Springfield College – Intro to Ramadan Event

Okay

Good afternoon peers on stuff. I would like to welcome you all for the first Ramadan info session. My name is Lena and it's my pleasure to invite you all today to hear what we are going to say. It's my pleasure also to thank David first for his help for organize this association and for Sheffield hour as well as he was willing to come by weekly, honestly weekly to our school in order to give us like lectures feeling home and be closer to God. So I think it's Jackie our

Sheffy our, who is our speaker for tonight, he has worked around the world with international organizations for 30 years and has released many books along the way. He is an advisor, author, life coach and corporate consultant. He's built he is specialized in leadership development, helping technical specialization transitions into management and leadership yours sorry, leadership roles.

For today, our schedule would be we are going to first invite

Abdullah Hilty to recite some verses from the Quran and then share here is going to give us a lecture about Ramadan

after that we are going to pray altar in sha Allah but meanwhile if you can you can have the refreshments and have some snack other then then we are going to have a q&a This is would be it for today. Thank you so much

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sokola hola Liam son thank you so much Shahab Allah It was our pleasure to hear your voice. This is my first time hearing you so I got my goosebumps honestly on my body so thank you so much. And now we are going to invite you to our four hour lecture

Al hamdu Lillahi Rabbil Alameen

wa Salatu was Salam ala Shara Phil Ambia evil mursaleen Muhammad Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa ala alihi wa sahbihi wa seldom at the Sleeman Kathira and Casilla.

Farm abajo.

Peace be upon all of you.

That greeting in Arabic is a Salam alikoum that greeting in Hebrew is

shallow Malaysian,

and I can't speak Greek. So I don't know the Greek part of it, but it means peace be upon you. It's the same greeting for all the three Abrahamic religions.

What you just heard was the ayat.

The actual translation of the word is his sign.

Unfortunately, in English, we miss translate and we say verses. There are no verses in the Quran because the Quran is not a book of verse. It's not a book of poetry. The Quran is a book of ayat, it's a book of signs. And we call them signs because this is the actual speech of Allah subhanho data. Our Creator God Almighty, which you just heard.

The voice was the voice of Sheikh Abdullah Al Houthi,

Abdullah Al Houthi. And this but the speech the actual words are the actual words of God Almighty, Allah subhanaw taala, our Creator

preserved and recorded and kept for now 14 Plus centuries

without any alteration or any change.

I think it's something to reflect on.

And that is why the Quran is so holy, for Muslims. And that is why when people say why can't you change the Quran? Since I'm an author, I said, the copyright issues because you're not the author.

You're not the author. You can't even change a book of mine. How will you change the Book of God? It's as simple as that.

I want to

the talking about Ramadan, I'll carry on

Allah subhanho wa Taala God Almighty mentioned for us the reason why he sent Ramadan

and he said which means yeah you are Levina Armano quotevalet camassia mukamal Gudivada Levina mean Kobrick whom Allah Allah calm Tata home which means all your believe fasting has been prescribed upon you as it was prescribed on those before you

so that you may become Muhtar Cohn. Mota cone is pious. It means somebody who's conscious of the presence of God in his life or her life, and does their best to please the creator in all that they say do and how they act.

The people before you refers obviously to the Jewish people and to the Christians, and it refers to practically every religion that is practiced in the world because fasting is there in some form or the other in all the religions.

Taqwa is the fundamental philosophy of Islam. Dakwah is the consciousness as I mentioned, of God's presence in our life. What does that do? The first and most important thing it does is that it gives us tremendous comfort

and tremendous confidence, because of the Creator of the heavens and the earth is with me, 24/7 real time watching me listening to me, able to understand what I say, no matter which language I speak, because he's my Creator, and his Creator of all languages, and able to help me that gives me tremendous confidence and it gives me tremendous comfort.

It also is a shield against all forms of disobedience of God Almighty of Allah subhanho wa taala. Because if I'm aware and conscious that he is with me, then obviously I do not disobey Him. This is the fundamental reason for Ramadan. Ramadan, for example, didn't come to, for you to lose weight, or for somebody to know how the hungry people in India feel, you know, I mean, you're looking at a hungry person in India, I need to lose weight. So that's not for those reasons. It is to make us conscious of our Creator, and his presence in our life.

Now question is, why must you care? I mean, so what?

So what if

I'm aware of Allah spray presence in my life or not.

And that is because of another fundamental principle of Islam, which is the principle of resurrection, after we die, once again, common principle in all the religions.

life, death, as we know, it is not the cessation of life, it is the transfer from one form of life from one world into another world. And that is why in although we use this term intercom,

we say intercom is mon Tequilana going from one place to another place, if I go from this room to another room, I am making a call from this room to that room, I have not ceased to exist. Similarly, when we die, we do not cease to exist, we must change the form in which we exist. We exist in this shape and form in this life, when we go into the next life, the shape and form changes we continue. And that is irrespective of how that death happens and comes to us whether I just dropped dead now, or whether it happens and may Allah protect us from all forms of of illnesses in pain and so on so forth in hospital, whether I meet a 16 Wheeler and I become a permanent part of the of the front

grille, or whether I am I meet Mr. Putin and I'm vaporized irrespective of that. Right? We will be resurrected. And the simplest question if somebody says, Well, how am I going to be resurrected if I meet Mr. Putin and I get vaporized? Well, before he met Mr. Putin, Allah subhanaw taala created you when you didn't exist. So how much more difficult can it be to recreate you once you have already existed? So it's as is as simple as that?

Why all of this, why God consciousness why all of this because the purpose of the Muslim and obviously this is the purpose obviously of everybody but definitely of the Muslim is to be beneficial to everyone who he or she comes into contact with, whether they are human whether they are not human. The end

environment, the water, the air, the people, the land, the birds and the bees, every single one, the most beneficial, also relies on SLM profits. And as Adam said, the best the best of people is the one who is the most beneficial to the people.

And that is why conscious being conscious of Allah subhanaw taala in our lives makes us think about how can I benefit others.

So in short, the purpose of the Muslim is to benefit others. So if you find a Muslim who's not being beneficent, who's not who's not benefiting people is not being beneficial to others, then you need to remind them and say, excuse me, you are a Muslim.

Right? Why being toxic

is not your religion, your religion is to benefit people. And if you are being toxic then you are going against your religion so wake up

as I mentioned to you in Islam, we have the concept that we have two lives. Now there's not some kind of schizophrenia to lives meaning this life here, which has an effect in the life to come.

For example, as soon as I said I'm said A smile is sadaqa

sadaqa is charity he said if you smile at another person, Allah subhanaw taala will reward you for that smile. Now you might say how do I do that with with a mask believe me that the true smile comes if you see the put a mask and you see the smile in the eyes the smile is always in the eyes anyway, isn't it? I mean, it's not it's not the teeth

human beings are the only species which bears its teeth when they're happy

you know, this is just

everyone else in the bear their teeth if you see a lion a budget is Oh my God loves you. He loves you in a different way. If

he loves you would have a different way. Alright, now Ramadan is to reiterate this relationship between this life and that life so why do I take with him quote Spain, frankly, fasting especially in the winter in America is a is fun.

There's no pain involved. Real valving is in the Middle East is in tropical countries in the summer. There it is very hot, very, very hot. And it is. It is tough. But yeah, it's it's you know, it's it's fun, but point being, irrespective of that. Why take pain for the same reason you do that in the gym, no pain, no gain. So we take pain to build the life in the hereafter to the extent to which the life in the hereafter is real for us. To that extent we take pain

now the pain in the fasting is no eating, no drinking. I think I have a slide on that. So yeah, there you go.

Ramadan itself is is the ninth month of the of the history calendar, we go by the moon calendar.

By the lunar calendar. Fasting is between dawn and dusk from Kanzi from Kanzi to Ghanzi. And in that period, there is no food no drink and no

physical relationship with your spouse

and trying to find something which has more than three letters.

And then we have

we have then we have special night prayers, which we call Dharavi, so after the Isha Salah, we have to and that's why she has Abdullah Al Houthi. May Allah bless him, he is here with us. And we get Ramadan is a month of the Quran. So we get to listen to some beautiful beautiful recitation, of course, I was welcome all of you, all of you are welcome, irrespective of Muslim, non Muslim, most welcome, please come to the mosque. And you can sit I don't think that if you are there you are locked in for the holy for the whole time No, will put you in a place where you can escape quietly without you know without getting into trouble. So but do most welcome please come and and listen to

some beautiful recitation of the Quran. Then in the last 10 nights or last 10 days, we do a retreat.

I think many of my Catholic friends will be will know because there is a there is a concept of retreat in Catholicism as well. But we do a retreat and so we literally confine ourselves in the masjid. We don't leave the Masjid. We stay in the masjid. And we try and worship and read Quran and so on as much as we can. And obviously you're fasting during that period as well. So that's the last 10 days and then there is of course, eat. And evil fitter is where we, we dress up and we pray and we give a lot of charity and we eat a lot of nice food and we meet all our friends and so on and so forth. So that's that's the fun part of it.

The purpose of all of this is to become mythical. Is to be this to make the Presence of Allah subhanaw taala real in our lives.

What does that mean? It means to bring about behavioral change in ourselves. What is it that I'm doing today that I need to change? That is what happens around. That's why I call Amazon the behavior bootcamp. behavioral change bootcamp. So you go in one way, and you come out of that in a better way.

Now, why do we need to do all of this because we love Allah.

We love Allah subhanaw taala more than we love anyone else. And we know that Allah loves us. And that is why He gave us Islam. That is why He gave us Ramadan. That is why he blessed us in many, many, many ways that he blessed us. And so therefore, we try to live in a way that pleases Him.

Now what is as I said, What is fasting in Islam, I've done all that. Interestingly, one of the big elements of Ramadan is charity. Not only zakat, Zakat is the Islam we have compulsory charity, which is two and a half percent of your wealth savings. It's not an income tax. It's a savings, wealth tax. Two and a half percent of that

somebody did an estimate last year and they said that Muslims globally spend give out over $1 trillion in charity every year.

And that's a nice piece of money. So, this is this is hugely encouraged and this is something which gives us benefit in the hereafter as well. As I said it's fasting is also a completely behavior change boot boot camp meaning no profanity and backbiting and so on so forth. Now this does not mean that all of this is halal and permissible outside of Ramadan only in Ramadan, you can't do it No.

None of this is not permissible, permissible anyway. But rather than is the time where you get to consciously practice that with the intention of carrying forward so going out of Ramadan also. No profanity, no backbiting, no slandering, you might say, well, you know, what, what about my social life? Well, we need to change the social life. Talk about something other than that.

I think that's it i people who pray together stay together and that's what

Robert is there to for us to do. I love these pictures of little children. This was in this little girl she brought her grandfather to the to the to the prayer and this isn't the grandmas can quit. So you can see how she's very proudly he's praying behind her and she's she's very proud about that.

The picture on the top left corner is the is the big Masjid in Bhopal in in India the one on the corner bottom corner there is the Mosque of the education city mosque in in Qatar very beautiful building. And those two they're not mirrored they actually supposed to depict the two hands up like this asking Allah subhanaw taala and praying and this the picture next to that is one I took in 2019 when I was in Qatar and that was the Eat prayer there so that's a those are pictures

Ramadan is also eating together which is so hor and Iftar This is from my mosque in India

where the all as you can see you do a lot of nice good food and which brings me to the end of my talk and that is Ramadan is for what comes after our what comes after Ramadan life. So Ramadan is to make sure that what comes after Ramadan is a life which is positive which is beneficial to everybody which is happy which is stress free because we touched on last mohatta I will end with this and I will I must thank you all very much for being here. We've got all of you I'm so happy to see so many so many of my friends some of some of you I have difficulty recognizing whether see you without a mask. I mean you know, will you please put on your mask? Yeah, okay right.

Now I know you.

Thank you very much. It's literally become like that.

Thank you very much

just like a low Hayden chair.

I know that some of you is going are going have some questions. And before that we are going to pray also in sha Allah. By that time you can digest or the questions that you may have. And after that we are going to have q&a. Thank you.

You can eat as well. We have Richmond refreshments there