 I seek salvation from shaitan the accursed, my dearest viewers, my brothers and sisters from all across the world, may peace, blessings and protection of Allah be with you. Welcome to another episode of the Ramadan show exclusively here on Imam Hussain TV with me, your host Dr Shabia Tijani. Insha'Allah today, like every day, we will aim to cater for every need during this month of Ramadan. I would like to remind you again that you can send your videos to us to show us and to allow us to broadcast how you prepare for this holy month, what you do on a day-to-day basis and how you adopt your lives to cater for the month of Ramadan. I would like to ask you to join us on social media using the hashtag IHTVRamadan on Twitter, joining us on Facebook, Instagram and on YouTube, Insha'Allah. Finally, I would just like to leave you with this hadith from Prophet Muhammad peace and blessings be upon him where he says the greatest form of worship is awaiting the 12th Imam, alayhi salam. He's talking to the people of our current generation and indeed we are that generation whom has been prophesied will be the generation that the 12th Imam will come to insha'Allah and we as a group, as a community have to prepare for his reappearance by preparing ourselves physically, mentally and spiritually. In this episode as we continue our path towards spiritual refinement, insha'Allah I want to continue a series that we've been continuing for the last couple of nights and that is how to make the most out of your Salah and your prayer. Over the past couple of nights we've been looking at prerequisites for prayer and also strategies that you can employ in order to optimise your prayers. We shall be continuing with the strategies and there is altogether 12 strategies so insha'Allah I would ask you to have patience with me and insha'Allah take notes as well so that you can apply these teachings to your day to day lives as well. Before proceeding I would like to once again ask you as it's the nights of Amal and the nights where forgiveness is granted, the nights when supplications are accepted, please ask for forgiveness from Allah SWT and do not forget us in your Dua'as as well. As we start up with the next strategy in our list, we think about limitations and asking for forgiveness for our shortcomings. When we pray our Salah we should always constantly be conversing to Allah SWT and we should ask him for forgiveness for any mistakes that we've made. If our prayers were not up to the right standard we ask him to please forgive our shortcomings. Surely this in turn as you're conversing with your Lord will increase your attention and your focus, your concentration in every prayer. If your prayers are not up to standard then Allah SWT will surely forgive you if you ask him with the most sincere of hearts. When you return to him promising that in the next prayer you'll perform it better than the last and this process in itself is not only a motivation, not only a goal for you to perform better next time but it's also another way of getting you to focus and concentrate and getting you to motivate yourself for the next prayer. When you analyze and accept your faults, accept the parts in your prayer which are not up to standard you will then be able to focus in on your prayer and realize which parts of your prayer need more attention and insha'Allah as you do that your prayers will be optimized, you'll gain more out of them and obviously gain closest to Allah SWT. The next strategy I want to tell you about is trust. It is said that Amir al-Mu'minin, alaihi salam, used to rive and tremble when it was time for prayer. He was once asked about this unusual, uncommon state and he said, the time has come for the trust which Allah offered to the heavens, the earth and the mountains but they refused to carry it and were afraid of it. This is a direct reference to the Holy Quran and the following verse. Verily we offered the trust to the heavens, the earth and the mountains but they refused to bear it and were afraid thereof but man undertook it. Verily he was unjust and ignorant. Whenever the imams used to stand before Allah SWT in their prayers, their limbs trembled. They used to shake due to the intensity of their fear. People who were watching used to say sometimes it is as if you could count their breaths. Their prayer was offered as though they would never have another chance of offering a prayer. Imam Sadiq said, my father used to say when Ali, the son of Hussain alaihi salam, used to stand for prayer, he looked like a trunk of tree, nothing of which would move unless the wind would move it. This is an excellent precedent. It is a vision of how the ma'asumin used to carry out their prayers and how they used to conduct their action in accordance with the pleasure of Allah SWT As I've said before, if you have in your mind that the prayer you're offering at the moment is your last prayer ever, you will always have focus, you will always have that thought in your mind that if it's not good enough and if you've made a mistake, that you're answerable for that mistake. This is a behaviour that can be seen within the pious people and piety and fear of Allah SWT is one of the key ingredients in the traits of a true ma'aumin. The next strategy I want to tell you about is stress management. Stress physically can have a very detrimental effect to the human body but it also has a detrimental