you know, when I need to, and when I've
		

			planned to, and I can literally go and just do my own personal, it bother that. And I think it's
really important for us to do that, especially as parents, especially as moms, because sometimes we
can be so immersed in the family all day long, that we don't feel that we've had time to make dua to
connect with Allah, to have that one to one time with Allah Subhana Allah.
		

			And I think it's really important for us to create a personal ibadah space. And I would start doing
that now. You know, Subhan, Allah Ramadan is upon us right? A few days time.
		

			And then I would also create a communal ibadah space. So a space for the whole family, right, a
space where we can all pray and Gemma, we're going to be praying that are we at home? Right?
		

			And so Pamela, you know, there's a blessing in that, you know, I do, I do know that a lot of us are
feeling heartbroken that the mosques are closed. And definitely, you know, it's not an ideal
situation, and especially the men, you know, they they very used to going to the masjid and for
taraweeh and many of our sisters as well go. However, you know, when Allah Subhana, Allah places a
test upon us, or he places a new situation upon us, okay? Instead of looking for all the things that
we're missing out on, right, instead of thinking of the negatives, and, you know, I really wanted to
go today, we really, it's not going to be the same instead of thinking like that.
		

			What if we thought of the new opportunities that Ally's giving us? Right? Because in every
situation, there's always some opportunity as well, who are to look deeply for it. For me, I'm
thinking so panela Yes, you know, I enjoy going to therapy, and it's a different level of
concentration, etc. However, in some ways, a lot kind of that Allah has given us more time, you
know, because obviously, all the traveling to that, that, are we that preparation for that, etc,
that takes time, doesn't it? And it's time for us, for our children, you know, if you've got
children who memorize the Quran, especially your sons, right, it's time for them to step up, right,
		

			and start leading the family and that are we. And if you don't have that, then whoever the head of
the houses, whoever the male person of the house is, and however much more and they know, you know,
even if you're not half of the whole operand, you know, most of us in sha Allah hope have memorized
a good portion of Quran.
		

			With good surgery in sha Allah, the we should use that we should use that to pray the tahajjud
prayers and the tarawih prayers,
		

			you know,
		

			a short time after a short time. So, in that there's a new type of opportunity. You know, I think
right from now, I'm getting my sons to start preparing, you know, for their photography, for leading
us in that way. So they're going to be, you know, practicing, they're practicing their tours every
day during Ramadan, they will be revising so that in the evening, they could lead
		

			us in prayer, you know, and if you don't have that set up, it's perfectly fine to pray by yourself
as well, you know, because it is a
		

			natural prayer or isn't like a journey. It's a supererogatory prayer, right. And it's something that
you can play by yourself as well. It's not necessary to pray in JAMA. Although, you know, some of
the scholars says it's good to you know,
		

			Others say that it's actually better to pray by yourself. So don't put too much pressure on
yourself, you know, whatever way you're able to do it. Make sure you do pray some that are we
prayers, right, which are basically the prayers that you pray after you show any any extra prayers
that you pray after Isha. And try to do that every single day. Even if it's just to like up I'm
giving you like the bare minimum right even if you do to like up make it that you do it every day
because there's a Hadith of the Prophet sallallahu wasallam that whoever stands in prayer in
Ramadan, you man and Serbian with Eman And with you know hoping for a loss of reward, then all of
		

			his past sins will be forgiven. And that means at least praying to God after the Isha prayer right
of extra prep.
		

			So I would encourage you to incorporate that into your plan.
		

			The other thing I would encourage you to incorporate into your plan of course, is Qur'an. And when
it comes to plan, I would focus on three areas
		

			reading plan, reciting the Quran in salah
		

			and reflecting on the ground. Okay, so reciting the Quran and Salah, reading the Quran, from the
Messiah and reflecting on the Quran. And for me the way that those three things I try to incorporate
them into Ramadan is having an aim of a portion that you're going to read every single day right
that's the first thing so maybe for you that's a juice of Quran
		

			maybe you're you're not to that level or you don't feel able to do that you don't have the you don't
feel you have the time. So okay, but make a portion that you have decided beforehand is going to be
your daily portion of Quran reciting in Salah make it that you you know all anything that you have
memorized, you know, maybe you've memorized us, I might even just or you've memorized Baccarat,
maybe you've memorized some of the other sources, right? Just about for example, use those
		

			those sources that you've memorized in your Salah, right, and especially in the PM, especially, you
know, after the sharp prayer when you're doing the extra prayers
		

			also reflect So, for reflection, I would encourage you to have some kind of foreign journal, right.
And, you know, it might sound like a big deal. It's not a big deal at all, you know, you have a
notebook that you keep, especially for and, and the way I would do it is so you have your portion
that you're going to read every day, you have your portion that you're going to recite in the Salah.
Okay. And then you have even if it's one I have Quran, dear brothers and sisters, even if it's one
ayah and so panela one, I can have such deep meanings. You take one eye every single day, you look
up some tafsir about it, you know, nowadays, you've got YouTube, you can look up the Tafseer of
		

			anything, even as a video, right? But if you you know can you can go to the books of tafsir look up
what that means properly. Okay, and then do some reflection about how you could apply that idea into
your life. Right? And write about it in that book. So Pinilla people used to tell me about this
action of, you know, keeping a Koran journal, and I didn't really used to take it very seriously.
		

