 I seek salvation from shaitan, the accursed, dearest brothers and sisters from all over the world, may peace, blessings and protection of Allah SWT be with you all. Thank you for joining me today on the Ramadan show. I'm your host Dr Shabeta Jani and once again we will be going through many many things in order to get you ready and prepared for the holy month of Ramadan. Before we continue to the episode, your one-stop shop for this holy month of Ramadan, I want to start off with a short saying from Amir al-Mu'mineen, Ali ibn Abi Al-Tali Balaihissalam. He says the greatest form of worship is contemplation and surely that is something that we should be trying to strive for during this holy month in order to try and improve ourselves as human beings and to get closeness to Allah SWT. In this segment of the show, Insha'Allah, we'll be talking about spiritual refinement and today the trait I want to touch upon is pride. For those of you who know the story of Prophet Adam, peace and blessings be upon him, will know that shaitan was asked to bow to the holy prophet and he refused. Why did he refuse? He refused because of his own ego and his own pride. And the moral that we learn from this story is that for you, for anyone who has pride in their heart, to truly follow and obey Allah's commands and His rulings, it becomes very difficult because you had this disease within your soul. We know that shaitan stayed in heaven for approximately 6,000 years and because of this disease that he had in his soul and in his heart, he was thrown out of heaven. And all those good actions and those good deeds went to ruin. The holy prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, has said that even with a single atom's weight of pride in one's soul, that person can never enter paradise. So it is a trait that we must rid our souls of. So how can we cure pride and arrogance? The first way is to constantly reflect upon death because after all, the only certainty of life is death. Allah SWT has promised that every individual, every soul shall taste death during their life or at the end of their life, rather. So if we remember death, when we constantly remember death, we constantly remember Allah SWT and we remember our maker, that being who we will be returning to after our death and we pray to Allah SWT that may he empty our soul of any disease that will stop our closeness to him because after all, after we die, we are answerable for our deeds. Secondly, you should always reflect upon your origins. Reflect upon what you once were, what you are and what you will be because after all, we all began as a single molecule, we began as a single cell and we developed inside our mother's womb in a fluid filled sack and came out as little babies and no matter where we are in life today and whatever lofty position may be, whether it's materialistic or whether we have certain good traits that people look up to, remember that when you were brought up as a baby, you are reliant on someone else to provide you with sustenance, to provide you with warmth, to provide you with all of the psychological needs of yourself as well such as love. So remember that, never ever forget that the way you once were is how you will end up because let's face it when we get to our old age. May Allah keep us healthy and independent but often because of certain diseases of the human body, physical ailments, we are unable to carry out the tasks that we once could as younger people and we may become dependent on someone else so never have that pride in your heart because you never know who you will be dependent on one day and as I mentioned before, never forget your maker, never forget the day of judgment, never forget your death. Thirdly, never push yourself or never seek to be right all the time. Seek closest to Allah SWT, seek the purest intention from Allah SWT because surely if you ask Allah to give you the purest intention, you will find the right way. Sometimes our own stubbornness can actually be the cause of our pride because when you become so fundamentally caught up upon something, you forget what anyone else says whether they're right or wrong and you focus upon what you think is right all the time. So always remember that there are other people around you who can actually be of benefit to you and also never forget that Allah SWT is there for you at all times. Always ask him and supplicate to him to give you the best of intentions and not only that but to guide you through life so that when the time comes to make a decision you make the right decision and do not allow these ailments of your soul to stop you from making that right decision along your path. Fourthly, never seek your rights first. Never run after what belongs to you before you've given the rights of someone else to them because we often find in life that if we're wronged, no matter how small it is, we'll always raise our voices, we'll always get angry and petulant and sometimes it's important to remember that there is other people out there who've also not had their rights. It's important to think about and take things very, very calmly before you rush into making an emotional decision and rush into putting your heart before your mind. And fifth, I think it's a very, very important thing to remember that without the Ahlul Bayt alayhi salam and Allah SWT, we would not be where we are today. Don't forget that the whole basis and the fundamentals of humanity and human values was saved by the Ahlul Bayt. They were protected from the enemies of not only Islam but the enemies of all of humanity and because of them, we have the ability not only to practice our religion but to practice