Omer El-Hamdoon – Get Ready for Ramadan 2021
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Okay, what's up man Rahim al hamdu Lillah wa Salatu was Salam ala rasulillah while he was so happy he or no Allah. My dear speaking brothers and sisters said Imani Kumara Mahi wabarakatuh. And I'd like to welcome you all to this brief introduction to aroma Juan,
no doubt, rammohan is a great opportunity. It's a great time. It's a great month. It's great in many aspects, and in many avenues, it's not long to go now. We're looking at around maybe 10 days or less, in fact, for a start, and it's very important for us, I mean, this, this this talk really is a reminder, it's a very short reminder about how we can hopefully get the most out of Ramadan. So it's about getting ready for Ramadan and achieving the best inshallah to Allah and in essence,
I'm giving you a summary of the work that I have have done over the past years started a good few years ago, when we started to send short audio reminders in there like one minute reminders and these developed into like small posts, and then short videos, and it's basically has evolved into a small booklet, or a book, title 30 steps towards refreshing Ramadan. And today I've just chosen a few of those messages from that book, to enable us just to get the flavor of how we should prepare for Ramadan. And there's Allah subhanho wa Taala says, you know, for that cure, in the Vikram can fall mini in that remote, remind them for surely the reminder will be of benefit to the believers.
So when we remind ourselves,
you know, because we tend to forget the inside is called inside because he is Katherine's young he forgets or more. So this is a great opportunity for us, reminder and others, there is a good point, let me do this, let me do that. inshallah, a lot of what I'm going to say today is probably something you've already heard before. But it is important to get our reminder so in sha Allah by doing that, we can put the planning into process because as we will learn, the more you put in through the whole procedure, the more inshallah you will get out, I want to talk for about half an hour or so that's five minutes and then allow anybody who has any questions or anything that they'd
like to talk about an opportunity to do that in Sharla. So number one is a great opportunity for those who want to utilize year in year out Ramadan comes. And
people are of different categories. There's a whole spectrum of the people's attitudes, but essentially, there are people who,
you know, they prepare, they plan, they, they enter into Ramadan with enthusiasm, they maintain that enthusiasm throughout the month. And so therefore, they harness the greatness that can come from this month. And the other category are people who just go through the motions of Ramadan and by going through the motions, very likely that they will not get the most that they can out of Ramadan. So if you have the right attitudes to
Ramadan, then you will get the most out of it. And like anything, it's all about importance of having the right intention, achieving that sincerity that comes with intention. Those are two different things that sometimes, you know, this essence they should be one but usually there are two different things. A lot of our lives are spent and I will say wasted by not having an intention for the things that we do.
You know, the eating the drinking the sleeping,
the day to day lives, the even going to the bathroom. May Allah guide you and preserve you all these kinds of eyes. If there was a lot of time we don't have an intention. So intention not even there, let alone thinking about the sincerity or whatever. So there is a training and there is has to be that training that we have with trying to have intention for the acts that we do. And Yvonne teaches us that you know it's about starting they knew
idea a method that I just came up with, you know, a few days ago
was that in the morning when you start your day, obviously you start your day you make the the, of, of waking up and hamdulillah if you're having a bad day Mr. Martin already mature, then it becomes important to maybe have that intention. So make not only have the intention, but you can announce within having
in having
announcing, announcing that, how do you want to start the day and I said to my brothers and sisters that a lot of the Imams they they recommended
when you start a compiler nation you will start a book beginning with the hadith of generated by by Omar on the line in Malema and orbignya, to actions or buts by intentions and every person shall have that which he or she intended. Whoever's migration is to Allah, and His Messenger than his migration is to Allah and His messenger. And whoever's migration is for the dunya that he wants to seek, or for a woman that he wishes to marry, then his intention, shall he see migration shall be that for which he has migrated to so and the day, why I'm suggesting is as you start the day,
and obviously, as just before, before fudger, you've got up, you've done your sofa, then also make the make that re citation read that Hadith, you're trying to incorporate into your daily program to read that Heidi, because remember, these emails were recommending for people who are going to compile books and things your daily
work and activity is your book, it's your record is your Daily Record. So start your book of actions for the day, by reading this, have you read out loud?
You know, don't shout it out, but reread it out in a nice voice. And then announce to yourself that, okay, I'm thinking intention, how do I have an intention? And then how do I make that intention sincere to Allah.
