Ismail Kamdar – Spiritual Growth in Ramadan

			Bismillah al Rahman al Rahim Al hamdu Lillahi Rabbil Alameen wa salatu salam ala Sayidina Muhammad
were an early he was so happy here as mine As salam o Alaikum Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh a warm
welcome to radio Islam International, it is another edition of Living the Legacy. And today as we
find ourselves drawing much closer to Ramadan, at least the time that this program is will be
literally a day or two before Ramadan Insha Allah, we're talking about growing spiritually spiritual
growth through Ramadan. When we looked at this topic, and my producer and I spoke about which
scholar we would like to address this topic, we thought of one scholar who really, on all levels,
		

			serves this ummah uplifts us and really inspires people to want to change through Islamic history
through personal development, and it is none other than she has a smile. She has a smile is an
author. He is an imam. And he's also a research manager at ERP Institute have a look at his
publications there as well. Incredibly incredible. You could download them and benefit from them
incredibly, may Allah reward him at all. I mean, she has a smile and honored to have you with us
today just Aquila hade and as Salaam Alaikum Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh share
		

			with the law, that it's a pleasure to be here. And hamdulillah Shia Ramadan program coming closer,
we all have constant battles each of us. At the same time. We also need to find ways to grow
spiritually to allow ourselves to do much more than just staying away from food and drink in
Ramadan. Many listeners we've spoken about before we know that growing spiritually so important, but
today we're going to learn more from Chef and understand more on how we can use the month of Ramadan
to grow and not just for Ramadan to grow spiritually. But how can we grow spiritually beyond the
month of Ramadan and harvest that goodness. So we'll begin perhaps by asking shares if you can just
		

			take us back to this because we have a lot of listeners who revert to Islam new revert there are
those that are on the journey to want to embrace Islam to say the shahada insha Allah and they are
those of us who may have been brought up in Muslim homes and been fasting since we are children. For
all of us in different journeys. Perhaps we can go to the basic what is the spiritual essence of
Ramadan, please feel hamdulillah salatu salam ala Rasulillah. To understand the spiritual essence of
Ramadan, we go to Surah Al Baqarah Chapter number two verse 183 and 185.
		

			These two verses they summarize for us what Ramadan is all about Allah Subhana Allah says, Oh, you
will believe fasting has been prescribed on you, that how it was prescribed for those before you.
		

			So that you may increase in piety. And in verse one, a revival of Subhanallah stalks about shuffle
Ramadan, about the month of Ramadan, and lays down for us the rulings of fasting and the exceptions
to fasting. And he ends the verse by saying that karoun So that you may become more grateful.
		

			So we can take from these two verses that the spiritual essence of Ramadan, is that this month
should increase our our consciousness of Allah subhanaw taala meaning we should exit Ramadan with a
stronger relationship with our Creator, then we went into it, and it should make us more grateful to
Allah subhanho wa Taala we should exit Ramadan, specifically on the day of Eid, we should be in a
state of gratitude
		

			to Allah subhanho wa Taala that these are two of the essential qualities that the believer needs to
succeed in this world and the next that is taqwa, God consciousness and sugar, gratitude, and our
Medan is a time of cultivating these qualities in us of nurturing it and growing it and taking it to
the next level through our acts of worship through fasting, extra prayers, extra Quran, we do it
with the goal of increasing our piety and increasing our gratitude to Allah subhanho wa taala.
		

			Malachite for that reminder. Often when, when you're speaking to audiences, I suppose the questions
are about what are the rules about this or that but our question to you today is in terms of
spiritual growth in Ramadan, what does it mean to you as an individual?
		