and a negative effect to your general state of mind, the state of your soul because the mind that is constantly worried about something will never be focused, will never be concentrating and that means that you won't be able to concentrate on your prayers. So my advice to you to do every day would be to exercise, to relax, to meditate, to reflect, to contemplate in order to try and let things which are worrying you and chaining you down, let them go learn adaptation strategies and think about how you can plan things, change your life in order to make sure that you're not stressed all the time Avoid other foods that can cause stress such as fats, sugar, caffeine and don't smoke. Take time away from your busy lives from time to time. Take a holiday because when we look at prayers and we see people who pray who are constantly stressed it is obvious from the look on their face, from the way they behave, their body language that they can't fully focus, not only in prayer but in other aspects of their life. The next strategy I want to present in front of you is moderation in eating. You see eating and drinking even though they're essential for the human body to sustain the human body when you eat too much and you live in order to eat and food becomes such a big part of your life that you're constantly always full and able to be mobile physically and also spiritually you're burdened down with all that food and the full stomach it is surely detrimental to your body and detrimental to your soul. Imam Reza alaihi salam says you should know that a human body is like fertile land if moderation is exercised in the matter of development i.e. necessary quantities of water to provide for it which should neither be so excessive as to drown it nor be so little as to keep it thirsty that yields more produce however that land will become barren if it's not looked after properly therefore overeating and drinking too much causes lack of concentration during prayer and one needs to take care because this is a problem that we face if we're constantly eating and we have five daily prayers for every single prayer we will not be able to focus properly Luqman has said to his son dear son when your stomach is full your faculty of thinking goes to sleep your tongue of wisdom becomes dumb and your limbs fail to worship Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala strategy 11 that I want to present is assessing reassessing keep track of your attention and concentration in prayer at all times it is a proactive thing you must constantly be thinking about your prayer conditioning your mind so that at all times you're always reassessing what's happening and then you're able to fix it and if you can't then ask for forgiveness self-conditioning self-examination contemplation again the essential prerequisites for a seeker of truth who's battling with his own nafs self-conditioning means being binded or binding oneself with the resolution not to do anything against the commandments of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala reassess contemplate try to be in a state of mind at night especially it's a time for introspection time for inner deliberation time for contemplation and reflection evaluate your deeds through the day and for the deeds that you've committed which would be displeasurable to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala ask for forgiveness and for those deeds which you've done which have been aided with the mercy of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala give your thanks reviewing your performance on a daily basis surely is only healthy for your mind and healthy for your soul but use prayer time as another time of day where you can think meditate and deliberate because if you do that you will constantly be thinking about your position in this world about the mistakes you've made and as you seek forgiveness you think about Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and he becomes the focus of your prayer finally last but not least the strategy that I think is very important is putting your thoughts into writing unfortunately in this world that we live in we run day to day and it's almost like a rat race you start your day in the morning you go to work you're busy with work you come home you may have families you may have other commitments and you end up in this rat race where you're constantly fighting with time you don't get time to think about your mistakes you don't get time to contemplate about life you don't get time to set goals so what I suggest you do is just once during the day if you can't do it once during the day do it once a week and if you can't do it once a week do it once a month put your thoughts your reflections your goals into writing because whenever you're stuck or your mind's in a state of discomfort your soul is aching you can look back at what you've written and remind yourself of the goals remind yourself of your intention and your sincerity remind yourself that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is your ultimate end goal many scholars have advised that you do this also because it allows you to free your mind of the things that chain it down allows you to put things into perspective as you're writing them it allows you to cleanse your soul of anything that burdens it so these are my tips my strategies for how you can concentrate during prayer and