And that's, that's a very important concept. Because when we when we want to talk about attention, we'll talk
ages and ages about intention. And in fact, if you manage to get a hold of my book, which I translated Bustan, allow riffian which is the Bustan of a man.
And now Are we
there is there's a few chapters on intention, the definition of intention, definition of sincerity, a class the definition of being true and honest to oneself and so on. So there's a whole you know, full of,
you know, aspects of
people giving you what intention is and scientists I cannot dwell too much on that. But the point being that the lesson, the advice, have an intention. Ramallah is 10 days to go but start doing it now start thinking about intentions, what am I going to have and what my intention is for today, and so on.
Secondly,
you know, like anything in life, have a plan. If you have a plan, you're going to more likely succeed.
So how I started this year,
by devising a well reviving expos, I had the checklist before but I revived the checklist and it's a very simple checklist on how to how to show you but it's a checklist which
is basically just you know, simple tasks that I want to do on a daily basis. on there, I would have you know, read one does have Brian on there, I would have, you know, say like, hey, Lola would actually go look at how to wire up 100 times on there, it will say praise light or what how on there would say you know,
there were activities on there, it would say the prayers on there, you know, lots of things on there, I'm not going to go through the whole list of it's a quiet time. also include things that are recreation or things that are entertainment, things that are part of you know, work planning, etc. So, by having that checklist on a daily basis, having it in front of me helps me to you know, when I as there is a thing about checking, you know, this thing about ticking the boxes, it gives you that boost because you're saying oh yeah, I've achieved this, I've done this, I've done that. And so have a plan for them have on try and get a checklist or scramble if you go online now. You will hide
there are people who are
He's done this, you know, the pro checklist forum of one specifically, but you will find it for throughout the year. You can download one of these, get it printed off and make use of it. You know, every day, you're going to be doing this, this this and just have that checklist probably you achieve so much by having that better. So I advise you to, to get a plan going in terms of that checklist, but also have an have a personalized plan or goal. We'll talk a little bit more about that, but use Ramazan to try and achieve something big as well in your life.
Try to achieve something which maybe you're not usually used to achieving, you know, if you read if you managed to read and finish the Quran once every, you know once or more Ramadan, you're you really wanted to they try and maybe up to two times. If you're somebody who,
you know, doesn't usually pray for how to try and make sure that you are praying for her. If you are somebody who's always taking the lighter, eight to eight.
And I could go on about talking the eight. Like, why don't you make it 10 make it 12 you know, don't just accept eight you know the process I sent him Yes.
Then how do you show the process and used to pray more
than eight in terms of pm
but come on are you gonna assume some seriously telling me that the eight the processor and prayed is in any way comparable to the eight that you are praying, which a lot of the time in a lot of these massages? They are you know they are on turbo, you know, it's a turbo tarawih. And this year, I'm told thoroughly I'm going to be on Super turbo because people have to pray. And we want you out there because of the whole COVID thing. The processor lambs eighth Raka.
Yeah. As narrated in one hadith of I think there's a couple of generations. One is by halifa. And one is by underlying Massoud when they happen to join the prophesies element pm lane.
You know, they pass by or they saw him praying the nine said okay, let's join Him in prayer. He was literally in one hand if he recited surah, Al Baqarah and Sora, early Emraan and a lot of surah tennis, which is around, you know, four and a half, maybe five jesup in one rocker, you know, in one rocker today, you know, guys, they you know, if you read, if you read half edges in the tower, there'll be you know, people complaining and you know, the complaint boxes anyway, the point being is I digress. Sorry, go back, have a plan to try and do more. And inshallah you can be in sync with yourself in doing that. Rama one is a time to upgrade, upgrade yourself, wherever you are now, you
need to be better, wherever you are, you know, you could be Superman, you know, you have to be Superman to, you know,
and so on, you know, don't accept
don't accept that the don't accept to be where you are, you know, I'm just here.
You know, try to be higher pain starts here. From avant, I want to come out of Ramadan, a new, better alternative today, the psychologists tell us that one way to improve yourself is to actually imagine yourself, you know, it's almost like a
kind of, you know, same meditation, but it's a form of,
you know, perspective, you know, go online.
Go and think about yourself offline, meaning, you know, disconnect yourself from everything else, right? And think about you as a better how does the better version of you look like, you know, what does it look like? And I'm not talking about in terms of plastic surgery. You know, we could all do with a smaller nose
some people might say
But no, I'm talking about the better you in terms of how you in terms of your email in terms of your actions in terms of your knowledge in terms of your education in terms of your even your physical you know, yeah, I could usually do with losing a few pounds here I couldn't have a little bit more stamina you couldn't be you couldn't be as light as a feather but you have no stamina you know you're you're you're outside and you're you're in the panting and you're you're out of breath or how does a better version look of you and us around Milan with
as I mentioned before,
With the whole issue of planning, so that each dollar you can upgrade yourself from Oman is a great time to look at yourself. Look at their actions, look at your past, look at your present, why have I done? Where am I? What am I shortcomings How do I improve myself, and that is the whole process of Toba. The whole process of repenting to Allah subhanho wa Taala. And therefore saying, I want to review, you know, review myself and that's what scanning the hardware is about, you know, you, you're going to look you know, you have if you have these anti
virus viruses, always try to scan your machine. And look at all those maybe you have some viruses in there some issues, some corrupted files, some extra file, you need to scan your hardware and robofont as well. And that's the part of repentance to Allah subhana wa.
Ramadan is the month of Ramadan, and
it's a very special time to connect with the Quran.
And
here,
I'm quite happy with this play on books I came up with open your Facebook account.
Don't just be somebody who
connects
today's panel, one of the biggest things and we'll talk a little bit about phishing scams in a moment. But
statistics that I compiled a while back, actually, were saying to us the apple were telling us that you know, the average iPhone user, he or she opens their iPhone about 40 times a day. And I'm pretty sure if they will give us the current system is probably much higher than this. So 40 people you know, every time people are open because they can see every time you put your passcode in or you put your fingerprint or wherever they log that the average person is logging in regularly
to
to their phone, and the most often used app is no surprises here. No
no prizes as well for for guessing that it is Facebook, you know people are opening their telephone, they're going to Facebook checking Oh yeah, what is the news, who has liked my recent post who has shared it who has you know, given me this and so it's all there. So this Ramadan and indeed tried to make a change, you need to be having your Facebook account your for iron has to be with you the book that you're going to be reciting. And make that relationship with the client have essentially tried to have two types of citations. One citation we're just reading for a job because remember every letter that comes out of the phone, you'll get 10 has an ad
and secondly, have a re citation where you will have your Arabic the Quran and whatever language you know if you don't understand Arabic, your second language or your your primary language that you understand English or oldu, or Hindi or Russian or whatever language you understand even Arabic You know I have, I have something where you can actually as you are reading slowly into Oh, what does that mean? read in English reading? And even if you are an Arab, you know a lot of the words
does that mean what does this mean? And there are some very, you know, quick references so that way you are reciting the Quran, but also in sha Allah. You will have also picked up on some information and some knowledge there,
too. My brother says beware of the phishing scandal. So you can read a lot of this information in the book
goes into more detail. I'm just skimming over here, normal lawn. Unfortunately, there are a lot of trolls there who are active. And I mean, trolls usually are people who are menaces on the social media, but these trolls are there to send phishing scams, they are trying to fish you out of your, your path to a loss of hand over time. They want to essentially
give you things which are time wasters, effort wasters, etc. There's lots of phishing scams out there. In fact,
I should have really found this. There's a lot there's a like image somebody has drawn, which would be good to show you actually, where is somebody? And maybe during the question answer I'll have a look for
basically, a picture of a shape on what people assume the shape on to be shaking hands with a television
Producer or director and saying to him basically that, you know, I'm going away for this month. So I hand over my hand over the realms to you, you know, I'll leave leave people under your meaning that they shade bonds, obviously, because he's chained up a normal one, he's almost like he's handing over the mission to the TV producers or the the editors or whatever they call them. So that they basically carry on the work of the shade line,
which essentially what that cartoon is trying to say is that in normal line, the TV programs, they are specialized in
fishing you away from Ramadan, you have these programs, which are, you know, they are very cleverly
made in a way which there are 30 episodes. Okay, so 30 episodes, one for every night of Rome, Milan, they come up, they come up, sometimes during throwaway time. So yeah, the only way you want to go to the master to break out all the episodes, I remember a story. And people told me and barrows will know, this, there's a there was a almost like a series, every Ramadan used to come out called banheira, the gate of the neighborhood, which basically is like a Syrian soap.
You know, let me know in the chat if you
if you know what I'm talking about. And that was every every year they used to have this is basically about an old, the old way of living, how people used to live in the series is about you know, the Syrians fighting against the French and the French and then on the other. So it's all about
old ones, but used to come out at a time, you know, which was a rattler and and somebody told me that even in Palestine,
the villages I wanted them saying Thank you, ma'am, basically, they said, Look,
this is when the next you know, this boat hurricane comes up at this time, you need to make sure that the throw away,
is finished. By this time, otherwise, we are basically leaving. penalize it, that's what I mean. You know, people get attached to the selves to these programs, to the extent that they are willing to sacrifice there are we and there are other things. And obviously there's different other types of phishing scams as well. Which time does not allow
for Milan is known for spirituality.
You have to plug in to charge your battery to charge your heart to charge your to expose yourself, allow yourself to keep going for the rest of the year. And obviously somehow we all know this
when your telephone is old, and usually by old here we mean that it is being overused it has too much you know too much information it's not you know and once you use the telephone so much times it starts to become corrupted internally what happens the battery dies out very quickly. you charge it and it all by the end by a couple of hours the battery's gone now Why? Why because the telephone is not clean, it's not filtered properly. So if you want your heart
to get the most out of Ramadan, then not only do you have to charge it but you have to also clean the heart When is it so when you ever you're charging the heart is charging and it's taking longer for the battery before it dies.
Normal Why is no one for charity no doubt as as, as we all know, it's a great opportunity the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam
used to be the most generous of people and the most generous was was in
Ramadan
so it's a great opportunity for everyone to try to give as much as they can to support so many
so many charitable works out there Mashallah
the Muslims throughout the world are always charitable throughout the year on normal one more so I think it was a statistic a few years ago about
Muslims in the UK raised something like over 100 million pounds just in the month of Ramadan through the charging over 100 million and this is I mean, this is what's what the official statistics if you like you know, there are statistics which are not very you know, some people send money to their family abroad, and so on. So that's not usually registered but an official so charity statistics over 100 million Mashallah. The great thing to do, but oh
The advice that I give as well as try to make every day a day of charity, you know, keep that consistency going. Give a little bit every day
if you can, rather than just making it into a lump sum.
Okay?
Move on is also the month to connect with the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam
asked yourself how connected are you to him? How connected are you to his Sunnah?
Some Allahu alayhi wa sallam, because remember,
the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam he had the sooner in how he practiced Rama Hwan in many ways. And when we're talking about the Sunnah, here, we're not talking about how many Raqqa he prayed taraweeh or
you know what, what amount of Quran he recited, although that is important as well, we're talking about the essence, you know, and I think one of the essence of the Sunnah. Overall, Milan, is not to over eat, is not to be extravagant with the food is not to complain. I mean, how many people
you know, they come to their farm, they might complain to their wives or mothers or daughters or sons or husband, whoever is cooking. Let's not be you know, let's not assign cooking to one gender.
And they will complain Why do we have this? Why is this here? Why is there far this? Where's noise? Some more sir. Where's my way rather days? Where's the yoga? Where's that? That's not the sooner that you know, the sooner the processor was he was introduced to complain about food madhhab. And then this is a lamp arm and he never used to complain. And he used to he used to accept to eat a little, you know, why did they, you know, we are starving during the daytime because of fasting. But we know that come, you know, eight o'clock or 10 or nine o'clock or whatever their thoughts are, we know that there's a big feast waiting for us. That's not the sooner it goes against us for now.
He failed to answer. So think about those things as well. Obviously, I can't talk too much about it time is running short. Online is a great opportunity for you to not only cleanse yourself, but also to start thinking about yourself. Remember, one of the biggest things that will make people fall into the fire on their faces is their tongues. And so remember that your comments are being watched, monitored, whatever you say, is going to be written and written and recorded by the angels who are recording your words and I lost pantallas aware of what you're saying and you will be questioned about those things. Number one is a great opportunity to control and to learn how self restraint how
to hold back your tongue. How to Avoid Remember, the Huggies website Sam said if somebody tries to fight you, then you should say I am fasting and fasting as a kind of way to control your anger to absorb the problems that might come their own.
Fasting is a shield of the Prophet sallallahu Sallam told us
and so.
So fasting is a shield. And because fasting is a shield.
You can make use of this shield
by
making sure that you utilize fasting the best you can. This fasting as a shield is 100 of the profits on our lives. And fasting helps you to control your anger to control your desires to control your lost control so that you're in control. And when you live the whole spirit of fasting, you have to learn how to maintain this because this is a training ground. It's not just about Okay, I'm fasting. I'm going to be you know, calm collected gentle. The moment I break my fast that's a different story. I'm no longer fasting. That's the wrong answer.
Obviously Ramadan is the month of prayer as well. We have the Torah we had hamdulillah inshallah, we'll be going back to the massage this
this year. Although, you know, trophy is not just to be prayed in the massage, you know, for some reason or another you might not be able to go to the masjid for some reason or there might not be enough space in the masjid. Definitely space is going to be this year
with the reduced capacity, that doesn't mean completely at home. You know, pray through home, pray together. Pray by yourselves. These are you know, this is just
American magic prayer. And
a lot of scholars in the past that if you know you don't you don't have the ability to pray in the masjid bring it home is just as rewardable if obviously done I mean the advantage of praying in the masjid, it allows you to focus more, and so on.
skip over that one because of time and that one as well. Okay. Ramadan is a great opportunity to
think about Robert talks right at the beginning about having a plan, and thinking about what you want to do in life.
thinking how you want to achieve the most in Ramadan, but also try to make sure that during Ramadan,
and especially, I mean, when we have decaf this year, decaf probably is going to be out the question, but yeah, decaf, or even having the whole aspect of just fasting allows you to have a clearer mind. Think about your life, where are you going? Where are you heading, and trying to identify a purpose that you have in life. And by doing that, you can assure them I say, Okay, I want to, you know, this is where I want to be this way I want to achieve and inshallah I will be going to, you know, I'm going to try this opportunity to set my you know, my my direction correctly, and hopefully, I can achieve a lot in this coming year. So it's a great opportunity in Ramadan, to do
that.
Ramadan.
Obviously, as you are reflecting on you need to think about who you're pairing with, who are those around you? Who are you connecting with, who are those who are
who are influencing you. And it's very important to have the right people around you very important to have people who are going to be those who support you in your, in your quest, people who are going to not only support you but people who are going to assist you in getting the most out of your life the most out of Ramadan. How are you going to do that you need to connect to people who are who are aware, people who are spiritually inclined people who are close to our last pantalla people who when you see them you remember last time, people who remind you to remember the last people who will
who will when you forget they will remind you know they will remind you as well they will help you they will support you people who are not going to be hypocrites you know?
They will they will smile in your face even though you are doing something which is hard that's not a friend. You know a friend is somebody who
will tell you that you are wrong. A friend is somebody who will point out your errors and your mistakes. When you do something wrong they're gonna say to you Look, my brother my sister, my friend
you know this is wrong is not acceptable.
You know, a lot of the friends today you know you start gossiping to them about somebody and they just join in Yeah, this
instead of saying to you look, no we shouldn't be talking about this. Brother, the sister whatever. So have those kind of people as how long that is one of the
few like the luxuries of of having in this dunya but even the righteous people they used to use to you know, feel the necessity of as like was said by Omar Malhotra you know he said there's only three things in the dunya which really make the dunya worth staying in. And he said one of them is to
is to struggle in the night meaning you know getting up and praying in the night.
The other is to
you know feel the thirst during the day meaning you know the fasting and so and then he said and sitting third one which is from the delights of the dunya is to sit with people who choose and select the good words like the good fruit is selected. You know I have a plate of strawberries or blueberries or at the end usually these berries they they go off very quickly so you know you'll have people who will pick them up is not a very good one. This is not you know, these people will also look at the word and they will choose the words like they choose the fruit. They will only choose what is best and what is good to say so look around those people around you and inshallah you
will get the best out of them. Remember I move on in achieving a lot you can realize your dreams you can achieve your goals and your shoreline doing that you'll come from one a much better person much more, much more
more fulfilled,
changed person, a better person, the person who is closer to Allah Subhana who what
this is, this is a book that I co authored
with my colleagues in this valley. And
we released this book last year but hamdulillah it last year, unfortunately had the lockdown so people's access to it was was less, but the book is still available. All that all that information I've mentioned and more is in that book in Sharla attire, and remember
that promo avant is an important point and the change starts here at Ramadan. I hope that was useful and I hope there's been some some great points that you have
learned there inshallah.