			Very beautiful question hum de la Sol for me, every Ramadan. I'd like to exit Ramadan with at least
one new good habits and
		

			Having one lesson on my skills right like one to drop one bad habit that I think is a realistic goal
to work towards. So for example, if someone is not in the habit of reciting Quran every day, if they
can exit Ramadan with the habit of reciting Quran even for just five minutes a day, every day for
the rest of their life, I would consider that Ramadan a success that it changed them spiritually in
some way. It left the permanent impact in their life, no matter how small it is, but it's a
permanent impact. The Prophet sallallahu sallam said that Allah loves the good deeds that are
consistent, even if they are small. So even a small change like this, where you exit Ramadan, but
		

			you now have a habit of reciting Quran for five minutes every day, or praying to the gods of the
Hajj God, or you at least became consistent on your five daily Salah don't undermine any small
positive change to your life, because every little step counts in the sight of Allah subhanaw taala
and beloved to Allah subhanho wa taala. So for me spiritual growth in Ramadan, means there is some
noticeable and permanent change in you at the end of Ramadan. It doesn't have to be something big,
doesn't mean you became no one of the only overnight, but it's something and it's something that you
can recognize that you can look back and see 100 this Ramadan made a difference in my life.
		

			Okay, so that's really something we want to take on further from there where the focus need not
necessarily be on quantity, always. But really the quality and each of us on that journey. It takes
us through a bit about more on the spiritual growth and let's expand that, to the general community
on might large. Why is that spiritual growth? So important? Why isn't it just enough for me to just
say, Well, I'm staying away from food and drink. So I'm sacrificing two of the most important things
to me. Why spiritual growth so important to a believer?
		

			Okay, is it an important question?
		

			To understand this question, you have to understand that we are spiritual beings. And that is the
essence of who we are that these bodies that we are in. This is temporary, we stay in these bodies
for maybe 6070. If Allah wills 100 years maximum, right, but our soul that is created to live
forever, right? And for it to to get the maximum benefit in the afterlife, we have to be nurturing
our soul. And we also have to understand relate to that some people don't realize but our faith is
something that's constantly in flux. It's, you know, the the classical theological position is an
imam who is a young faith consistently increases and decreases, it's always going up and down. Every
		

			good deed increases our faith every cent decreases our fate. So we are constantly in a state of
either spiritual growth or spiritual regress. If we are not growing spiritually, we are regressing
spiritually this this is the nature of the human being. It is no effort on our part to get closer to
Allah subhanho wa taala. Then without realizing it, we are growing more distant from Allah subhanho
wa taala. So we have to be constantly aware of the state of our iman. And we need to be constantly
working on improving our relationship with Allah subhanho wa taala. And Allah has given us certain
things that help us to constantly grow spiritually. So on a daily basis, we have the five daily
		

			Salah that that is there to ensure daily spiritual growth, to prevent us from from falling too far
off of the straight path. But then we also have the annual spiritual growth which which is through
fasting in the month of Ramadan. Throughout the year we find our faith decreasing our sins
increasing, we find ourselves becoming lazy with our good deeds. Ramadan is a chance to supercharge
it. It's like a supercharged our spiritual batteries that we go through this month of intensive
worship, where we charge our spirituality for the entire year. So I think the main point that we
need to take from this is that if we are not growing spiritually, we are regressing spiritually, and
		

			nobody who cares about the Ophira will want that to happen. So we need to be always focused on
spiritual growth. Definitely Sharla we're speaking today to share his main camperships specializes
in
		

			a history and when you're thinking of personal development, then she was my angel was one of the
pioneers with online resources and books for the Muslim community to benefit from that. He's also
the founder of Islamic self help and another new initiative
		

			But we're going to ask him to share a bit with us about later on today is academy.com. She was also
the research manager at Yaqeen. Institute. We're talking about spiritual growth in Ramadan. And
she's taking us through the importance of it, what the spiritual essence of Ramadan is. And we're
now going to move on the topic of the naps, when in this month, that's where a lot of focuses on
about the naps, we hear from the scholars about anger that can come up anger issues, or emotional
issues like jealousy, that come up, procrastination comes up, and our bodies go into some type of a
survival mode almost. But at times, it also makes us aware that there are certain aspects that we
		