			Because, you know, it's kind of that I was studying, I was doing my Alinea, I was studying Tafseer
anyway. But when I started doing this, just taking one ayah reflecting on it, really looking at the
seal properly. And then writing about how I could apply that to my life. That's when I really
started seeing a lot of benefit, you know, subpanel I felt closer to the forum.
		

			I'm going to tell you about this concept of habit stacking, okay, habit stacking, there's a great
book, you might be able to listen to it as an audio book or look up as a summary of this book on
YouTube. And it's called atomic habits, atomic habits, I'd really encourage you to to read that
book, or at least go over the summary of it.
		

			Because there's a wonderful concept of habit stacking, anything that you want to make a daily habit.
If you stack it on top of a habit that you already have every single day, right, it's actually
becomes easier for you to establish that as a habit. Let me give you an example. So for every day of
Ramadan, you should think to yourself What is your morning routine going to be right? Because
morning routine Subhana Allah, the morning sets the tone for the day, right? It's
		

			sets the tone for the day. So it's really important you start your day off, well, the bad way to
start off your day would be checking your phone, you know, social media, because that gets you in a
reactive mode, right? reading your emails, because that gets you in the mode where you're basically
responding to other people's needs, right, rather than planning your own, intentionally planning
your own day.
		

			And the third thing you don't want to do is just Bumble through the day right through the morning
without thinking, what you really want to do is have a good morning routine. And one of the things I
would encourage you to do is habits stack. So when you have something that you, you definitely do
every day, so in Sharla, I'm hoping that everyone prays a lot of budget every day, right?
		

			You stack another habit on top of salads. And so you say, Okay, once I've prayed, whenever I praise
a lot of fudger, I will do my Vicar of the morning, right? Whenever I finished my Vicar of the
morning, I will open up my must have and read half pages, for example, right, or one page, whatever,
whatever your portion is, right. And then you say, whenever I have finished, when I close the most
half, I'm going to get up and I'm going to go for a walk, for example. Okay, so that's like a nice
little morning routine that you could have. And what you've done is you've taken something that is a
master that you already do every day, right, which is waking up for fudger. And you've stacked other
		

			habits on top of it, so that you kind of have some kind of trigger. When this habit is finished, I'm
going to do this when this habit is finished, I'm going to do this. And that makes it actually
easier for you to carry out or to establish new habits. Another one could be for example, if our
time right, so if our time is fixed, you could have it stack, you could make it that okay?
		

			Two hours before, if third time, every single day, I'm going to sit and do my Vicar for the day,
right, I'm going to make of God so then maybe that I've got of myself of the afternoon, or extra of
God, you know, that we should be doing
		

			to make ourselves closer to Allah Subhana Allah. So you could use that time to make the two hours
before if they're going to start my Vicar, then I'm going to do my Quran journal, for example. And
then I'm going to start preparing for it. Okay, you could do three hours before you know, whatever,
whatever your suits your particular situation. But because you kind of stacked it up, you know,
okay, this is my routine, I'm going to do my liquor, you know, sit, sit down and do nothing but
liquor, then I'm going to, you know, open micron journal, and I'm going to do something a double
read and I have an look it up and, you know, write about it, then is my time to start preparing for
		

			it. And then of course, there's our time. So you see how you stack things up. And that really,
really helps. It really helps. Um, another example could be that you could say, Okay, once I
finished my evening prep, my Isha, and then, you know, my extra prayers after a shot that are good.
		

			I'm going to always give some sadaqa every single night, right, so I'm going to pick up this is
going to be one of my habits. Every day, I'm going to pick up my phone, I'm going to Pamela at our
fingertips, we can make Seneca now, we don't even have to go out looking for looking for needy
people. Right. So Pamela, you know, one of the commentators are saying that if there was any, if
there was ever a time to be in lockdown, right for this test to come upon us, this is a this is a
hamdulillah still a good time, because even though we're forced to be at home, we have so much
technology, we have so much connection because of the fact that there's the internet, you know, 1015
		

			or 20 years ago there would there was not the internet right? Not not in the same way as it is now.
So, so Pamela we do have a lot of blessings. If we were to look for them, there is a lot to be
grateful for. Of course I'm aware that a lot of brothers and sisters have lost loved ones. So this
Ramadan is a time for us to make a lot of offer them, you know, to keep them in our memory to not
forget about them. They couldn't make it to this Ramadan, but we can make off of them sort of a bond
and keep them in our
		

			prayers. So I will leave you with a little checklist of I would say the minimum things that we
should all incorporate into our day as personal a bother during Ramadan. And then what you can do is
create your own plan for your day. You know, make it a flexible plan, you know things change things
happen. But at least for the first week of Ramadan make a meticulous plan.
		