inshallah we hope that by thinking about these strategies you can also optimize your prayers as I've said before during these very highly spiritual nights where the doors of Allah's mercy are open pray for yourself pray for those around you pray for those in the world who don't have as much as you do those orphans around the world who sometimes don't even have food or water especially in this month of Ramadan please don't forget us in your du'as as well and finally do not forget to pray for the reappearance of Imam Mahdi alayhi salam Imam Ali, commander of the Faithful, with the peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, has said the month of Ramadan has approached you it is the chief of all months and the beginning of the year for this segment of the episode we're once again going to be going to different parts of the world to see how people across the globe prepare for the month of Ramadan what they do on the day-to-day lives and my journeys have taken me to many many places around the world but this is by far one of the most unique places one of the places where there's such harsh realities that people have no choice but to be self-sustaining and to adopt their lives in a very unique sort of way the area that we're visiting today is the bedwinds of sub-saharan Africa for those of you who are not aware the sub-saharan region is one of the harshest climates on this planet it's one of the hottest weathers one of the driest weathers on the planet as well as having very very subtle but yet profound profound deprivations for their people such as in the desert of Africa there's very little shade and with the heat the people there find it extremely difficult to survive on a day-to-day basis so they have to make do and and and adopt their lifestyles and really try and find ways to get past this month and to make the most of this month in fact so the normal day for a bedwind in sub-saharan Africa starts off with baking bread the bedwinds don't eat rice they tend to eat more bread throughout the day the reason why they bake their bread fresh bright and early in the day is that the children who wake up very early in the morning they tend to have the bread for breakfast and then again when they come back in the afternoon from school the men of the family wake up very early in the morning because they have no choice as they are usually camel herders or cattle or they or they farm cattle and for them their animals are their livelihoods so they have to look after them and they get up early in the morning they go to work they look after their camel and their cattle and they try and make a living through that the women sit or they are at home and they carry out the day-to-day chores of a housewife and when the children come back from school at the time they usually have a small meal if they're not fasting and then they go back they go to bed for long enough just to wake up a couple of hours before iftar close to iftar time the men of the family come home and during iftar time the first thing they do is that they have dates as is the sunnah of the prophet peace and blessings be upon him the dates come from palm trees which actually grow in that region and they also make a soup with whatever is available to them to them at the time so it could be things like lentils vegetables and they also milk their own animals milk their own camels milk their own cattle in order to provide milk for the family and the milk actually is one of the best uh rehydrators that we know and it's natural as well following this usually the family get together and they have uh some food usually it's bread and meat the bread that they made earlier on in the day and the meat is actually from the animals that they uh uh rearing their livestock because the bedwinds are a self-sustaining tribe because they live in the harshest of climates in the harshest of areas in this world they have no other option but to be self-sustaining as i've requested before in the previous episodes we would be honored and we'd be very grateful if you could send in your videos from wherever you are in the world your pictures your blogs your anecdotes so that we can have an insight into your life how do you prepare your day to day life for the month of ramadan how do you prepare your food how do you prepare um how do you prepare yourself for the nights of qadr how do you go about your day to day activities such as work and school inshallah we look forward to seeing your videos and inshallah airing them exclusively on imam hussain tv bismillah ar-rahman ar-rahim respected viewers assalamu alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh may peace and blessing and protection of Allah be upon each and every one of you in continuation to our reports from the holy city of karbala and the restaurant of rukm sultan today we are here to show you the other parts of the restaurant so stay tuned what is so unique about rukm sultan is the appetizers that they serve here the appetizers are made with a Syrian chief and his assistant and as you can see the visitor to this specific restaurant love the taste of these appetizers I asked about the Iranian section and he's saying that the Iranian chief provides the variety of foods here which are all originated from Iran and this section is a very special and unique section in rukm sultan restaurant following our previous episodes on medical hints and health