			need to change in our lives. These may be old habits, or new budding habits that we need to clip in
the bag, so to speak. How can we now use the lessons that we learn about ourselves? Like, for
example, last Ramadan may feel seem like lightyears away for some of us, but how can we actually use
the lessons from past Ramadan or previous Ramadan, to change and prepare for this coming Ramadan?
And then of course, throughout the year, okay, hum de la. So one of the things we need to realize
about ourselves as humans is that our spiritual growth is a lifelong journey, no one is going to
reach perfection in their lifetime. So there's always something we can improve upon. And one of the
		

			things we should be doing is looking at what we did right in the past and repeating it, and looking
at what we did wrong in the past and finding ways to fix it or correct it. So for example, perhaps
last year, someone had the intention of giving up a sinful addiction in the month of Ramadan. And
they lasted about 15 days or 20 days, and then they fell back into the day addiction.
		

			They shouldn't give up. Rather, they should now look back and say, Okay, what happened around that
point that made me fall back into it? And what can I do this year, to ensure that doesn't happen
again. So you don't give up right, then, but no one's getting to Jana, by being perfect. We get to
Jana, by trying our best always, if you try your best for the sake of Allah subhana, Allah, Allah
will forgive the rest. That that's what we aim for to try our best. So look back and ask yourself,
What did I do wrong last year, and it could be something small, it could be using get enough sleep.
It could be that you didn't wake up for school, so you cranky all day, it could be you tried to do
		

			too much acts of worship in the first 10 days. So you are tired to the next 20 days. This is the
small things that we don't think about that affect our energy levels that make us weaker and more
vulnerable to sin. We don't think about it. And that's what we need to do is to sit and think and
analyze our actions. You know, this is the spiritual practice of Maha Sabha, to hold ourselves to
account to look back and think What did I do? Right? That may repeat it? What did I do wrong? How
can I improve it? And I think if we all approach Ramadan in this manner every year, then would each
year our Ramadan should bring us closer to Allah subhanho wa Taala than the year before. We're not
		

			going to exit Ramadan, sinless and perfect. But we're going to exhibit closer to Allah did we read
the year before maybe having dropped one or two sinful habits or gained one or two habits of
righteousness? Right. So that's what's important. It is Maha Sabha.
		

			And I think many many of us growing up may have not had that information, that awareness about this
Maha Sabha for many it was just, you know, checklist of things you need to do. But that self
awareness in Ramadan was missing for many living, that's something that many of the youth today are
aware of. So let's bring the topic in to our youth, as a as a father of youngsters, yourself, you
know, many of our teens, we know many of our teens actually are fasting just because it's fun. It's
because they know they need to be doing it because everyone else is doing it. How can they not? But
how can parents motivate their teams to develop their spiritual awareness to grow closer to Allah?
		

			How do we actually start speaking to our youth about the spiritual journey of Ramadan? So important
question. And before answering the question, I just want to clarify that in our communities, we tend
to have two extremes when it comes to dealing with our youth, right one is where we don't focus on
this topic at all. And the other extreme is that we expect too much from them. We expect them to be
older by the age of 16 or 17. And we like disappointed when we learn that the human and they have
their own goals and their own spiritual journeys to go through and this is also unrealistic. So as
parents, we need to be the primary spiritual guides of our children, that's for sure. But we also
		

			need to be realistic of who
		

			where they are, and how much they can grow in a month or a year instead of expecting too much from
them. Now, one of the things I find that works best with children and teenagers, to make Ramadan
more spiritual is to is to focus more on doing things together as a family, right. So if you tell
your teenager to go sit in his room and recite Quran for an hour,
		

			it's highly unlikely that that Quran recitation is going to be a spiritual experience for him.
Right, it's more likely to be something that he's just doing to get Mom and Dad off his back. But if
you are having some food as a family, having it start as a family, and me by having a family, your
child's not in his room, in front of his laptop, watching YouTube videos, and eating by himself,
noisy sitting there on the table, scrolling through his Facebook or Twitter, and doing his own
thing, so he's physically there, but mentally, not the army, the family sitting together, there's no
devices, there's no technology, you're giving each other attention. To make dua as a family together
		

			before
		

			the father or the mother share a few words of wisdom, you do it together as a family, so it becomes
a memory it becomes an experience, the spirituality, something you're experiencing together, that
you are growing, and they are growing together. So try to make some food and a star family events.
Or try to have the something that you do together intellectually, whether it's watching a YouTube
series, so at Yaqeen Institute, we have very beautiful YouTube series, every Ramadan, like the
Quran, 30 potente series and check woman Solomon series. And many other scholars, I would say that
most gay men who have Ramadan series, so watching a YouTube series together on Islam, and every
		

			night, or having a family halacha like 15 minutes before you'll sit together and dad says, share
some words of wisdom and the kids you know, add their comments as well. It's important to get them
involved with dimensioned what what what's in their mind and ask the questions as well. Another
thing you could do to make a child more spiritually aware in Ramadan and to help them to grow
Spurgeon Ramadan is to take them further away. But to take them to the masjid where they're going to
have the most spiritual experience right? Sometimes we ourselves are lazy with the rally so we look
for the masjid where they recite the fastest and when it is we just get it done and overwhelmed. So
		

			you are not growing spiritually through literally neither are your children. But if you're going to
a masjid where the taraweeh is a spiritual experience with the Imam is reciting, with that read and
beautiful recitation. And it's like a 10 minute deep seated before after the taraweeh now it becomes
a spiritual experience for your teenagers. And that's my experience growing up. My mom they were
back in 2004 or five I think it was
		

			moved to the mountains to do the RV Energy Hall in Durban and my mom used to take us up like we used
to do Prater rally behind him and attendees tafsir as well. And that made a very big difference in
our lives as teenagers it shaped our Ramadan fasting is our Ramadan memories. You want to create
similar memories for your teenagers. So doing things together as a family at this point is very
important. That's really where the spirituality is going to come from, where you experience Ramadan
as a collective and not as individuals.
		

			So very helpful tips. I think for many, many of us who have children who are teens, I think that
will be so so helpful for us to explore for this Ramadan in sha Allah family goals for Ramadan.
		

			We're talking about the struggle that many people face and what we don't often talk about, and that
is achieving closeness to Allah subhanho wa Taala What
		

			advice would you have for us
		

			on striving to have that closeness with Allah subhanho wa Taala in a world where, you know,
technology can often be very distracting for you and people of all ages. What are some things that
we can and should be doing to work towards that nearness to Allah subhanho wa Taala 200 This is a
really important question.
		

			Firstly, we need to understand that getting close to Allah subhanaw taala is a lifelong journey.
It's not something where you reach a finish line and you say I'm done. I'm close to Allah, it's a
lifelong journey. There's always something we can improve with it with our character or manners or
the quality of our acts of worship, or decreasing our sins or giving up the dislike apps, there's
always some way to improve. So nobody should ever think that I'm done. You know, I've reached the
highest level possible that should never be anyone's mind. Rather, we all need to always be looking
at what we can do next, what can we do to improve? So I'll share a few tips on things that that
		

			anyone can do that will dramatically increase your closeness to Allah subhanho wa Taala number one
is developing a relationship with the Quran. So again, going
		

			Back to verse 180. Bible Surah Baqarah it says shocking Ramadan a lady on Zillow feel Quran,
orderliness, the month of Ramadan in which the Quran was revealed as a guidance for mankind? Are we
treating the Quran as our guidance? Are we treating it as our manual for how we live our lives? Take
time to recite the Quran. Take time to read the translations take time to study the deep seated
Allama take time to reflect on his meanings, and most importantly, take time to apply your lives.
The Quran should not just be something that sits on the top shelf in our house, it should be a
		

			guiding force in our life. Remember, the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said
		

			or as a candidate will either improve for you or against you on the Day of Judgment. So we want it
to be improved for us by making sure that we are living by tip number one, develop a close
relationship with Allah to the Quran. Right? The closer you are with the Quran, the closer you are
to Allah subhanho wa taala. Number two, develop a close relationship to Allah can be done to
increase increasing the quality of our Salah. So these things are activated over and downward. We
don't just train it, because we have to. But we find ways to get joined from the Salah, that we
learn to understand what we are reciting, that we utilize the moments of dua
		