			Here are
		

			Here's my minimum checklist, I would say, for every single day that we read some program every
single day, perhaps adjust if you can, after every salon or whenever you want to make it, you know,
make your time for Quran that we, every single day, pray our Sunday prayers, right. So all of the
sudden makeda, the ones that the prophets are allowing Salaam never left, right, pray all of those
every single day because they're very, very rewardable you know, after the Salas, those are the next
most rewardable and then of course, they had good, so pray at least to rock up. Of course, we should
do more. But if, if you have to only choose between not doing it and doing it, to rock out at least
		

			have the show extra prayers.
		

			have time to recite Quran in the Salah, read the Quran from the must have and have some reflection
time to double time on the ground with maybe a foreign journal that you could make for yourself. And
		

			inshallah, you know, give some subaqua if you can, every single day, have a time for Vicar or make
it that you know, in everyday, the everyday things that you're doing throughout your day, you're
constantly keeping your tongue moist with the vicar of Allah. Right. So Pamela, we have an act of
worship we can do you know, we're ironing even when we're cleaning, even when we're, you know, lying
down, we have an act of worship we can do and that is Vicar, keeping our tongues moist, the bigger
of Allah. And I will leave you with this. Brothers and sisters, you know, Ramadan is a time for us
to learn patience. It is a time for us to learn patience. And please
		

			think about this and reflect on this, you know, sometimes being with your whole family in the house
for many, many hours can be quite stressful. I know a lot of families are feeling the strain, right?
		

			Sometimes disengaging being silent, not feeling you have to respond and react to every little thing
is the best way to handle it. So I would encourage you, especially in Ramadan, and something angers
you something gets on your nerves, someone is triggering you, right? That instead of reacting,
shouting, you know, stuff for low, you know, reacting in a terrible way.
		

			I encourage you to withdraw, you know, withdraw from the situation for a little while, get some
space and respond with silence. There's a lot of power in silence, you know,
		

			scholars used to talk about the benefits of silence and not constantly talking about constantly
feeling you have to respond not constantly feeling you have to engage with every single conversation
situation, right. And I noticed that from my own father, you know, my father, Mufti barkatullah. And
notice that one of the great qualities that he had was that he would, whenever there was something
stressful or difficult, he would instead of becoming angry, and you know, engaging with it, he would
actually withdraw and stop focusing on Allah, he would make us too far. Or he would, he would go
quiet. And his silence spoke volumes, his silence spoke volumes. So I will really encourage all of
		

			us as well, to you know, hold our tongues, be patient.
		

			Be silent sometimes and just silently, talk to Allah about whatever issue that we're facing. And
you'll see that after a few moments, after even a few hours, maybe that situation dies down, things
become better, and you feel happy that you responded in a in a dignified way. Right? You feel glad
that you responded in a dignified way.
		

			My father was telling me you know, Subhanallah it's like we have been put into a forced
		

			compulsively to go right already. We've been put into a state of Africa, we have to stay in one
place. And so Subhanallah you know, we can use this time
		

			to put away the distractions, you know, have a bit of a detox from the phone during Ramadan as much
as you can, you know, and
		

			use this time to focus on Allah to refocus on ourselves on what's really important.
		

			I hope that that has benefited you dear brothers and sisters somewhat, you know, it's just really me
sharing with you some of the things that I do to prepare for Ramadan. So please make that personal
space create a communal over the space. Make a plan, especially for the first week meticulous plan,
simplify everything right, whether that's the meal. So Pamela brothers and sisters
		

			In our, our culture, people of our culture are dying of diabetes. They're dying of obesity, right?
So Pamela You know, when are we going to learn this food this fried and fried food with, full of,
you know, refined carbohydrates and etc, etc. is not good for us. It's killing us. It's killing us.
It's time for us to rethink all of that, you know? No, it's not necessary for us to have some
answers every day. I think it's time for us to really simplify whatever you would normally eat. Eat
that for your right there need to make a special food we really don't. We already eat very luxurious
food dear brothers and sisters. I'm not being a party pooper I'm saying that's upon a lot. The
		

			ordinary beautiful fresh fruit fruit and vegetable and and food that Allah has given us. The
ordinary meals, not full of fat and not full of, you know, carbohydrates and refined carbohydrates
and fried food and etc. The ordinary everyday food that we eat in our cultures and you know, in our
society, that's good enough, you know, that's the food that we should be eating. We don't need to
make a special party food every single day. I would encourage all of us to do that. Because so
Pamela and this time of lockdown, it feels like a lot of data is calling us back to simplicity. So
it is awkward enough parents, brothers and sisters, I will leave you with that. And I will end with
		

			with the dark satanic level Mohammed ik shadow Laila,
		

			Father Fatima for a wonderful reminder. And as you rightly mentioned, normally we are approaching
along in quite quite an ad hoc way. But it's only right that we treat the month properly and we
approach it, planning it planning for it and planning it but does that Lochhead malice and other
accept from you your reminder and your power? And Allah make it a means of you answering *
for adults. I mean, you're not cinematic
		

			cinema