in such a free way in order so that we can talk freely today, so that we can practice what we do in our day-to-day lives and essentially without them, no matter what lofty status you have in this world, you will not have that because there will be suppression and tyranny all over the world. So never forget that and in front of them, we have no value whatsoever. Our ultimate meaning in life is to be their servant and to try and help spread their mission. Next, it is really, really important and fundamental to remember everything you have, everything that Allah SWT has blessed you with. Because don't forget, it doesn't take a lot to lose everything. Not everything in this world is under your control. There are so many natural disasters that happen from day to day. So many things that you cannot control such as your health and things like this can completely destroy someone's life. So remember the blessings you have and thank Allah SWT for every single one of these blessings because surely without these blessings you would be nothing. Next, remember the hereafter. Remember that this is your ultimate goal in this life to achieve the closest to the Ahlul Baitz on the Day of Judgment. When you're resurrected, you can find your space beside them and follow them into paradise because only that person who makes the hereafter their goal will be a success not only in the hereafter but also in this world. And never forget that showing off or doing things with the wrong intention is a disease of the soul in itself. Finally, remember that scale on the Day of Judgment. Remember that on the Day of Judgment, no matter what you do in this life, whether it be good or bad, remember that the intention is the most important thing. Allah SWT asks for your sincerest and purest intentions. Even if you do a good deed, if you do it with the wrong intentions on the Day of Judgment that will not work in your benefit. Finally, I just want you to remember the people around the world who due to no fault of their own, natural disasters, health problems, deaths in families, find themselves in complete destitution. They find themselves destroyed. And maybe once they were someone who had materialistic things, they had a lofty station in the eyes of other people but it just takes one thing for all of that to go away. So never forget that there are people in this world who have had everything and everything has been taken away from them. So never have pride. Insha'Allah in future episodes we will be continuing our way through this great dua of Imam Sajjad in order to try and acquire these good traits and to try and rid ourselves of the bad traits that stop our souls from connecting to Allah SWT and also stop ourselves from being good human beings with good human values. It has been reported on the authority of Imam Ali ibn Musa Ar-Rava, alaihi salatu was-salam, who said if one asks why is it that the fasks were made obligatory exclusively in the month of Ramadan and not in other months it would be said. This is because the month of Ramadan is the month in which Allah as Zawajal had revealed the Holy Quran. For this segment of the show we'll be talking about how people from all over the world prepare for the holy month of Ramadan. Today we'll be focusing on a small country in East Africa which is called Tanzania. The reason why I've picked this particular country is because it is from the origin of my mother and originally where I'm from, the community which I come from. So in Tanzania, because it's predominantly a Muslim country, the people in Tanzania get much more time off from work, children get time off from school and they're able to make the most of the month of Ramadan in the sense that they're able to take the time that they would be spending at work or at school and use that in order to do things and do good deeds in order to try and get close to Allah SWT. However, when it comes to the time of Iftar, the whole community gets together at a mosque which is right in the middle of the city and they enjoy in food and they enjoy the Iftar there. They have Majlis, they have Dua and followed by that they all go to a sports center. They all play sports until the early hours of the morning and sports is a big part of their culture and the big part of their upbringing as well. Where a lot of children, they play soccer or football, they play cricket and the elders, they find time to play things like Karim which is an old Indian board game. After that, the elders of the community, they get together in little groups and which are called Baraza which is essentially just a name which is given for a gathering. They get together and they talk about things every day life. They have a laugh and they build a brotherhood through that into the early hours of the morning until the time of Fajr and then after Fajr, they all go to sleep and majority of the Muslims in the town after the time of Fajr into sort of the afternoon, they're all asleep and the town is very quiet. Similar sort of makeup in some of the other East African countries such as Kenya or Uganda and these all have a hub, a central community which comes from the Khoja background and these are migrants who have come from India many, many generations ago and they have these traditions which have now moved to other parts of the world as well. There are many communities in America which use similar traditions and they celebrate, not necessarily celebrate but prepare for the month of Ramadan and prepare their day to day lives around similar makeup. So in order to try and get as much as we can from this show and to try and get you to participate in this show we would love for each and every one of you to send in something to us about how you prepare for the month of Ramadan how you prepare the food in your house how you go about your day to day activities so that we can air these videos on our show and inshallah we hope to have them running through the 30 nights of Ramadan. And finally we hope that inshallah when you see these videos you will realize how from place to place the way that Muslims prepare for the month of Ramadan the way that they prepare themselves for Iftar, for Sahur the way they go about their day to day lives including work differs so variedly from different countries, from different cities from different places around the world. Bismillahirrahmanirrahim dearest brothers and sisters Welcome to Imam Hussein TV3 I greet you with the best of greetings As-salamu alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh Today we are in one of the malls of Karbala which is called Karbala Mall it consists of two floors on each floor it has up to 30 stores On the month of Ramadan when the weather is too hot people tend to come to shopping usually at night and as you can see during the day the daytime the weather is too hot so people try to stay at home yet we have some people who come here the stores usually open from morning till before the dusk prayer and after that they go to home they do their Iftar they do their prayers and come back at night and stay very late at night so stay tuned as we go inside this mall to show you the atmosphere of the holy month of Ramadan dearest Imam Hussein TV viewers we are with one of the brothers here in one of the stores in Karbala I will ask him a few questions about the holy month of Ramadan stay tuned As-salamu alaikum As-salamu alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh Can you introduce us in your presence and explain a little bit about the Ramadan weather in Karbala In the name of Allah Hasan Ashour from Karbala from Karbala Imam Hussein Dear viewers I am in Karbala The people in the stores immediately open the shops before the dusk prayer then they go to home for the Iftar and Salat the opening and the prayer and the fasting and the daily prayers specially in Ramadan brother Hasan is greeting you all the dear viewers and he's congratulating you for the coming of holy month of Ramadan. He's saying that during the month of Ramadan, we open our stores on daily basis. But there is one difference, and they close the stores before the dusk prayer. They go home, do the iftar, do their prayers, and go to the Ziyar of Imam al-Hussain and his brother Abul-Fadl al-Abbas, then at night they come back to their stores. He's saying that Karbala is totally different in the holy month of Ramadan. It has a very spiritual environment and atmosphere. Ok, Qasem, can you tell us about the working conditions in the month of Ramadan? What is the difference between the month of Ramadan and the month of Ramadan? What is the difference between the month of Ramadan and the month of Ramadan? Most of the people are in love and contact with each other during Ramadan, especially after the iftar. After the iftar, people go to Imam al-Hussain's presence to attend the visit to Imam al-Haram. On the first day of Ramadan, people come to visit Imam al-Hussain. On the tenth day of Ramadan, people go to the children's clothing shop. They are in love and contact with the people in the shops to attend their work. They go to the markets to buy their necessities. Brother Hassan is saying that on the first decade of the holy month of Ramadan the families are usually busy with visiting each other. They go to visit their friends and therefore the stores are not so much busy. But when it comes to the second and third decade of the holy month of Ramadan, people start going to stores, especially at night when the weather is a little bit cooler than the hot days. They come to the stores, they do their shopping and especially they do their shopping to prepare themselves for the holy Eid. As you know, the Eid of Ramadan is a very important and big Eid here in the Islamic countries. Therefore, the families try to renew their clothes, they buy clothes for their children and so on. Today, in this episode, I want to talk about a problem that affects many people in our society and that is addiction. Now, addiction medically is defined as dependence on a specific thing. When we look into addiction, there is physical addiction to something that will allow you to perform or to live your day-to-day life without any problems. Without it, you would get withdrawal symptoms, physical symptoms of withdrawal. And then there is psychological dependencies, psychological addictions. When we talk about the mechanisms of addiction, there are several mechanisms in the brain that actually cause addiction. So, I will just talk very briefly about a few of them before we move on to the specific types of addiction and how we can help ourselves and help other people in society and essentially, that's what we're here for, not only to help ourselves but to allow other people to benefit from this great month, how we can help them as well to make the most of this month. Addiction essentially is, like I've mentioned, the dependence on a specific thing. Psychological dependence works on the dopaminergic pathways in the brain. For those of you who are not au fait with medical terms, it is essentially the reward pathway in the brain. It happens when you take a specific thing, it triggers this pathway and makes you feel good. So, a lot of people find that when they have cake or sugary things, it makes them feel good about themselves because they have release of dopamine and that releases the reward pathways in the brain and it makes them feel good. So, we find a lot of people day-to-day. Maybe there's some people in your family who may not say it but they may be addicted to sugar and they may have something called a sweet tooth. That's one type of addiction. Another type of addiction that we see day-to-day is addiction to caffeine, for example. A lot of people in the month of Ramadan, you will hear them say, I've not had my coffee this morning, I've got a really, really bad headache, I've not had my tea this morning, I've got a really, really bad headache and I'm not feeling quite well. And the reason for this is because they actually have dependency on caffeine. They require caffeine in order to help them function on a day-to-day basis. And how does caffeine work? Caffeine works on a specific nerve or a specific part of the nervous system in the human body called the sympathetic nervous system. Now, what the sympathetic nervous system does is it actually triggers the fight or flight mechanism in the human body and it allows you, a lot of people get an adrenaline rush after having caffeine and that's what actually makes them feel ready to do specific things. So, we often find people take caffeine before revising for exams or before working. So, that is why caffeine actually becomes an addiction for them. Other things that are an addiction in society are cigarettes and even shisha. We find a lot of people in our communities smoke frequently and it is really, really important to identify the negative implications of these traits or these habits and to try and cut down these habits because after all they're not benefiting you not only physically but spiritually as well. Any addiction, anything that you're dependent on physically surely, surely isn't a good thing for your soul either because when you become so dependent on it your mind becomes focused on that particular thing and to an extent you forget your focus on other things that can help you spiritually. So, we must think about how we can cut down these things and the reason why smoking becomes an addiction is because it has nicotine in it and nicotine actually triggers a specific neurotransmitter in the brain which actually helps someone calm down. Different people say that it helps them in different ways but it also can help people to concentrate and in fact some people just say they become an addict of habit when you do things in routine day after day, time after time in a specific way every single day you become dependent on that maybe as a social thing or just maybe out of habit and finally another type of addiction I want to talk about is drugs. Unfortunately in some of our communities we have people who in some way have become introduced to drugs and become addicted to drugs and different drugs work in different ways and we are not going to go into specific types of drugs but people can become physically dependent on drugs and before actually talking about addiction and about drugs it's really important as communities that we identify that if we do have a problem with drugs that we address it and not just shove it or sweep it under the carpet because it is a real problem that does exist and we must try and help these people in order to overcome the addiction. So how do we go about getting rid of addiction or stopping specific things that we are addicted to on a day to day basis? Well the first thing you must do is identify that there is a problem without identifying that there is a problem you will never be able to address the problem and to cut it out of your life. Secondly it is really important to get people around you whether it's family members, friends or even people in your community who you can rely on in order to help you get rid of these habits because some people need to go and see counsellors in order to give them support because it's not only the physical side of the addiction that one needs to think about but also the psychological and emotional impact of stopping an addiction that you have to think about. So how does this month of Ramadan help us when it comes to addiction? Well in the month of Ramadan we are told to stay away from certain things and stop them from entering our bodies so whether it's cigarettes or coffee there are specific times of the day that we are told that we are not allowed to have those things and in essence what the month of Ramadan is doing it is completely changing our day to day routines and our cyclical way of living in order to allow us to employ and utilize good traits in order for us to use better habits in our day to day life things like eating at the right time eating the right amounts of food things like sleeping at the right time things like not being so focused on a specific thing on for example coffee or cigarettes in order to get you through the day and I'm sure for all those people at home who do rely on these things in order to get them through the day I'm sure they can relate to what I'm saying the first days are always the hardest but it's really really important that you make a promise to yourself that through this month you're going to try and get rid of this habit and it is said that if you do anything for 40 days and it becomes part of your day to day routine it sticks and it stays so inshallah make a plan make a promise to yourself because after all you're helping yourself not only to become more physically better but also spiritually ascend to achieve nianist to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala so make a promise to yourself as well to try and stick to this habit of keeping away from things that you're dependent upon and to try and use this in your day to day routine it becomes a habit, becomes a cyclical or routine thing for you and inshallah this is the beginning of a long road ahead and inshallah you can get rid of the addiction and the habit that you have it is really important that you get your family members your friends those people who are close to you involved as well because lapsing is actually a very routine part of addiction people do sometimes lapse because it is part of our make up as human beings sometimes falter, we're not complete perfect beings so don't worry if you do falter every now and then just remember the goal, remember the promise you made to yourself and inshallah you will succeed use your family members and friends to help you through the emotional and the psychological elements of kicking the habit and also try to help other people who are also going through a similar thing to you once you've kicked the habit and inshallah you will not only feel better in yourself but society as a whole will benefit another instruction offered by Prophet Muhammad in the Sha'ban Yasserman he says when you feel hungry and thirsty in this month of Ramadan remember the hunger and thirst of the day of judgement tolerating thirst and hunger in this world is so difficult we must then ponder upon the fact that the thirst and hunger in the hereafter last for years and years and for some individuals last forever additionally in this world death may be regarded as a solution for intonable thirst and hunger but in the next world internal life turns this solution into a useless one in this regard Allah swt mentions in the Quran in chapter 43 verse 77 he says they will call out O Malik the guardian of hell let your Lord finish us Malik will say indeed you will stay on according to the holy Quran there is no death for the wrongdoers in the hereafter and even when their skin is burnt out Allah swt will replace them with new skin so the punishment it begins a fresh one Allah swt states in the Quran in chapter 4 verse 56 surely those who disbelieved in our signs and miracles we shall cast them into hellfire as often as their skin will roast we shall change them for new skin so they can taste the punishment thus when compared the chastisement of the doomsday worldly pains can be regarded as nothing it has been recorded in the history during the caliphate of Imam Ali peace be upon him that his brother Aqeel one day came to him and asked him to add a little bit of portion due to his severe poverty Imam Ali aleyhi salam heated up a piece of metal and brought it to near Aqeel Aqeel protested and said why would you do that he said you got angry because of me heating up a piece of metal for fun and you're not scared of the metal of Allah swt heating up a metal because of his anger besides reminding us of the hereafter thirst and hunger during the month of Ramadan reminds us of those who are thirsty and hungry during the year due to poverty the same feeling during the whole days this encourages us to fast and spend some portion of our properties in the way of Allah and for the sake of the needy people and the poor individuals it has been reported on the authority of Imam Ali ibn Musa ar-Rava aleyhi salatu was-salam who said if one asks why is it that the fasts were made obligatory exclusively in the month of Ramadan and not in other months it would be said this is because the month of Ramadan is the month in which Allah as the wajal had revealed the Holy Quran as we conclude this episode of the Ramadan show i wanted to give you a final thought some last words for you to take away and for you to ponder over and this is to challenge a philosophy of supplication after all Allah SWT has said to all of us call upon me and I'll answer your call Allah SWT wants to hear our voices as his servants and he wants to be able to help us now when we supplicate what is in our minds how do we go about supplicating and what is our philosophy of supplication some of us will think of supplication as a way of acquiring wishes and desires now Allah SWT will help you no matter what you ask for if it's legitimate and sincere you will get what you ask for but think about it this way when you supplicate when you ask Allah SWT to help you with something I think in my mind and in my philosophy this is how I would think of supplication supplication may be a wish that you want to get fulfilled but also when you supplicate Allah SWT the highest station of supplication is when you're making an agreement you're making a pact with Allah SWT what you're saying to him is please help me achieve this goal whatever the goal may be and I will do my best to try and achieve it but whatever shortcomings I have please help me along the way to achieve that goal I think if we have this sort of philosophy in our mind when we supplicate Allah SWT it will invigorate us and give us the motivation to try and acquire what we're setting out to acquire and to try and achieve our goals and Allah SWT will always help us along the way whenever you do something good Allah SWT is always there by your side and with that I bid you farewell don't forget that you can join us on social media on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and you can visit our YouTube page Insha'Allah this show will be uploaded onto YouTube after this episode tomorrow and please don't forget us in your supplications as well because surely we are here on this earth to try and help each other so please remember Senior Dua'az and most importantly please remember to pray for the reappearance of Imam al-Mahdi Aja l-Allah Faraja and insha'Allah we pray that may he come quickly with that I say Wa Salamu Alaikum Jami'an Wa Rahmatullahi Wa Barakatuh