			to Allah and ask Allah for what we want, that we take our time to pray slowly and intentionally as
we increase the amount of soldiers and prayers specifically, if you can build a habit of the 100
Even if it's just true. That goes a very long way to increasing your closer to Allah subhanho wa
Taala and Ramadan is a great time to build this habit because we all are awake tahajud time in
Ramadan anyway, right? Because time and time is the same. So take five minutes to pray to God Salah
before eating, it's a good time to build this habit, the habit grows a very good a very long way
towards building this relationship with Allah subhanho wa Taala that nothing we can do to get closer
		

			to Allah subhanaw taala is to have good role models and specifically to have an attachment with
Allah, that everybody should have some scholars in their life, who they approach to, right? Whether
it's a movie or a share of the sisters in Alima, or half is someone who you turn to for advice,
someone who you can speak to about your struggles, someone who can advise you on how to overcome
your sins or how to increase your good deeds, everyone should have a person of knowledge in their
life who they are close to, and who they seek advice from. This is very important because the other
man know better the ways to get close to Allah than the average Muslim. So tap into this resource,
		

			make sure that there's some scholar in your life who you are close to. Right. So I think these are
three of the most important things that we can do. Number one is to develop a relationship with the
Quran. Number two would be to increase the quality of our Salah and specifically to stop playing the
tahajjud and number three is to have a close relationship with a scholar, they have some kind of
scholar who who you are close enough to that you can seek the advice when you feel that your image
is wavering or that you are becoming distant from Allah and they are able to advise you on how to
get close to Allah. Okay.
		

			That's very, very helpful, Joseph. Well,
		

			you know, in Ramadan, we all talk about how much of Baraka we have in our time. And so we we may
change our schedules and whatever it is, but we get to work on our Quran goals, many of us complete
the Quran in Ramadan. And when Ramadan ends, we go back to our routines that were pre Ramadan. So
what happens is, after a day, many people struggle to read the Quran. And, you know, it's not until
the next year again that we may do a HUD term or even read more on how can we use this blessed month
to help change our routines in a more sustained way long term. And really start acknowledging what
are the times is what are the time wasters in my day? Is a lot to cover in this question. The first
		

			thing I want to mention about this question is that we should have realistic expectations of what we
can do outside of Ramadan. Right. Ramadan is a special time we are we are the best versions of
ourselves in Ramadan.
		

			The amount of worship that we do in Ramadan, it's not realistic to expect us to sustain the same
level throughout the year. Nor does Allah expect that from us. No is that the practice of the people
of the past? Right? If you look at the righteousness of the past, they all had a good habit so they
practice throughout the year. But still there were things that did more in Ramadan than the rest of
the year. Right. So if somebody was reciting three Quran a year, they will be reciting chant
		

			Quran Ramadan so they stated even when you get to a higher level of spirituality outside of Ramadan,
your your Ramadan still needs to look better than it. So when you see that in Ramadan you were
reciting to Jews of the Quran the day. And now after Ramadan you can't even recite half of us. Don't
be disappointed, disappointed don't feel like giving up altogether rather, what we should do is set
some realistic goals. So if you in Ramadan develop the habit of reciting to Jews of the Quran or the
outside of Ramadan, a realistic habit would be 10 minutes of Quran a day. Right? So this is
something that's realistic, this is something that's manageable, something you can make time for. So
		

			that's the first thing that you want to set realistic goals for yourself, you want to see, what
could I sustain throughout the year?
		

			The two Jews a day I can do it in Ramadan, because we have that spiritual boost in Ramadan, outside
of Ramadan, maybe 10 minutes a day, it's better than nothing. Right? Again, going back to the Hadith
to be consistent with the small good deeds. Same with the 100. Right, in Ramadan. Many of us are in
uptrend 20 regards of the night prayer, you know, after after Asia. And of course after Ramadan, if
we can just keep up the habit of two rakaats before Fajr or two, because extra after a sharp, you
know, just to catch of gamma ray. It's way better than nothing. It's something that's manageable. So
I would say Set realistic goals. Ask yourself seriously and honestly, what could I realistically
		

			sustained for the year? And let me try and make that my new habit. Right. So that's going to be a
permanent change to your routine. But it's not going to be your entire routine changes. It's just 10
minutes of your day that's changing. But that 10 minutes gives baraka to the rest of your day. So
that's really important. Then the other great part of the question you mentioned is time wasters.
And really, we all have time wasters. And we all need to look for ways to cut down like one of the
things I'm doing this year is I'm cutting down on social media, because I believe that's my biggest
time waster. And it's something I'm encouraging others to do as well. So what you need to do, again,
		

			is about take account of your date, where is my time going? Many people say there's no Baraka in
your time. I will say that Baraka in all of our times, if we are keeping track of where our time
goes. So if someone's watching a lot of Netflix, if someone's playing too many video games, someone
spends five, six hours a day just scrolling through Instagram or Facebook or Twitter, then yes, you
need to hold yourself to account you need to ask yourself, is there a better usage of this time? Is
this something I could be doing with this time, that is better for my dunya Almighty, right
something that's at least beneficial in some way, and find ways to cut down so that you use your
		

			time in a way that is more productive. And this is specifically true with technology technology is
taking over our lives in the 21st century in a very dangerous way. That's causing us to lose touch
with nature lose touch with our families, and even to start with ourselves. So we need to look at
how we are wasting time with technology and find ways to scale back so that we have more time for
our families more time for thinking more time for nature and more time for you
		

			well that's a very interesting goal to work towards very commendable we know that a lot of your your
work and projects you work on are all online so we'd love to maybe do a follow up after Ramadan late
in the year and for you to share your insight your experience and your advice on how we the the
ordinary lay people can make that effort and work towards a goal as cutting back or reducing on that
social media as you mentioned that technology can be so so dangerous and yeah, it can can pull away
from our time slot which is up live for for sharing that when it comes to the Ramadan topics you've
shared with us plenty today given us so many practical tips and we do encourage our listeners the
		

			program will be up on podcast within 24 hours. So please do go back on the podcast listen to it
again. I know I'm going to do that. I've made notes where I could for the so much I want to go back
on listen on again and reflect and look at it action points. So do go back to the podcast and share
the podcast link with others as well because it is so helpful. She covers a wide variety, our
overall topic focus on spiritual growth. It expanded to so much about who we are our parenting our
community efforts, the family and Ramadan. So there's plenty of gyms today was just my shelter you
recently founded an academy that's something really very, very unique. Tell us more introduce us to
		

			the academy please.
		

			So is an academy is something that came about organically in the past 12 years.
		

			as it started off with,
		

			about two years ago, a lot of youngsters are reaching out to me on a variety of problems, men
complaining about issues of masculinity. They don't know what it means to be a real man. They very
confused on what does Islam teach on this topic? people reaching out to me about marriage problems
are more specifically with the younger generation, not being able to get married not being able to
find someone suitable for marriage, confusion on gender roles in Islam confusion on, you know, why
does Islam say that the man is the leader of the household, you know, the influence of feminism on
our understanding of Islam, all of these problems were popping up. So I started to do research into
		

			it to try and find solutions. My initial goal was to write a book on the topic, I ended up writing
three first drafts and deleting them, because I realized the book wasn't going to do justice. And,
again, decided I want to have a clip platform focused on this topic, right. So it's an academy and
Asia means dignity honor, it comes from the idea that in Islam, marriage is there to preserve the
honor and dignity of Muslims. And if you want to live dignified lifestyles, we need to make marriage
easy, and workable and beneficial for the Ummah, again, that we have a generation that looked at
marriage as a burden, or they look at marriage as something that gets in the way of their freedom
		

			and individuality. We have a generation that are scared to get married, because the divorce rate is
so high, or there are so many stories of abuse and, and violence, I want to change that image, I
want people to look forward to marriage, I want people to see that the Islamic version of marriage
is the one that works best, even though it may be very different from modern feminist understandings
of marriage.
		

			I want people to enjoy marriage, they want to see the youth excited about getting married one day,
you know, we've reached a dangerous point in our communities where, you know, in the past, teenage
boys and girls would look at each other with excitement, you know, and be worried that they might,
you know, for the interest in it, you want to get the very young. Now we reach a dangerous point
where young boys and girls look at each other as the enemy. And we have these Gender Wars where boys
hate girls and girls hate boys, this is unnatural. And this is not good. Because how are you going
to get married and form a good relationship with a member of the opposite gender if you see them as
		

			your enemy. So I want to change all of this. And so is our academies. My first step towards doing so
I just at the moment, I just have a few articles and have a few videos and my first online course,
which is foundations of a strong marriage. And this is just a first effort at trying to fix this
problem. There will be more things in future I'm hoping to put up online courses and masculinity and
books on the topic as well. Trying to get some sisters on board to adjust the concept of femininity
and feminism. I know, when a man discusses people don't want to listen, so maybe get some sisters to
join to discuss those topics. But the goal is very, very simple. We want to revive the traditional
		

			Islamic family. And we want the youth to be excited about marriage again. And we want to decrease
the divorce rate and increase the rate of happy marriages. And this is just a humble effort at
trying to do that.
		

			It is such an incredibly amazing initiative. And we're so glad that 100 lashes and doing this and
might be full of baraka for relevance for communities, there's so much needed as we prepare to
conclude today's interview share any words of advice that you would like to leave us and our
listeners with?
		

			sure that you leave any advice to anyone, it would be? Well, there's always been my advice to
everybody I need is to focus on building for yourself sources of continuous reward. Right? None of
us know how long we have in this world. And when you go into deep anyone can pass away at any
moment. What you want to do is to spend your life investing in the mirror in the afterlife. And the
best way to do that is to leave behind sources of continuously what the prophets of Allah all of us
have said that when a person passes away, all of the deeds come to an end besides three, knowledge
that continues to benefit people, charity that continues to benefit people and righteous offspring
		

			that make to offer you. So each of us should be focusing on these three areas in our life, are we in
some way contributing to leaving behind beneficial knowledge that will continue to benefit people
after we pass away? So that can be a source of continuous reward for us? Right? Are we putting too
are we spending our money on sources of continuous charity? So that can continue to benefit us long
after we pass away? And are we getting married and having lots of children and raising righteous
children who will have their own children and raise righteous children? So for generations to come,
people will be making dua for us and remembering us and their good deeds will also be added to our
		

			scheme.
		

			These are three things that every Muslim should focus on these our resources are continuously what
knowledge then continued continues to benefit charity that continues to benefit and children that
benefit us after we passed away. Now, not everyone to do all three, some can do charity, something
to knowledge, some could have children. But if you can do all three, do all three, if you can do two
out of three, do two out of three, by the very least we should be doing one out of three, because
our focus should be on investing in the afterlife, that should be the number one focus of every
Muslim and the best way to do that is to spend whatever time we have on this world, setting up
		

			sources of continuous reward. So should we possibly suddenly then Inshallah, we will be
		

			we know we will be leaving behind a legacy that will continue to benefit the Ummah long after we
passed away, and will continue to pile up on our scale of good deeds. In sha Allah Hamid.
overqualified for that beautiful mercy we make to other Allah Subhana Allah blesses you, your
family, your community with a blessed Ramadan. And we ask you to keep us in your drawers and we are
so honored and grateful for your time. We always learn and inspired by you and by the practical
advice that you give us on how to live Islam. We are gonna take you from strength to strength.
		

			I mean, just by having
		

			barley who's gonna want to go to LA he was today on the program, spiritual growth and Ramadan. Our
guest shows it's my income that surely specializes in the fields of the fear and history and is the
author of over a dozen books in the fields of Islamic Studies, and personal development. triffids
founder of Islamic self help is Academy and the research manager at the European Institute. This
program will be up on podcast in sha Allah within 24 hours you can listen playback and share the
recording with others. That brings us to the close of this week's edition of the program. Do join us
next week as we continue with our Ramadan edition of living a legacy. Until then, As salam o Alaikum
		

			Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh