 As-salamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuhu. Bismillah ar-Rahman ar-Rahim. Alhamdulillahi rabbil alamin. Wa sallallahu wa sallim wa barakim. Ala Sayyidina Muhammadin wa ala alihi wa sahbihi wa sahlim al-ma'in. Rabbisah, he said that he was the only one of the Quds in the second Qawli. Wa sallallahu wa sallim wa barakim. Ala Sayyidina Muhammadin wa ala alihi wa sahbihi wa sahlim. As-salamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuhu. Alhamdulillahi. I hope everybody is doing well. Mashallah, we are very close to the blessed month of Ramadan. Insha'Allah, in just about a day or two, we will reach this blessed month. And so, for today, we're really just going to be talking about some ways that we can prepare for this blessed month, insha'Allah. And what are specific steps that we can take to start our spiritual preparation or hopefully continue our spiritual preparation for the blessed month of Ramadan. So, a brief outline of what we'll be talking about today. So, insha'Allah, we'll start with just an overview of the virtues of the month of Ramadan. And then, we'll start to talk a little bit about the goals of why Allah even ordained fasting for us, why He made fasting mandatory, especially in the month of Ramadan for us. And then, we'll start to get into specific steps that we can take to prepare for Ramadan, to plan for Ramadan, to ensure that we maximize this Ramadan, especially given that we're in a very unique situation in this Ramadan. It's going to be different. We're not going to have the tarawih prayer. Most likely, we won't be having regular Juma prayer. There's going to be a lot of things that are different in this Ramadan. And then, insha'Allah, we will also dive into what does it take to actually begin the path to change? What is the path to change for us in this Ramadan? And what are the steps that we need to take to actually get on this path to change, insha'Allah? So, to begin, insha'Allah, let's discuss a little bit about what Ramadan is. And, you know, sometimes when we read this hadith, they kind of excite in us this, maybe we're not really feeling it yet. Maybe, you know, we're kind of like, you know, just kind of waiting. And we're like, I don't know, everybody's getting excited for Ramadan. I'm not really getting excited. I totally feel you on that. And that's why some of these hadith really help. So, the Prophet ﷺ, he mentioned that in the first night of Ramadan, the devils and the jinn, they are shackled. And the doors of hell are closed and not a single door of hell is left open. And he says, while the doors of heaven then are opened and not a single door of them are, is kept shut. And a caller calls out and says, O Seeker of good, come forward and O Seeker of evil, stay back. So already, what is the Prophet ﷺ indicating to us? That already, God is assisting us in the month of Ramadan. So, generally speaking, most of us, we have one personal devil assigned to each of us. We have a personal devil assigned to each of us that knows us intimately, that's been with us since the beginning of our life. And then understands us in our intricate details, what upsets us, what makes us upset with other people, what are our desires, what are the temptations that we fall into in the most easily and so on and so forth. Now in Ramadan, God gives us, he assists us, right? It's kind of like a spiritual cheat code. He locks up that devil for us and he locks up all of the shayatin, right? And then he closes the doors of hell. Now think about it like this, spiritually the doors of hell, they are pulling us towards our lower desires. They're literally, like from an even spatial point of view, they're literally lower than us, right? They're pulling us towards our lower desires. And the doors of heaven and in general heaven is elevating us to our higher aims and our higher goals and our higher desires. What are lower desires? Lower desires are the desires for sexual relations, for food, for drinking and smoking and partying and clubbing and looking at bad images on the internet and listening to all these, all the haram that we listen to. Those are the lower desires. And then you have the higher desires, which are the desires which elevate the human being. The desires of knowing Allah, of desiring to be in love with Allah, of trying to seek knowledge of Allah, of trying to become closer to Allah. So as the doors of hell are closed, inshaAllah, that's a sign that the doors of our lower desires should start to also close or at least should start to be limited. And then the doors of heaven are opened and hopefully there's a magnetic force that's pulling us and this is happening spiritually, inshaAllah, there's a magnetic force that's pulling us towards our higher goals and our higher aims. This is open for all of us to take advantage of. So it's the first thing Ramadan, it's a month of the men's virtue. It's open to everybody to take advantage of. It doesn't, in order for this to happen, the Prophet of Islam didn't say that if Ramadan happens and how we pray is happening and if you're having regular gatherings and regular community if-dars, then the doors of heaven are open and the doors of hell are shut. No, Ramadan is Ramadan. Regardless of the situation that we're in right now, Ramadan is Ramadan. It might not be the same. We might not have the same, you know, fun if-dars that we are used to in the same community gatherings and of course the wonderfully times of standing next to each other in the prayer at night, we might not have that. But that doesn't mean that Ramadan is any different. Ramadan is still Ramadan in terms of the spiritual benefits of Ramadan and this is a different one for us to take advantage of different things. What else did the Prophet of Islam say? He said fasting is a shield with which a servant protects themselves from the fire. So literally, right, you and I, when we fast, it's like these shields, these force fields that are being developed around us. And the more and more that we take our fast seriously, the more and more shields that are being developed around us. And so the goal is that let's say the beginning of the Ramadan, let's say I have zero shields and between me and my shaitan and between me and the fire, let's say there's no room at all, right? That I'm very easily succumbed to my desires and to the bad thoughts and to all of these different things. Okay, when I start fasting, immediately a shield is put up. Immediately, why? Because I'm literally putting a shield up purposefully between myself and food. When I'm putting a shield up between myself and food, that means I'm going to be putting a shield up between myself and Haram. Because food, as you and I all know, food is okay. Like it's okay for me to, you know, like Hamdulillah, I just ate dinner. It's so totally okay for me to like eat rice and salmon and you know, some vegetables. That's halal in a normal time. But in Ramadan, right? It actually during the daytime, it's not halal anymore. It's no longer permissible for me to eat if I'm in a fasting state. So if I'm putting a layer between myself and now between my layer and myself and food by fasting, then I should surely be able to put a layer between myself and things that are, regardless of the time of year, they're Haram. It's Haram for me to backbite. It's Haram for me to smoke and for me to drink and it's for me to all the different other impermissible things that we might be engaged in. So I'm able to put a door between myself and the permissible. I should be able to put a door for sure between myself and the Haram. So fasting is a shield. Now you can take fasting lightly or you can take it seriously. Somebody could just fast the very, very basic fast. They don't eat anything, they don't drink anything and all day, you know, the time is wasted. All night we stay up, you know, watching TV and Netflix and hanging out on media and everything and then all morning until like late though or us or we sleep and then we make up our prayers and then we just have a last hour or two and then we just kind of get through the fast and we just, again, now instead of binge watching we binge eat, we just eat a bunch of food and then we repeat, right? That person is not going to get the type of force fields that they need in order to combat the difficulties of daily life. Ramadan is a time for the believer to step back. It's a time for us to take literally it's a spiritual boot camp, step back and actually think how am I going to approach my life moving forward? What did I do well this year? What did I do not? What did I not do so well in this year? What am I not doing well and spiritually? What do I need to work on? How many people's feelings did I hurt? How is my relationship with Allah? And that's the most important question we should be asking but all these other questions we mentioned should help inform that question of how our relationship with Allah is and so that is the shield that fasting is given. Now it's also known as the month of forgiveness that if you take fasting seriously the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said whoever fasts the month of Ramadan with sincerity and good intention they will emerge from the month with their sins forgiven inshaAllah. So it's not difficult to have our sins forgiven but we just have to actually do this effort and take this time seriously. So he sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said in the month of Ramadan my community has been granted five blessings that nobody has been granted before. The first is during the first night of Ramadan Allah gives them a special gaze and the one who Allah gives a special gaze to they will never be anguished, right? So what should we do in the first night of Ramadan which could potentially be tomorrow night depending on if the moon is sighted or it could if it's not if the moon is not sighted tomorrow night then for sure Friday night is the first night of Ramadan if that if we should be in a state where as the Maghrib time enters we are hoping for the reward of Allah we are seeking Allah's forgiveness we are asking him to bless us in this month of Ramadan. Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said second the smell of their mouth as the day becomes later is more beautiful to Allah than the smell of musk, right? The smell of perfume than the smell of something beautiful because we know naturally when we're fasting and our mouth is not getting the same type of release of fluids and acidity and what not that it is when we're eating food we have things build up that create a certain undesirable smell but Allah loves and appreciates that smell because we're doing it for his sake and then the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said third the angels make repentance for them each day and night subhanallah so we're just sitting there chilling like next week we'll just be like at 12 o'clock on a Wednesday we'll just be sitting there chilling maybe working, maybe reading maybe doing something else we'll be fasting and we have angels hamdallah that the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam is saying are making repentance for us that O Allah forgive so and so people that are in the bay area they're making forgiveness they're seeking forgiveness for us that's just for the fasting person in Ramadan and then Allah and then the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam says fourth Allah commands paradise and tells them to prepare and ornament yourself for the believers that they because of what they're doing essentially right and then he says fifth they are forgiven in their entirety during the last night and somebody asked the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam is this in layel al qadr is this the night of power he said no but do you see when people complete a job when workers work they receive their wages in full and so similarly the Muslim when we fast and the last night inshallah Allah gives us our wages in full right subhanallah so from the first day of Ramadan to the last day we should be excited this is a chance now for us to change it's a chance for us okay maybe we screwed up a lot in the last year it's okay alhamdulillah inshallah we're going to reach the month of Ramadan in just a few days and we're going to be able to change and we're going to be able to get out on that path to change so it's a time of immense mercy it's a time of immense forgiveness and it's also a month in which dua is accepted that the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said that there are three whose prayers are not refused and among those he mentioned the fasting person he said the fasting person when he or she breaks their fast their prayer is not refused so we'll talk about this later but in Ramadan you have like spiritual hacks and one of the spiritual hacks is to absolutely make sure that we are using the time right before iftar the 10 minutes let's say today Maghrib came in at like 755 or 754 then from 740 up or ideally even 730 up until 755 I should just be sitting trying to read the Quran trying to think about Allah and then eventually turning and making dua and asking Allah for forgiveness but ideally at least 10 minutes before the time ends for the fast and before Maghrib comes in we should sit with our families get everybody together everybody put our devices away sit either at the table or ideally in the place where we pray and we make dua together and we should have everybody go around at different times there shouldn't always be one person making dua everybody go around at different days so our children, our spouses everybody should have a chance then to make dua so that everybody gets a chance to learn in this beautiful month when the goal of this month is communion with Allah the goal of this month is conversation with Allah and if we know how to make dua we're going to learn how to speak to Allah we're going to learn how to have proper conversation with Allah and of course we want to be making dua when dua is accepted and so don't let your fast go to waste in this sense that you're having a chance that okay at the end of your fast if everybody knew okay if you show up at this place at 7.40 PM you will get a million dollars right? everybody even with all the social distancing and quarantining would probably still we would still show up and we would get we would get that amount of money right? Allah is saying that you show up right? and you make dua and the time before your fast 10, 15 minutes, 5 minutes whatever it is the time before your fast opens and he's going to give you he's going to give he's opening up the doors of his generosity more widely than they're open in other times and he's giving and he's giving and he's giving and so don't underestimate Allah it's better than going and getting a million bucks or getting something else so it's also it's a month then let's just let's wrap this up inshaAllah and we'll move on to the next point it's a month where our desires should be tamed and the heavens are open so our higher aims should be then found inside of us right? it's a month of forgiveness it's a month of immense mercy being descended upon us and hopefully we should be merciful to other people because we want Allah to be merciful to us it's then fourth it's a month of change it's a month where we should work hard to actually want to change and Allah says the one who strives in my way surely I will guide them so if we strive in Allah's way and strive in his path to try to change in Ramadan inshaAllah he's going to help us and he's going to guide us it's a month and fifth of dua being accepted it's a month where we can build habits that will remain with us for the rest of the year hopefully that everybody should have a goal in Ramadan to take away one new habit that's good and virtuous and leave one bad habit that should be minimum and ideally we can take three good ones and leave three bad ones but it is a month of habit building so one of the reasons why we have this month is in order to actually build better habits spiritual habits and other good habits and finally it is a month of cleansing the soul so we'll talk now about all of these in detail let's so these are the virtues of the month of Ramadan that what does Allah Himself describe the goal of Ramadan as in the Quran He says Ya Yuhalladina Aminu Kutiba alaykum as-siyam Kama kutiba aladina min qablikum La'allakum tattakun that oh you who believe fasting has been prescribed for you as it was prescribed for those who came before you in order that you may attain this state of taqwa and he described in other parts he says fasting when he's using these words La'allakum he says La'allakum tattakun that's one of the goals for that specific situation Allah is mentioning he also mentions La'allakum tashkurun in other verses that in order that you may be thankful and that you may be grateful right one of the other goals for the month of Ramadan is to attain this state of developing a deeper relationship with Allah through his revealed book through his beautiful Quran that he has sent to us through the beloved Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam right so there are different goals we have that Allah wants us to attain in Ramadan let's talk about taqwa what is taqwa it's a it's a word that's used often at the at the essence taqwa is what we're trying to practice right now with all this social distancing and being really really careful with what we do that's taqwa taqwa with regards to sin is like how the majority of people except for a few you know very strange people who who think this whole thing is over and they're trying to go back force themselves back in normal life except that group taqwa is what majority of us are trying to do in avoiding this pandemic right even though we don't know if somebody has the disease or not but we're trying to be so careful in making sure we don't get it and that we don't spread it to other people right that at its essence you take that metaphor and you apply it to sin and that's taqwa and trying to do good and remove from sin so I'll give you an example just like if we go out we remain six feet apart from people we are supposed to wear masks now we're supposed to wash our hands we're supposed to be extra careful we don't go to places we don't need to go to we don't go to places that are extra like all of this stuff we don't go in large gatherings taking that same level of carefulness and applying it to how we see things that God would be displeased at us doing so that would be let's say placing a barrier between us and a certain place we would go to where we would engage let's say we regularly go to the I don't know to the store and we buy like cigarettes or we buy a blunt wrap or something or we buy alcohol or something like that or we buy cartridges for our jewel pen all the different things that are being engaged in in this time taqwa is putting distance between us right a significant distance to not even go there because just like it's not necessary in the times we're in right now to go to extra places certainly it's not good for us to engage in sin we know that it has a negative impact it's worse for our spiritual heart to have sin impact us than to have any physical disease impact us we ask a lot of protect us from both but in the long term a disease will not impact you in the eternal life right like the virus that's going on right now won't impact somebody in the eternal life but a spiritual disease a sin will impact us in the eternal life right secondly an example would be that between ourselves and let's say we're used to backbiting let's say every time we get on Facebook we start reading statuses that talk or talking bad about people or we start seeing things that are haram and images of people that are you know inappropriate and we're trying not okay taqwa in this case is literally putting social distance between us and that imagine that that platform has a virus right and it's going to impact your heart it's a spiritual virus we turn away from that that would be an example of taqwa right in actuality another example if we are um not uh approaching a situation with our family appropriately we're regularly rude to people we're regularly right we engage in enough conversation to the point that upsets us and then we start yelling at people and smack talking them etc taqwa would be to not even let myself get into that situation just like right now most of us would not go into a gathering of 50 10 people let alone 50 or 100 people right we don't even enter into a situation that we know we're going to mess ourselves up in spiritually that would be an example of taqwa so that what is the goal of Ramadan in order that you and I may attain taqwa taqwa is this carefulness it's this being being extremely cautious and why though being cautious by knowing Allah is watching us not because of any other reason but by knowing Allah is watching us and Allah would not appreciate what we do and if we claim to love Allah and Allah says in the Qur'an qul in kuntum tuhebun Allah faqtabi yuni ya'hebibukum Allah that he tells the Prophet ﷺ say if you claim to love Allah follow me and Allah will love you that's the route to love of God it's following the Prophet ﷺ Allah makes it very clear if we follow the Prophet ﷺ example and the Prophet ﷺ is here to teach us his example Allah, inshaAllah, will love us and what is one of the ways to follow the Prophet ﷺ of course he was the most righteous person the person of most taqwa the Nabi of taqwa the Imam of Mu'taqeen the Imam of the people of taqwa that we try to put distance between ourselves and sin and we mentioned this before but just briefly think of taqwa as on a spectrum okay so you have at the bottom of the spectrum you have heedlessness you have sin you have forgetting about Allah and at the higher end of the spectrum you have taqwa always being conscious of Allah in every waking moment in everything that we do right that the more we try to get a sense spiritually the more we fast the more we pray the more we should be moving on this spectrum okay and Ramadan is a time for us because we're so careful with every little thing that we that we're so used to drinking water and eating we're supposed to be careful with that we're also supposed to be careful with what we see with what we hear with what we speak that it's automatically hopefully we're moving from being heedless to being mindful and of course in our religion the idea of being mindful has been there from the start that being mindful of Allah that is the state of taqwa knowing okay Allah is watching me Allah is with me and then eventually trying to actually be so conscious of him that you're regularly in an intimate conversation with him an intimate conversation where you are talking to Allah about your needs and regularly turning to him first and foremost about everything and asking him for assistance and for help so it is moving on that spectrum at the same time there's another spectrum of the spectrum of anxiety and at the top of the spectrum is tranquility so at the bottom of the spectrum is where most of us we start out when Allah says He created the human being in a state of anxiety but then He mentions that at the higher levels when somebody has started to attain the other virtues that they move to a state of tranquility so the more now map these two spectrum next to each other the less heedless we are the more taqwa we have and the less the more taqwa we have what's going to happen is the more tranquility that's going to start to descend upon our hearts that's generally speaking how it works because when you have more taqwa you are climbing in the relationship to Allah in your relationship with Allah and when we are climbing in that relationship we are moving from this state of anxiety which generally speaking the anxiety intrepidation comes from our sins and from our lack of being aware of Allah and we are moving to a state of being aware of Allah and of then which results in tranquility because Allah says that Allah bidhikr Allah tatma innal qulub that verily in the remembrance of Allah do hearts find rest and tranquility the more remembrance we do the more taqwa we have which then results in more tranquility which removes us from the state of anxiety so keep that in mind one of the ways to examine is how are you doing with your spiritual tranquility that's going to be a general sign of how you are doing with your state of taqwa sin will always result in spiritual worry and problems and anxiety and the heart just going like this just being in a state of worry that's where sin will result in that but it doesn't result in it right away it might take a few days or a few weeks or even a few months to realize the impact depending on how pure the heart is or how resty the heart is a pure heart will feel the sin as it's doing it and immediately after a very resty heart and a hard heart will not feel the impact of sin at all anymore and a medium heart in between will feel the impact of the sin a little bit delayed and then it will start to feel bad about it right but that's a sign then of how exactly we are progressing and so the goal then and so that's one of the major goals of this month is taqwa and then another goal is to develop this relationship with Allah through what? ideally through his book through the Quran Allah says that the month of Ramadan he says in the Quran the month of Ramadan is the month in which the Quran was revealed it was descended right and so the Quran came to the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam right the first revelation came in the month of Ramadan generally speaking so that is it's a month of not just building a relationship with the Quran the goal of building a relationship with the Quran is to build a relationship with the one who right you want to build a relationship with the author of the Quran not I don't mean that any anthropomorphic way but in the one who revealed this book is who we want to build a relationship with we use that though by understanding his words we understand what he wants us to do and by us implementing his words we get closer to him and we start to attain this state of taqwa so the more we do this then what starts to happen we get to this state of okay Allah we put in the effort Allah begins to forgive us and Allah pulls us closer to this state of nearness to him the next point we want to mention is that this is a unique Ramadan and so why is it unique? first of all we are going to not be able to do things in the exact same way circumstances are different now the thing is time the amount of time we have is different most of us will probably have more time than we usually have because we don't have to use time in commuting or in going to school or in staying up or in going to the masjid and having the longer taraweeh at night we will have more time so what is the point of Ramadan is to take advantage of the time Allah mentioned in the Quran that Ramadan is ayyaman madudat that you have a few days it's just a few days it's just a few days and by the end of the month we start to regret when the days pass at the beginning we are like oh my god are we going to get through these 30 days this is tough I'm thirsty I'm hungry speaking of thirsty I'm going to drink some water but thirsty I'm hungry I'm tired can I even make it through this month but like day 17, 18 we are like oh snap I only got 10, 12 days left I better start working on my goals I better start working on this on everything I was trying to get and improve on in this month and so that would be an example of us trying to when we take advantage of the time it would be an example of us actually saying okay I had a goal I had an intention and no matter what I'm not just going to let myself wait till the last minute the last week of Ramadan to do my Quran no no no no I'm going to take this time seriously that I have and if we're serious about our relationship with Allah and if we're serious about all of this we will take it seriously from the beginning right we should and it's important in the time that we live in the only thing that can solve the crises of the modern world that we live in and all the problems is a seriousness taking God seriously that people have turned religion into a joke they've turned God they've turned theology into a joke they've turned God frankly speaking into a joke and we don't take Allah seriously we don't take His commandments seriously we don't take any of this seriously we take it lightly we send all these jokes about religion and whatnot okay people can have a light side to them but if that's the means of which we're joking with we take our dunya more seriously we take our jobs more seriously regularly we'll notice people will miss uh Jumma just for the sake of of something work related right okay without realizing that who's the one who is the boss of our boss at work it's Allah right so how are we going to upset our our boss right the true boss for the sake of somebody in the dunya but we have to take religion seriously it's it's in use this Ramadan to take advantage of your time to take this month seriously and the Prophet ﷺ said the one who does a farth act in this month they will have the reward of multiple in some hadith 70 farth acts and the one who does a sunnah act will have the reward of a farth act our reward is multiplied don't let this time slip away next thing is circumstances are different we're not able to engage maybe our main connection with Ramadan was that shit maybe it was tarawih maybe it was Jumma maybe it was the community ifdars all these other things alhamdulillah we've been so blessed and hopefully we will appreciate these blessings right in future years inshallah if we haven't appreciated them in the past maybe we'll take advantage of them in future years we don't have that anymore maybe somebody regularly prays in the masjid for their daily prayers and they don't get that anymore and that's where their spiritual boost came from things are different but create a plan of how you and I are going to react differently how we're going to take advantage of this month there's this quote by Mike Tyson he says everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face and the plan goes we might have had a plan for Ramadan according to what a typical schedule would be like but boom okay now things are different alright the virus has moved things in a different direction it's all good we got to take time and take advantage take time to reflect and take advantage of this month so practically what does that mean though for tarawih prayer if we're not if we're used to going to tarawih right the prayer that's um highly recommended sunnah that we do after the ishah prayer 20 rakat is the dominant opinion for the tarawih prayer we should do that at home okay sets of two sets of two even if we just do kulu wallahu had in every rakah it's still good it might take us 30 minutes to do alhamdulillah and we'll be done and we'll get immense reward ideally we can work to memorizing the other surahs and longer surahs and do that right the most virtuous thing one of the more virtuous things that we can do though is if we have missed prayers to make up let's say there was a time where we didn't really practice our religion very seriously or even right now you know we'd take our we might not be practicing I seriously might miss our prayers maybe we don't make up prayers we should first and foremost prioritize all of our missed prayers usually the prayer we most we miss the most is fajr okay fajr is two rakah so just pray two rakah to 10 10 sets of fajr every night inshallah with the intention of making up the missed prayers is more important for us to make up the missed prayer than to engage in quote unquote extra credit type prayers we have to first turn in the important assignment then we can get the extra credit we can get okay we make up 10 sets of prayer every night you do that every night in Ramadan that's 300 fajr and maybe you do some extra here and there and you could get to a whole year of fajr is made up in the nights of Ramadan right so but take that time seriously don't use that time after after iftar just because we have we don't have this kind of need to go to that we can't go to the masjid anymore and so maybe we'll get lazy don't use that time to watch tv or to hang out or to just read the news or just waste it right these are the special nights God is giving gifts every night immense gifts a divine banquet is being prepared immense gifts are being given every single night in Ramadan but who's seeking the gifts the one who seeks the gifts the one who has his hands out open in front of his or her Lord is getting the gifts but if we don't take that and we don't put our hands out in front of Allah and we're not there to get the gifts the gifts don't necessarily come we have to put in that effort and so khayam khayam in Ramadan standing in the night is one of the most important sunnahs of Ramadan so don't leave that sunnah just because tarawih is not happening put that use this training circumstances in a few ways first take advantage of the time that you and I have and fill it with good and at the very least don't fill it with bad secondly come up with a plan excuse me to have tarawih right with your family or make up your own misprayers by yourself make sure everybody in your house ideally is engaged in some effort of extra prayers at night right and third is find time then throughout the day of course to do other things but what we we should try to use this extra time at night either in good or in staying away from bad right the best thing to do is follow the sunnah of the Prophet ﷺ which is to engage in standing in the night part of the night in prayer but we should do whatever amount of good we can engage in Alhamdulillah all right so now that we understand the goals and we understand the unique circumstances the next step is to really make big intentions with regards to the month of Ramadan where the Prophet ﷺ he said that actions are by their intentions I'm very very famous Hadith that whatever intention you and I have that is what we will be evaluated according to so if you and I have a sincere intention to get close to Allah and maybe we're not able to do all the things we wanted to do in Ramadan okay inshallah we will be rewarded but it has to be sincere right that's the first so a few intentions we can make I'm just going to list out eight or nine that our teachers have mentioned first is to make an intention and we should all make the intentions right now collectively to fast the whole month and this holy month in a way that's pleasing to Allah second is this intention Ya Allah that we intend to expose ourselves to your sweet breezes and your sweet gifts in this month our third is to achieve Ya Allah and accepted repentance in this month that we should have an intention to turn close to Allah turn closer to Allah turn to Allah get closer to him and hopefully achieve a state where our repentance is accepted because we can repent and if we do it sincerely inshallah we'll be accepted if we can repent and if we don't really care and we just pretend to do it okay that's a chance it's not accepted right the fourth intention is Ya Allah we intend to recite lots of Quran or to read the translation of the Quran but to get closer to you through the Quran fifth intention is that we intend to change our lives for the better the sixth intention is we intend to have the best of character and to have such good character that people want to become closer to Allah simply by sitting with us that there are people who their state they don't even have to say much just being with them makes you want to get closer to Allah that they're calling to Allah with their state they don't need to open their mouth their state their presence is so strong that they're literally calling people to Allah through their presence and through their spiritual lights the next intention is to become immensely close to Allah in this month the next intention is that we intend to spend the nights of this month and part of the night in worship of Allah and the next intention is that we purify our hearts so that they are better after the month than they were before the month we intend to try to put effort in so that Allah can purify the heart he's the ultimate one who purifies now these are just a few intentions I would recommend all of us spend 10 minutes go on a walk sit outside sit in your room whatever write down just a bunch of intentions that you want to accomplish and then separately write down all of your goals for Ramadan and then write down all the habits that you want to work on and then write down a schedule that will allow you to achieve your goals and your intentions and your habits and inshallah if you stick to that you will have a successful very very successful month inshallah so the path to change ourselves begins though with this intention so this is the month now keep in mind this is the month where people have left lives of imansin imansin I mean there are people and who Allah has changed them in the month of Ramadan they might have been addicted to pornography might have been addicted to smoking weed selling weed selling drugs doing coke doing crack they might have been addicted to drinking might have been alcoholics we might still be in this state might might might might have been going to the club might have been partying right and Ramadan is the month where Allah gave them a special assistance and they turn sincerely to Allah and they emerge that month they could have entered that month completely soiled and all of that they emerge from the month completely clean no longer trying to party no longer trying to drink no longer trying to smoke no longer taking prayers lightly no longer taking this religion lightly and actually trying to put in effort and all of that is from Allah but it begins with the desire to change so the first thing we need to know is wherever we're at right wherever we're at on the spectrum there's room for us if whether we're at this part of the spectrum where we're engaged in all of that right okay there's room to change that's the whole point of Ramadan there's not supposed to be super Muslims we need to have time to change Allah gives us time to change Hamdullah but or we might be at a different point maybe we're praying five times a day doing our thicker doing our other car what do we do our goal in Ramadan if somebody was in that category the goal would be to deepen their relationship get in depth don't increase the quantity necessarily but increase the quality okay somebody regularly does one khatam of Quran and Ramadan okay push to do two somebody does two push to do three it's doable people can do that but of khatam of Quran right push to do two plus one in English whatever one can do right but the goal is first know what you and I want to change what do we want to change about ourselves the second is know how we are going to go about that change right that there's a famous quote you plan to fail you you you fail to plan you plan to fail and if we don't have any plans going into the month of Ramadan we're setting ourselves up for failure right but we can't let the the schedule of how maybe before the schedule of the masjid would be our plan or something like that no longer is that the case we have to actively have a plan okay what do I want to work on and if we say we have nothing to work on we have a problem if we say oh I'm fine religiously we have a problem everybody should have a deep intention inside of what we want to work on okay then know how we're going to to do it and then know what we are going to replace that bad with what good will we replace that bad with that if we were used to 30 minutes a day watching you know some some inappropriate videos or something like that on our Instagram or looking at bad things okay what are we going to replace that time with how am I going to replace it with good or at least something neutral if not something beneficial right so know what we're going to change know how we're going to do it and know what we will replace the bad with and then finally rely on Allah to help you through it how do you rely on Allah two ways first you learn about the process to change then you make Abundant Doha to ask Allah to assist you and I in the change but the learning has to come we have to learn okay I want to work on this I gossip a lot I want to work on gossiping and talking bad about people I need to turn to Allah and ask him for assistance right so that would be an example of knowing what we need to replace the next thing is to remember the larger goal that we have which hopefully is a goal of attaining taqwa and of attaining Allah's nearness inshaAllah and if we attain Allah's nearness hopefully the tranquility that we have should come with that inshaAllah I think we're having a little technical difficulties everything fine okay so now we remember the next part fasting has levels now this is beautiful fasting has levels this there's not just one level to fasting think about spirituality like a video game okay you have levels in the video game you have the person who gets to the first level it's not the same as you get to the next level to the same as person who gets to the final level and beats the boss right the goal is to beat shaitan by ascending in levels now fasting what are the levels of fasting the first is okay the limited level of fasting the first level is if you and I just fast from food and water what is fasting from food and water it's the very first basic fast okay I'm not going to eat anything I'm not going to drink anything but I don't take anything else seriously maybe I'm trying to get my prayers in etc but I'm not really trying to work on myself generally speaking most of the time that person will just get hunger and thirst from the fast it's still good from a law thick point of view it's accepted inshallah like a valid fast but we're not going to benefit necessarily from the fast right and we also fasting from food water and of course sexual relations which the three would invalidate the fast the second is the fast of the people of nearness to Allah these people they fast from food water and also from the fast of the eyes the fast of the tongue the fast of the ears the fast of the other limbs what does that mean that the fast of the eyes is to fast from things that are going to stir up desire in you that to fast from looking at haram to fast from looking down on people think about everything wrong that I could do and you are trying to fast from that as well the fast of the tongue is to think about everything wrong the tongue could do and to fast from that so to talk smack about people to backbite people, to lie, to just engage in foolish talk, to engage in talk about like sexually inappropriate jokes, to engage in talks generally about inappropriate things. Right? The higher, the closer and closer we get, remember, Takwa is a spectrum. The more we want to get to this higher level of Takwa and the higher level of tranquility, which are related, the more we will take this seriously. We will fast from more than just the food and the water and the relations. Fasting from the tongue would also include not arguing. It would also include not, not getting in disputes. Right? Many times Muslims, we get in disputes with each other about them. Your opinion in this, like for example, what's the biggest dispute that always happens? The dispute of the siding the moon, for example, to start the fast or even more, the dispute of, right? They say it's not moon siding, it's moon fighting. The dispute of siding the moon at the end of the month for Eid to begin. Okay, look, if part of the goal of Ramadan is to attain Takwa and to have a fast where you and I are fasting from the tongue, or fasting from the haram of the tongue, and among the things the tongue should not be engaged in is arguing, leave that to the scholars. And we shouldn't argue. There's no point arguing. Us lay people, we're not going to be able to resolve the disputes. Generally speaking, the sunnah is to see the moon naked eye siding is the sunnah of the Prophet ﷺ. It's the dominant traditional opinion of the Muslim schools of thought. People go with other methodologies, leave that to people to go with, but don't engage in debate about it. Right? Most of us throughout the year, we struggle with basic things. We can't wake up for Fajr. We don't pray our prayers on time. And then we're going to try and debate people about is it about moon siding or calculation? That's an, no, just focus. We just focus on the basics. Let the, let that's, that's an issue above our pay grade. Let the people who are there to solve that issue who have read and studied this Dean for 20, 30 years, understand intricacies of it, intricacies of the law, the tradition, et cetera, let them handle the specific debates. And you and I go with whatever opinion, right? We should go with whichever opinion we end up going with. And of course the dominant opinion as, as is very, very clear is the traditional opinion of actually siding the moon before you engage in something else. But we're not going to get into that discussion in, in this, but we should fast from argument, fast from arguing about anything, especially about religion. There's no need to argue about religion. There's no need to argue with like, you know, a Trump supporter about something on the internet. Like just, just don't engage with people, especially people who like to argue. Then restraining other parts of the body, right? Restraining the hands from doing the Haram is draining the feet from walking to Haram. Right now our feet are restrained because we're locked inside. So we can't go places anyways. So we hopefully won't go to the place of Haram, but restraining the hands from picking up the phone that's going to engage in looking at, right? Okay. Now time to look at my Tik Tok and just boom hour passes away. And we were just looking at silly videos of people like doing nonsensical dances and skits and whatnot. That, that would be a waste of our time. Don't, if you're taking the fast seriously, don't let your hand engage in that device. Right. Right. If we take the fast seriously, don't let the eyes engage in. Okay. Let me just watch a bunch of shows. Right. The video games should be shut off in this month. The shows, ideally we shut them up. We should fast from the television. We know, oh, now what am I going to do because I'm quarantined, right? They say it's not quarantine. It's on time. This is the month pick up the book of Allah, pick up the book and just read it in English. I guarantee you, it's more interesting than any show anybody can ever come up with or ever designed. But it might, the first like 20, 30 minutes, I'm like, I don't really understand what they're saying. You get into it hour or two hours in and it's an amazing book. And especially if we get into reading a commentary or tough seer of the Quran, we'll start to know, oh, that's what God means by this. Oh, now I can apply that in my life in this way. Okay. I'm going to take that away and I'm going to figure out how I'm going to implement it. So engaging in good with the hands and not engaging in bad would be an example of the second level of fasting. And then the other part of this level of fasting is to take it seriously with regards to eating. So the people who are near to Allah, they don't just splurge right after the fast opens, just eat a bunch of stuff and their stomach is twice as full as it would have been had they been eating throughout the day. Right? The goal is to limit the amount