Tammam Alwan – Ramadan The Month of the Quran
AI: Summary ©
The speakers discuss the importance of renewing intentions to reach the state of salvation and making goals related to prayer and shawk. The holy book of Allah is emphasized, and the recitation of the holy book is emphasized. Visitors are advised to recite the Quran and live it, as it is a source of knowledge and can be applied to individuals. Visitors are encouraged to set goals and take action, and are reminded to approach the month of the Quran with action and goals.
AI: Summary ©
One of them
remains closed.
And a caller calls.
Oh one who seeks to do good, oh
one who desires good, oh one who wants
to do something positive in this limited time
in this blessed month, come near come near.
Oh one who seeks to do evil, if
you seek to do harm, if you're trying
to do something bad in this limited time,
stay away. Stop. Don't come near.
And then he says
that Allah
has people who he frees from the fire.
Every single night
in the blessed month of Ramadan,
there are people who Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala
says, I'm gonna free you. I'm gonna free
you. You're not gonna be punished. You're gonna
be saved. You're gonna reach the state of
salvation.
May Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala make us from
these people.
And I wanna ask the brothers, they're filling
up, if we could just fill in the
gaps
and and come and try to find a
spot. Now as this great month, the greatest
month, the most blessed month of Ramadan comes
upon us as it does annually, I wanna
remind myself and all of you to renew
our intentions. Right? We myself and all of
you to renew our intentions.
Right? We we've set goals insha'Allah. And if
we haven't, I I urge you to do
so by tonight at Maghrib. At least give
it a couple days where you write it
down and you think about it and you
share it with your friends or maybe an
accountability partner or 2. Maybe we've set goals
about fasting.
This might be the first time we fast
as new Muslims, or as Muslims who've come
of age and are now adults. Some of
our younger brothers and sisters might say, you
know what? Today, you know, this Ramadan, I'm
gonna fast from Asr to Maghrib and break
my fast with my family. Or from
to Maghrib, half a day. Or as in,
I heard recently,
some
in upper elementary,
they fast from fajr to,
break their fast, and then from to Maghrib.
These are of course young people who it's
not for them to do where they're training
so that they can fast the full month
of Ramadan properly like us adults.
Some of us might be might have goals
related to prayer, to salah, making sure we
get in our 5,
making sure we get them in on time,
Making sure we're doing our sunan.
Right? The daily sunan for every single prayer.
Making sure we're going to the masjid. You
know, I don't usually go. I'm gonna try
to go once a day or twice a
day or 3 times a day or, you
know, I have a little break on the
weekend. I'm gonna go for duhr. I'm gonna
go for Asr. Some of us are gonna
be attending Taraweeh. Maybe the first time or
last year, you know, I stayed for 2
a little after Aisha and I left. No.
I'm gonna go for 4. And then I
left before the khalira. No. I'm gonna stay
for the khalira
and then 2 more. Or I stayed for
8, now I'm gonna do 10. Let's push
ourselves and increase ourselves. Some of us are
gonna say, okay. You know what? I'm waking
up for sahur to eat sahur during sahur
time anyways, I'm gonna pray tahajjud. 2 short
raka'at. Or last year I prayed 2, I'm
gonna lengthen them a little bit. All of
us are pushing ourselves. I'm gonna make more
dua. I'm gonna make more zikr. I'm gonna
make more and
I'm gonna have the niyya. Even after every
prayer, just stay a little bit longer.
I gave in charity last year, masha'Allah. I'm
gonna give more. And increasing in other acts
of worship.
Right? Like the ties of kinship. I'm gonna
call my parents and my relatives more. I'm
gonna do this. I'm gonna visit the sick.
I'm gonna do that. I'm gonna watch myself
physically. Right? I'm gonna watch my calories so
I don't engorge myself at iftar because that's
not the whole purpose of Ramadan. I'm gonna
watch my eyes and what I see my
ears and what I hear my tongue and
what I say.
Insha'Allah,
the focus of this khutba is on one
of these blessed acts. In shahruul Quran, the
month of Ramadan, which is the personal
recitation
of the Quran.
Rasulullah he salallahu alaihi wasallam says, whoever recites
a letter from the book of Allah, he's
gonna be credited with a good deed.
And by the way, he says, one good
deed is equal to 10.
And then he adds sallallahu alaihi wa sallam.
He said I I wanna make this super
clear.
I don't say that alif, lam, meem is
one letter, but rather alif is one letter
and lam is one letter.
So that's 30 minimum.
And the ulema,
you know, we know that that they've looked
at looked at all the Quran and sunnah
and have said that the deeds in Ramadan
are emphasized even more than that.
And we pray that it it could be
700 times, it could be even more. But
we seek it from Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
I saw that there were over 300,000
letters in the Quran,
meaning minimum, minimum 3,000,000 hasanats from reciting the
Quran.
3,000,000 hasanat or many times more.
Now as we talk about the recitation of
the Quran, and this has been a conversation
in the past few weeks, some people might
object.
Right? And the first objection is I can't
read Arabic.
I don't know how to read Arabic so
how am I supposed to benefit from this?
And so, you know, there is the listening
of the Quran, there is the reading of
the transliteration even a little bit, but I
want to tell you a story, subhanAllah, that
I heard many years ago from one of
my teachers. I used to take hadith classes
with him. He's a scholar, from Damascus, Syria.
And he said that one new Muslim, fairly
new convert to Islam came to him and
told him, can you sheikh, can you give
me a wird?
Can you give me a wird? Like, something
that I can say on a daily basis,
a sort of dhikr. You know, I just
became a Muslim. He was expecting maybe he
would tell him
Muhammad, you know,
something like that. But he told him, okay.
You're, you're gonna read a page of Quran.
He told him, a sheikh, I I don't
know how to read Arabic. He said, that's
that's not my problem.
If you want to do the wird and
you want to take me as your sheikh
and your reciter and this sheikh,
he has the 10 recitations of the Quran
all memorized.
He said, then you have to read a
page of Quran. Learn Arabic. And so he's,
I think, based in the UK. And so
he he told us the story. He said,
after several weeks, he told them, okay, I
I He called them on the phone. This
is back in the day. He said, I
learned the letters.
And then he learned the tashqil.
And then he called them. He said, I
finished my first page. He said, okay. Now
do the next page. Now do the next
page. Now do the next page. And several
years ago, he said, years went by, he
said, until this day, he calls me every
few weeks and he says, Sheikh, I just
finished the khitm of the Quran. I just
completed the recitation of the Quran. He said,
good. Do another one, do another one, do
another one, and keep this recitation of the
holy book of Allah
Allah so your tongue is wet with this
great dhikr from from Him
So work on it. Some people say, okay,
I can read Arabic but not well.
You can read to someone and say, hey,
you know what? Just a page, just an
ayah, just just a couple lines. Can I
read to you and you correct me? Great.
Masha'Allah.
You use the Tanzil app. I just heard
about this recently that the app can help
you. And one way is you can open
it up, and I'm sure there are many
other apps like it. Open up the mushaf,
and as you're reading, open up the app
and start reading, and it'll tell you, oh,
you've made a mistake. And you can stop
yourself and listen to it, and then get
it right.
And then the other thing is we all
know the hadith where the Nabi salallahu alaihi
wasallam says,
The one who recites the Quran and he's
very proficient.
Everything is accurate, all of the letters. Then
he's with these honorable scribes, the angels, a
very high status.
But the one who's on the journey there,
the one who is reading
and finds it really difficult,
then that person gets 2 rewards on that
journey. So as you recite, if you're not
doing very well right now, I promise you
if you recite Quran every single day from
this Sunday night for 30 days, you are
gonna get better.
Some people have said, I'm memorizing the Quran.
Right? Especially some of our younger brothers and
sisters, I'm in a hif program right now.
I'm memorizing the Quran, and I, you know,
I have assignments. I might have a week
off, but we're still doing class. Great. Do
not stop that. Continue memorizing the Quran. But
you've already memorized some Quran, and reading that
from the mushef is gonna be much easier
for you. And some, masha'Allah, of our younger
community members, may Allah grant them hifud of
the Quran and hamala of the Quran so
they understand it and they practice it. Okay.
You've already finished 10 ajzah. Those are gonna
be easy for you. Then the next 20,
you have 30 days to
recite them. It's still positive.
When you're alone,
recite loudly.
So you can get the reward of hearing
the Quran and also reciting the Quran, so
double the reward.
But when you're around others like in the
masjid, this happens. Right? Where one of us
might be reciting very loudly and there's like
10, 20 other people in the masjid they're
trying to pray, they're trying to recite silently,
then the hollimah say keep your voice down
so you don't, you know, you don't bother
them with it. Not that we're gonna be
bothered by the words of Allah, but they
said don't make it something disliked to them.
So kind of keep your voice down so
that you can hear yourself, but not so
loud. If you're alone in your home, you
know, that's different.
Another piece of advice, share your goals with
your family. What are you gonna go for?
Eventually, we would love that everyone here in
our community
finishes reciting the Quran personally at least one
time.
But let's say this year, you know, it
could be half, it could be a quarter,
it could be 1 page a day, and
you say I'm gonna go for 30 pages.
Whatever it is, share it with a few
people and make it something where it's you
and your friends or you and your family
as well. Make a time where everyone reads.
That's one idea. Okay. Listen. After asr or
after fajr as a family, 15 minutes, we're
just gonna be silent. Everyone reading by themselves.
Make it a habit to read a little
bit after each prayer. One brother was just
saying this, the other day of, like, you
know, if if you're reading, you know, from
the old madin al mushaft, like, 4 pages
after every salah, you just sit down for
a little bit, read 4 pages, you're done.
You're gonna finish the Quran in 30 days.
Carry around a small mushaaf
so that it's so convenient. And you can
visualize this. You can say, okay. I'm a
third way done with the Quran. Now I'm
half. Now I'm 3 fourths. Now I'm completely
done.
Spend time understanding it. Stay for the khatira.
Tune in to Yaqeen Institute's Quran 30 for
30. Download the previous books or see previous
episodes. There are so many masajid in the
area that have, you know, a 10 minute
summary of the juzid. So many online programs.
Tune into one of them so that you
can get the emotions flowing as well, or
just read a translation.
Something so you can get that interaction with
the Quran, that love of the Quran. You
can build that.
And lastly,
build a habit that you take with you
post Ramadan.
Don't let this be something where I'm gonna
recite all this Quran and then cold turkey,
I'm just gonna stop right after Ramadan. But
say, hey, you know what? Right now, let
me just be honest with myself in sha'baan.
I'm reciting no Quran daily.
So my goal is after Ramadan,
I commit to a page a day, 2
pages a day.
You know, 2 and a half pages, 5
pages, ahisb, 10 pages, 20 a juzit, something
where you set that goal and then you
continue that habit. That way all of our
goals when we level up in Ramadan, we
keep a little bit until the next year,
be.
I wanna mention our brothers and sisters in
Gaza because I don't want us to forget
them. May Allah protect them and our brothers
and sisters in Palestine. And our brothers and
sisters who are oppressed everywhere.
You know, something so special about them that
you see in these videos
is the role that the Quran plays in
their lives.
And I remember, you know, when I wanted
to study abroad many, many years ago, I
remember hearing from someone.
And they were like, hey, Temam, you know,
if you go to Gaza, and this was,
you know, back in the day, back in,
like, 2010. This was, if you go to
Gaza, you know, there are great, great, great
scholars who no one's heard of. And they're
literally sitting there begging
students of knowledge, please, I just wanna teach
you. I just wanna give you this knowledge
of Quran, of hadith, of fuqah, of aqeedah,
of, Sira, of Arabic, of everything. And they're
just sitting. So, you have so many scholars
within this concentration camp who are passing on
this knowledge, who are teaching the children from
a very young age love the Quran, recite
the Quran, understand the Quran, live the Quran.
And that's how, subhanAllah, when you look at
these these states of being
where where bombs are following and the person
is reciting the Quran. What is that? This
is a person who is so deeply connected
to the Quran. This is a person who
has this deep connection to Allah
through his revealed book, the Quran, that they're
able to achieve this. It didn't come overnight.
And so if we want to, yes, we're
moving in the ballot boxes and on the
on the streets and protests and online, and
we're building institutions so that we can strengthen
the ummah. But we should strengthen ourselves as
well through the Quran.
I have a friend who came back a
few weeks ago from Gaza. He's, from Michigan,
childhood friends. He's a trauma surgeon.
And after he came back, he said in
this online interview I saw, he said, you
know, I gained more from the people of
Gaza than anything I could give them. You
know, working 20 hours a day with barely
any sleep, just a day or a small
piece of bread. You know, they're struggling to
find food, and they're giving these American doctors,
you know, mashallah, everything that they have. He
said, I gained more from them. And so
let's gain and let's learn from their relationship
with Allah
through the Quran. And I'll end with this
one story that many of us know
very well as a reminder as we approach
the month of the Quran, the month in
which the Quran was revealed.
And I want you to think about yourself.
And I want you to think about yourself
when you're reciting the Quran,
when you're home, when you're alone, when you're
in the masjid reciting alone. And by the
way, if you see someone reciting in the
masjid, especially in Ramadan,
I urge you don't don't tell them salaam.
You love them? Wait until they're done. You're
gonna interrupt their flow. They're in the zone
right now. Usayd ibn Khulbayr
narrates.
He says, one night
I was sitting down and I was reciting
Surat Al Baqarah.
And he said his horse was tied behind
him and the horse suddenly started,
you know, getting up and started being troubled
and startled and afraid.
And so he stopped reciting the Quran.
And then the horse
became quiet.
And then he said, okay. Then I started
reciting the Quran again.
And the horse again started like, you know,
even though it's tied up, it's it's startled,
it's troubled, it's afraid, something's happening.
Then he stopped reciting,
and the horse
calmed down.
And then a third time, he said, I
started to recite the Quran again. I mean,
his love for the Quran, this habi. He
said again, the horse is, like, jumping up.
The horse is being startled and frightened and
troubled.
And then he he thought of his son,
Yahya. He said his son was near the
horse. And he was like, I don't know.
You know, this this huge animal might trample
him, might kill my son by accident because
it's so afraid. So so he he took
the boy away,
and he said, I looked up at the
sky, and I couldn't see it. In the
hadith, he says I couldn't see it.
And then the next morning, he comes to
rasulullah,
salallahu alayhi wasalam.
And he told them what happened. And what
does Rasulullah hsallallahu alaihi wasallam say? And this
is a reminder to all of us.
He says,
recite, O ibn Khudayr. Recite, O ibn Khudayr.
He repeats it twice for emphasis. Recite, recite,
recite from the book of Allah.
And Ibn Khudair said, you you Rasulullah, oh
Allah's messenger, you know, my son Yahya was
near the horse, and I was afraid that
it might trample him. It might, you know,
crush him and kill him or break his
leg or something.
And so I looked towards the sky
and went to him. And he said, when
I looked at the sky, I saw something
that was like a cloud,
and it had lamps, like little lights that
are hanging.
I saw I saw something like that. And
so I I went out, you know, so
I so I don't see it.
And so rasulullah salallahu alayhi wasalam asked him.
And this is in Bukhari. He says, do
you know what that was?
And ibn Khudayhi
says, no. The prophet Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wasallam
said, those were angels.
Those were angels who came near to you
for your voice.
And if you, oh, ibn Khudair, if you
had kept reciting until dawn, until fajr,
it would have remained there until morning, until
everybody would have seen it. Everybody would have
seen it. SubhanAllah.
And this is what this is the state
of being when you're reciting, kalamullah, the word
of Allah, the Quran, kareem.
So again, if you haven't set your goals
already for Ramadan,
set them, but make a special one for
the recitation of the Quran. The personal
and private recitation of the Quran. May Allah
bless us to reach Ramadan,
to benefit from Ramadan, to be forgiven in
Ramadan, to be elevated in Ramadan, to have
reward in Ramadan, for our brothers and sisters
to have ease and freedom and liberation in
Ramadan, and for us to be reciters of
the Quran in Ramadan.