advice we talked about headaches and thereafter I talked a little bit a little bit about the benefits of tears and crying linking this to what our aima alayhi mu salaam have said about crying and remembering Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala remembering the mosaib of members of the ahlul bait alayhi salaam now today what I want to do is follow on from the concept of tears and talk to you a little bit about eye problems many people from around the world suffer from many ailments of the eyes from simple things like refractory refractory problems which basically mean being short-sighted or long-sighted and therefore you need prescriptive lenses to aid those refractory errors or whether it's something more serious such as cataracts or glaucoma or even things like problems related to diabetes or diabetic retinopathy or hypertensive retinopathy inshallah during this episode I'll just briefly cover a few possible ailments of the eyes something that you can keep an eye out for mind the pun during the course of this month and also during your day-to-day life the eyes obviously are said within many many books in history the eyes are the window to the heart and the window to the soul so inshallah I hope that by giving you this advice you can keep the vision of your eyes and and keep the beauty of what you see keep your sight the first condition I want to talk about is one of the most commonest conditions that people with eye problems suffer from and that's conjunctivitis conjunctivitis is basically inflammation of the conjunctiva which can be caused by infection usually either viral or bacterial and the conjunctiva sits at the bottom of the eyes here but people who suffer from conjunctivitis usually get reddening of the eye this feeling that there is some grit in the eye and they feel very itchy people get these symptoms usually when they go and see a doctor get antibiotic drops and usually these drops tend to be useful however be very very careful because simple conjunctivitis can deteriorate and get worse so if it's not working or the drops aren't working go and see a doctor other things to look out for in people with eye problems are very very very very very important symptoms things like losing vision in the eye things like pain behind the eye itself obviously conjunctivitis is irritation of the eye which is different to pain in the eye as I've said before conjunctivitis can be caused by inflammation inflammation can also be caused by allergies some people have pollen allergies and have hay fever often find that they get allergic conjunctivitis once again if you go and see a doctor they can prescribe you antihistamines or drops which will help to get rid of the conjunctivitis another condition which affects the eyes and is very common especially amongst the elderly although many younger people can get it it's something called cataracts cataracts is a condition where there's a protein layer that develops on the lens of the eye and if you're finding that your vision's getting hazy and you're finding it difficult to see it's very important that you see a doctor an eye specialist the reason being that when they look into your eyes they're trying to look at the back of the retina when I see my patients and I look into their eyes and I can't see the back of the retina I know that there's something blocking that vision and sometimes it can be a cataract which is actually sitting on the lens which sits in between the retina and the pupil which is outside the lens now for people who have cataracts unfortunately the only treatment is surgical intervention but for those people it's very important that you see a doctor quickly before your condition deteriorates before talking too much about eye problems obviously it's it's a topic that covers such a wide spectrum and such a vast area that is very difficult to talk about everything that I want to talk about in this episode however I'll talk a little bit about retinopathy retinopathy is simply a problem or a pathology or an issue with the retina itself we see so many different types of retinopathies but the commonest ones are what we call diabetic retinopathy and hypertensive retinopathy this is basically where the blood vessels in the eyes get so much affected by uncontrolled diabetes or high blood pressure that they burst and then new vessels form but as these vessels form they don't form in the correct way they get overproduced and you get retinopathy because the blood vessels create a pressure force which causes retinal detachment eventually so it's very important for those of you who suffer from diabetes and those of you who suffer from high blood pressure to keep that under control because one of the side effects or the complications of not doing that will be eventually the loss of your vision finally without taking too much of your time I just want to tell you about some red flag symptoms that you need to keep an eye out for to make sure that if you are suffering from long-term problems or even acute problems that you get seen by a doctor as soon as possible the first thing is any loss of vision I suggest you go and see a doctor whether you think that your vision is deteriorated all of a sudden or whether it's complete loss of vision please go and see a doctor as soon as possible the second thing is whether when you get pain in the eye by that I don't mean itchiness in the eye but actual physical pain within the eye itself or the back of the eye it can be a sign of conditions such as glaucoma pain behind the eye can be a sign of optic neuritis which can be a symptom of multiple sclerosis so make sure that you have you keep an eye out for these symptoms I would like to ask you to continue to keep in keeping your mind these symptoms that I've mentioned because eventually what happens over a prolonged period of time that people neglect their eyes they stop wearing their lenses stop wearing the prescription glasses they don't see the world for what it is Allah swt has blessed you with these eyes and has blessed you with this world around you the reason being that he wants you to enjoy his bounties he wants you to enjoy the world that he's created for you so do that appreciate his might appreciate his mercy appreciate his bounties inshallah when you do that it will not only allow you to improve your physical health the health of your eyes but also it will allow you to ascend spiritually as well during the time mama alibna bi talib peace be upon him when he was khalifa a man and a cushion in religion worked all of his life but could not save anything for his old age lately he had become blind and as a result he became a beggar in the streets of kufa he used to stand on a corner of the lane and beg one day mama alibna bi talib the leader of the faithful was passing by and saw this beggar in his condition mama alibna bi talib out of his curiosity he asked about the condition of this man they replied to him by saying that this man was a Christian when he was young he worked hard but now he's old he cannot work and since he's blind he became a beggar mama alibna bi talib said strange till he was strong you took his work and you took his money but now that he is blind you left him without anything this this story shows that whenever a person works hard when he when he turns old people should in return support him therefore mama alibna bi talib said it is the duty of the government and the society to support him until he's alive go he told his companions go and give him a life pension of the state's treasury as we're approaching the nights of power the nights of al qadr we pray for many things they say that the doors of Allah's mercy are open on these nights these are the nights that are considered to be more superior than any other night in the calendar we pray for many things we pray for our own worldly desires we pray for our own spiritual refinement but there's one supplication that should be the highest above all and that is to pray for the reappearance of the 12th imam alayhi salam i want to present a poem in front of you called waiting for you it's a it's a small poem that me and my brother Abbas have written our lives are dark and our hearts are broken now is the time for your intervention there are no choices left there is no option there is no hope left you are the chosen our souls are dying whilst we are still alive how can we go on how can we now survive we're waiting for that time when you will arrive so that religion and faith can be revived worlds become false please come and make it true we're waiting for you oh the poor are dying the tears are flowing they have lost everything their fears are growing the world is standing by the way it is no way the persecution that they are facing wherever we just bloodshed there is no love left now all the hearts are beating inside they are there's no sincerity the good are but a few oh the times befalling the lovers of hosay the unprecedented we're facing so much pain so many massacres from place to place the streets of pakistan the roads of Bahrain the world is crying to bring peace avenge these genocides through your justice and rid the lovers to be done the world has lost love is hurtful and cruel imam ali commander of the faith film of the peace and blessings of allabi upon him has said the month of ramadan has approached you it is the chief of all months and the beginning of the as we conclude another episode of the ramadan show i would like to leave you with a final thought something to get you to contemplate and to think about over these next few nights this thought is actually quite complex and even with me it's actually something i think about quite regularly and that final thought is the relationship between the akhul bait and allah is so complex it's the ultimate paradigm it's the complete beginning and end of love because allah subhanahu wa ta'ala in hadith al qisa says to the akhul bait he says i've made this whole universe the mountains the skies the rivers the earth in your love but the amazing thing is to the akhul bait they gave everything that they have back in the love of allah subhanahu wa ta'ala if we take their example even when we have everything whether it's materialistic whether specific traits remember that all of its come from allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and everything that we have should be sacrificed back for him i would like to once again remind you to please send in your videos and to also join us on social media on instagram on twitter where you can use the hashtag ihtv ramadan on facebook and on youtube until next time i hope that we can once again inspire you and be your one-stop shop for the month of ramadan i bid you farewell wassalaamu alaykum jami'an wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh