Saif Morad – Maintaining Motivation Throughout Ramadan
AI: Summary ©
AI: Transcript ©
As we move into the second half of
Ramadan,
we have a lot of data on ourselves,
In terms of how our fast is going,
what's working, what things we can improve on,
what things we can cut back on. We
might have set goals in the beginning,
and some of us are hitting them,
and that is by the father of Allah
We might notice that we're not hitting them.
Maybe we're a little too ambitious,
but our schedule does not allow for many
of the things to actually happen for us.
We might notice that we're burning out as
well.
We're pushing ourselves,
but that motivation is slowly fading.
We're unable to continue
the momentum.
So what can we do
to maintain this momentum
throughout Ramadan? Not only that, that we finish
extremely strong.
Well, first we have to go back to
the basics.
To go back to the hadith and look
what is in front of us. What does
Ramadan bring to us?
The Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam said,
That whoever fast the month of Ramadan,
believing in Allah
alone,
expecting the reward from Him.
When we fast,
who are we fasting for?
More than 12 hours of the day, we
abstain from food, drink, and other things,
only for the sake of Allah
What is stopping us from going,
hiding behind
somewhere,
and having a drink?
It is that awareness of Allah Subhanu wa
Ta'ala that He is watching me.
So fasting gives us a glimpse of our
capabilities,
That we have the ability to be mindful
of Allah Subhanu wa Ta'ala. It's only that
that is stopping us from going and breaking
our fast.
And when we do this, Ihti Saaban, only
expecting the reward from Allah Subhanu wa Ta'ala.
Every minute that we spend fasting expecting Allah
is gonna reward us for that?
The Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam said,
That their sins will be forgiven.
And then the hadith continues and the Prophet
sallallahu alaihi wa sallam said,
That whoever stands in worship on the night
of Laylatul Qadr,
worshipping Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala,
believing in Him and expecting the reward from
Him, then their previous sins will be forgiven.
There is a night that is coming that
is greater than a 1000
months of worship.
And whoever loses out on that has lost
on a lot of good.
But believing in Allah
and expecting the reward from Him gets our
sins forgiven.
The Prophet
said, When the 1st night of Ramadan
comes,
the shayateen are chained up, they're tied up.
The doors of Jahannamah are closed.
Not a single door opens.
The doors of Jannah are open. Not a
single door
closes.
And a caller calls out, an angel calls
out.
O doer of good. O the one who
seeks out good, come closer.
This is your time to step up. This
is the month to take advantage of.
That the one who wants to do good,
restrain yourself.
Hold back. This is not the month for
you to indulge in your desires.
And Allah
has those individuals that He frees from the
hellfire forever.
And that is every single night. So my
dear brothers and sisters, what's at stake here?
Forgiveness is at stake which leads to Jannah.
The doors of Jannah are open. Allah
is calling us to enter them.
The doors of Jahannam are closed, which means
freedom from the hellfire is at stake as
well.
So we have to know what we're going
after. What's at stake here? And we have
to constantly remind ourselves.
Every day we wake up, we have to
tell ourselves what's at stake. We have to
imagine that behind the scenes, there's something going
on. There's an angel that calls out,
the one who is seeking good, step forth.
We have to imagine that that's happening and
remind ourselves that it's time for me to
step up.
Because Jannah is at stake here.
And Jannah is something
that no
eye has ever seen,
no ear has heard, and no heart can
imagine.
The Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam told us in
the hadith that Ibn Mas'ud narrates.
And within Bukhari and Muslim, there's many narrations
of this hadith, but we'll go with one
that's narrated in the Sahih of Imam Muslim,
In which, ibn Masrud said that the Prophet
said that the last person to enter Jannah,
not the first, but the absolute last person
to enter Jannah. This person has already gone
to the hellfire. May Allah now make us
amongst those individuals
that who have to even
get a glimpse or a whiff of the
hellfire.
This individual goes into the hellfire,
spends, Allahu Alem, how much time in there,
and now he's coming out.
And as he's coming out, he's walking,
he stumbles, he falls on his face, he
gets up, the fire hits him, blackens his
face,
and he's finally out.
And he turns around and he says to
it,
That
blessed is the one who has saved me
from you.
And Allah has given me something
that He has not given anyone
from the awaleen and the akhirin. From the
first of people to the last. He is
the absolute last person to exit the hellfire,
and he thinks he's the luckiest person alive.
And then he goes,
and Allah
causes a tree to be raised from him.
And He tells Allah
take him close to that tree,
so I can relax there.
I can drink from its water,
and Allah responds to him and He says,
that, O son of Adam,
that perhaps if I were to give you
that,
that you're going to ask me for something
else. And he starts saying,
I'm not going to do that. This is
all I want. Please give it to me.
I'm not going to ask you for anything
else after this. And Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala
excuses him
because he's seen something that he cannot be
patient with. It's just too good. So Allah
Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala makes him get there, and
he starts enjoying the shade, drinking from his
water, and then Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala causes
another tree to be raised in the distance,
And He says, You Rabb, take me closer
to that tree, so I can enjoy in
the company of that tree what's there. And
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala tells him, Did you
not just say that you're not going to
ask me for anything else?
And he says, Yeah Allah, please take me
there. I'm not going to ask you for
anything else. Just let me go, let me
enjoy.
And Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala excuses him because
he's seen something that he cannot be patient
with.
And he goes there and he's enjoying, and
he's enjoying, and he's relaxing, he's drinking from
his water, then Allah
causes a third tree to be raised up
by the gates of Jannah.
Now we all know what he's about to
say right now.
He says, You
Rabb, take me closer to it.
And Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala tells him
that, Did you not say and while he's
saying this, he says, I'm not going to
ask you for anything else, just take me
close to that tree.
And Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala tells
him that, Did you just not promise
that you're not going to ask me for
anything else?
And he starts promising, wallahi last time. That's
it. No more.
And Allah, Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala, excuses him because
he's seen something that he cannot be patient
with,
and he brings him close to that tree
or at the tree, which is by the
gates of Jannah,
and he's relaxing, drinking from his water, enjoying
the shade,
and he starts hearing the voices of the
people of Jannah,
the excitement,
the happiness,
the joy. Perhaps he's also noticing what's going
in there.
What do you think he's about to say
right now?
Enter me into Jannah You Rabbi.
And Allah
turns to him and tells him, Did you
just not promise that you are not going
to ask me for anything else?
What is going to make you be satisfied?
What is finally going to make your request
stop?
Now imagine for a second
that we had property the size of the
grounds of IR.
It It was your property. You could do
whatever you want in it. You had mansions
around it. How happy would a person be?
Now let's take it a step further. Imagine
the entire Raleigh was your property.
You had houses, everything was yours, you could
do whatever you wanted in there.
Now imagine the entire North Carolina was yours.
At this point, we're probably like, what in
the world would I do with so much
property?
Imagine the entire
North America
was yours,
that you could do whatever you want. You
had tons of mansions, tons of things that
you can enjoy.
We cannot even conceptualize this.
Allah
tells this individual,
that would it be pleasing to you if
I were to give you this dunya, the
size of this dunya,
and like it, meaning 2 times the size
of this world,
and he's dumbfounded,
and he knows he or he believes he's
the last person to exit
the hellfire, going through what exactly he went
through, and he turns to Allah and he
says,
That do you mock me? Are you making
fun of me, You Rabb? And you are
the Lord of the heavens and the earth?
And ibn Mas'ud, the one who's narrating this
hadith, he starts laughing now, when he's telling
this to the companions.
And then he tells them, are you guys
not gonna ask me why I'm laughing?
And they said, what's making you laugh? He
said, when the Prophet
was narrating this, he started laughing at this
point.
Because of the statement of this man,
and Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala responds to him
and he says,
that,
That I'm not belittling you. I'm not mocking
you. I'm not making fun of you, but
I am able to do that which I
want. And in another narration, Allah Subhanahu Wa
Ta'ala tells this individual that for you is
10 times the size of this world.
Ten times, where the last person to enter
Jannah
gets 10 times the size of this world.
What about those individuals who don't even need
to taste
any sort of punishment,
and may Allah
protect us from the hot fire, that we're
never even close to it, that we don't
even have to get a glimpse of it,
then what is waiting for those individuals?
Are we excited when we hear about Jannah?
Are we familiar with Jannah?
Have we made the intention
that by all means necessary we will be
from the people of Jannah?
We will die trying getting to Jannah,
because Jannah is not cheap.
It's expensive.
It requires effort.
And when Allah
created Jannah
and the Hellfire,
He sent Jibreel
to go check it out.
So Jibril goes to Jannah, and he comes
back, and he says,
That by your glory, nobody will hear of
Jannah except they will enter it, because that's
how amazing it is. That will become their
sole mission in life, to enter Jannah.
They will do it by any means necessary.
Then Allah
surrounds Jannah
with makari,
with difficulties,
with obstacles,
things that are not pleasing to the nafs,
and he tells Jibril, go back and check
it out.
Jibril goes and he comes back and he
says,
Now his answer is completely different. He says,
by your glory, I am afraid
and no one is going to enter it
because of the difficulty of the path.
And then he goes to Jahannam,
and he comes back, and he tells Allah
that by your glory, nobody's gonna enter because
that's how terrifying it is. If anyone sees
it, gets a glimpse of it, they're going
to do whatever it takes to avoid it.
And then Allah
surrounds jahannam with shahawat,
with the desires, with pleasures,
and he tells Jibril to go back, and
he goes back, and he checks it out,
and he comes back, and he says,
That I'm afraid that nobody is going to
be safe from it, except that they're going
to enter it,
because the path
to Jahannam
is a path of pleasure.
And if you look at motivation,
we have to know what we're working for.
What is it that we want?
And even if you look at human behavior,
people endure 4 years of university,
law school, med school, postgraduate studies,
even though it's difficult, it's not enjoyable. Why?
Because there's something that is better that's waiting
for them.
There's something that is pleasurable that's waiting for
them. And people are different. Some people,
pleasure motivates them.
The end goal motivates them, but people are
different. They also are motivated by pain.
They want to avoid pain at all cost.
And Allah
is the creator of the heavens and the
earth. He created us. He knows exactly how
we function.
So you have jannah on one hand, which
is the ultimate pleasure, but the path to
jannah
is a path that we associate pain with,
to wake up for fajr, to strive against
our nafs, to say the right thing, to
not give into our desires.
But the path of jahannam, this is the
ultimate pain that a person can endure.
But the path to jahannam
is a path of desires, of short term
pleasure
that people easily give into.
And if we want to maintain that motivation,
when we look at these acts of worship
that we're doing, we have to link it
to what's waiting,
the ultimate pleasure that is waiting for us.
And that is our what, but a what
is not enough.
If you want to take it a step
higher, there needs to be a why as
well.
And what is the why? Why do we
want Jannah?
Why do we want to avoid
the hellfire?
The Prophet
said
that Allah
will tell one of the angels who will
go to the people of Jannah when everything
is said and done, and He will tell
them that your Lord has an appointment with
you, that He wants to give you something.
And they will say that, what could we
possibly
want, when Allah has already given us everything?
And then
Allah
will raise the hijab, the barrier that's between
them,
and they will get to see Allah
And that will be the greatest thing for
them. The greatest pleasure is not entry into
Jannah, not enjoying the luxuries of Jannah, but
is actually getting to see Allah
and knowing that he is pleased with us.
Because that is why we were created.
We were created for a purpose.
We were created to know Allah
to love Him, to worship Him, and eventually
go back to Him.
So we need to, on a consistent basis,
on a regular basis, remind ourselves of what
we're going after.
Get familiar with Jannah.
Listen to the descriptions of Jannah.
Get yourself excited about Jannah.
Because when we cultivate that love of Allah
when we get to know Allah
and the rewards that he has waiting for
us,
the path that looks difficult in the beginning,
it eventually turns and it becomes extremely pleasurable.
We enjoy and we naturally gravitate towards worshiping
Allah
That becomes the sweetest thing to us,
and these desires, they become disgusting to us
because we understand what it's leading to.
And Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala tells us in
the Quran,
That those who strive
for our sake,
with emphasis, guaranteed,
we will guide them to our path.
These things will switch
from being difficult and feeling as if it's
a burden. We enjoy it. There's nothing more
beloved to us than to go to Allah
and Allah those who strive for excellence.
Now,
we have to remind ourselves about this consistently
on a daily basis. What's at stake? What
am I going for? What's my purpose here?
Align ourselves with this purpose,
then we start moving towards that, and we
take action, motivation builds. Now Allah
has already given us this.
5 times a day,
you and I stand in front of
Him. And what do we say?
All praise and thanks belongs to you. We
remind ourselves who Allah is.
We say,
the Most Caring, the Most Loving, everything that
we have is from Him. We remind ourselves
that we're gonna be standing in front of
Him one day, and there's 2 paths there,
that we understand our purpose is to worship
You and worship You alone, but we cannot
fulfill it except with Your help.
So guide us to that path.
Path of what?
The path of the people of Jannah,
and to protect us from the path of
the people of the hellfire.
So we need to consistently remind ourselves of
this on a daily basis,
and when we stand in front of Him,
to be able to shift that focus.
So that when we leave the salah, we're
a different human being.
We're refocused and realigned with our purpose.
That we don't get bored when we're worshiping
Allah
This way you will naturally gravitate towards Allah.
You will naturally want to do the things
that Allah
loves. Even when you're just relaxed and you're
tired,
you can remember Allah
with your tongues.
The fasting that is considered the best of
fasts, the one that has the more ajer
is,
That the one that has the most remembrance
of Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. And this is
something that is extremely easy to do.
So may Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala make us
amongst those. Give us a tawfiq to really
do the things that he loves. Give us
the energy
to
be consistent and finish Ramadan
strong.
Alhamdulillahirabbin
Alhamdulillah,
as you know,
that
I'm excited
to announce that I'm going to be joining
the family here at this wonderful community.
I look forward to meeting every single one
of you, getting to know you guys,
and to work towards something that will be
something truly special.
May Allah
facilitate that for us,
and in light of that, we look forward
to presenting
and coming with programs that will be beneficial
towards everyone
in the community.
And in order to do that, as you
know, we need your support.
That it is all of us that when
we come together, we create something special.
That all of our efforts is needed
to truly
build something that will be remarkable.
And in light of that, next Friday,
there will be a fundraising before
the
so
just to let you know that this is
the program for the upcoming Friday.
And today is also the day of Friday,
a day that is recommended for us to
send as much as we can upon the
prophet.
May Allah
make us amongst the inhabitants of Jannah. May
he make us amongst those who are freed
from the hellfire.
May he reward us for everything that we
do during this beautiful month, and he make
he make us leave this month as if
we were newborn
babies, and that we continue this motivation even
after Ramadan.
Inshallah, we'll have, 3 sisters will take the
shahad after the salah. So please bear with
us inshallah after salah.
Sister Nasid,
sisters ready?
Is the mic ready? Yeah. Give me a
minute. Okay. Sister Parkin.
We have 3 shahada today.
May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala increase this land
in this land of.
Yes.
Okay.
First, sister, can you introduce yourself? My name
is Morgan.
Sister Morgan, welcome to the Islam, and Insha'Allahumma'amin.
May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala keep you firm
and keep you and strengthen you on this
religion, Allahumma'amin.
Grant you a blessing throughout of your lives
inshallah. Please move the mic to the next
sister.
Yes. My number is Carolina.
This is sister Carolina.
I'm sorry?
Carolina.
Sister Carolina. Alright.
Welcome to the Islam and may Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala bless you and may Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala
grant you all the blessings and provide you
with a sustainable
blessings and may Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala accept
from you all.
I bear witness
and testify
Prophet Muhammad,
peace be upon him,
peace be upon
him, he is the final
and last messenger
Don't think she's here.
Say it again. I don't think the 3rd
sister is here. Oh, the the third one
is not there? No. Okay. So may Allah
Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala accept from you all, and
may Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala strengthen all of
us, and may Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala
make this land full of Muslims, Allahummaemi.
Assalamu Alaikum.
Welcome to your Masjid today,
7th.
Join us in welcoming your Masjid's new resident
scholar, Sheikh Saif Murad, to our beloved community.
He'll be joining us for the last half
of Ramadan,
and you can see all the programming with
Sheikh Saif in the announcement email.
To have all the information about everything Ramadan
here at IAR
and stay connected, be sure to sub subscribe
to our newsletter if you aren't already by
scrolling to the bottom of our website to
sign up. Then check out our amazing Ramadan
hub by going to raleymasjid.org/ramadan.
Young professionals
and college students are invited to attend the
RISE Iftar
this evening.
Registration is required via the announcement email.
High school boys overnight program will be tonight
High school students are also invited to join
us for an Iftar with local high school
MSAs
next Saturday, April 15th.
You can register via our website.
Anur Quran Academy is looking for motivated and
dedicated assistant hif teachers.
The candidate must have at least 15 juz
memorized with proper tajweed
and strong hif.
For more information and to apply, visit anurquranacademy.org.
We are thrilled to offer an online Ramadan
story time for our community's littlest members.
Sign up via the announcement email and let
your kids listen to Ramadan stories online,
Thursdays Sundays from 6 to 6:45
PM.
You're invited to attend the Eid Bazaar this
Sunday, 9th,
from 2 to 6 PM.
Free entry for this great experience that includes
clothes, jewelry, scarves, abayas, men's clothing, food, hinna,
and much more.
Jazaakumullah
mumkayrin.
Enjoy this wonderful week.