of food that was there throughout the day and at night time to enjoy our food, but not to overeat, because what overeating does is it creates a laziness, laziness, laziness and overall slowness of the body that prevents the beauty of spiritual that prevents the spirituality of our thicker from impacting the heart. Mama Ghazali mentioned this in his book on the benefits of hunger that the goal of hunger is to suppress the nuffs. So if at the end of the fast, we just engage in whatever we want to eat, we didn't suppress the nuffs worse than this. If at the end of the fast, let's say we were fasting from the halal all day and at the end of the fast, we go and we eat like a McDonald's burger or something and meat that we shouldn't be eating anyways, that would be the absolute worst way other than breaking the fast with like pork or something. Absolute worst way to break the fast is to break the fast with Haram food. We should very least if we even if we don't eat halal Zabiha halal in a normal life in the month of Ramadan, for sure we should be trying to take that because we're not eating anything throughout the day. So don't break your fast on the Haram. That's what the scholars say. They say, don't break the fast on Haram food either earned from Haram income or slaughtered inappropriately or incorrectly. So that would be an example of again, how seriously do we want to take our religion? So that's the second level of fast. That's the fast we should be trying to aspire to. There's a third level known as the fast of the elite of the elite, the closest of people to Allah. And what is that? That is the fast to restrain the soul from any thought throughout the day except Allah and that any thought that comes throughout the day of anything other than Allah for that person, the highest virtue of the fast is broken and they descended a level. Their fast at the highest level was broken. Now they descended to the next level, to the other level. Right. And so these people, they don't even engage in thinking about worldly matters, let alone in thinking about the food that they're going to eat. You know, for most of us like four or five PM, we're starting to get hungry or maybe earlier than that. And we're starting thinking, oh, I'm going to have this, I'm going to have fruit and then samosa and I'm going to have make a barbecue tonight. We're just thinking it's okay to think about that. But these people, they're so concerned about Allah, they're so concerned about their heart that they don't even think about anything other than Allah. So these are very, very, these are, of course, the highest stations. These are the stations of the prophets and the highest of people. Our goal is what to know about this and try to achieve it for like 20 minutes a day, maybe 20 minutes a week, just a portion of our day that we just sit and think only about Allah and remember Allah. How do we do that? We start by doing vicar, vicar of the tongue eventually leads to vicar of the heart and vicar of the heart is a remembrance, which permeates throughout the body. And that permeate, that, that, that type of vicar, it makes us only desire Allah, right? It begins with, okay, stop for Allah, stop for Allah. Then you realize what you're saying. Yeah, Allah, forgive me. Then you realize who is Allah. He is the creator of the heavens on the earth. Who are we? We are sinful slaves and we start to, the meaning start to come in and then the humility starts to show and then we're just thinking about Allah for, and then maybe somebody gets in a sincere state and the tears start to shed and then they start to make dua to Allah, right? Those are the times where it's, we're fasting from anything other than Allah. At that time, we don't want to, we're not going to be, we're not going to try to think about a hamburger, french fries or something like that or ice cream. We're going to be thinking about, we're trying to have moments of our day. So aspire to not be at level one, try to, to expand at the level two and try to have portions of our day at this highest level of level three or portions of our week. Then the next main goal of Ramadan is to reform our habits. This is on multiple levels. The habits of the human being, they bring us down. Allah says in the Qur'an that the one who, he says, by time, that by time the human being is in loss, except those who are engaged in good, those people who believe in Allah and they're engaged in good. So we should have a practical plan to remove the habits that we're engaged in that are harmful to us. So an example in generally science, most research shows that anywhere from 20 and the most opinions there are 40 days, 20 to 40 days to change a habit. Ramadan is right there at 30 days. 30 days we began to change a habit, we can change a habit. What are most habits that we've developed in our time? We should all make a commitment to fast at the very least. In addition to fasting, the fast of the eyes and the fact, of course, the actual fast, we should make a commitment to fasting from media in this month, right? And fasting, at least reducing the media consumption, if we can't remove it completely, because we are inundated these days with Netflix, with Instagram, with Twitter, with Snapchat, with TikTok, with Facebook, with Hulu, I mean, so much YouTube, so much is out there just wasting our time. And of course, there's using that for beneficial reasons. That's fine. But just wasting, wasting, wasting time, let's make a commitment to reduce that and to not just make our days about silly things we're posting online so we can get a few followers and likes and laughs and this false state of self-validation that we are trying to get from human beings. Validation does not come from human beings. Validation comes from the Lord of human beings. If the Lord of human beings is content with us, he hit, that's enough validation. We don't need likes and followers and all this other stuff. That's a, all that is nonsense. That's, that's a modern concept that has unfortunately infiltrated our minds. And in the past, right, what would happen is that the people who are trying to harm us would colonize our, our, our, our lands. And now what's happened is that the lands are generally no longer colonized, but our minds are now colonized with false ideas that go against, they're the antithesis of our, our religion. They're the antithesis of our understanding of religion and virtue and whatnot. So it doesn't mean we have to get rid of all of it. I would recommend we try for sure. Recommend if somebody can just put the TV, the screens, everything away this Ramadan, inshaAllah, I guarantee you have an amazing Ramadan because you will actually have time to think and to be with Allah. But if we can't, okay, we reduce it. What do we do? Pick a few platforms and reduce. Maybe today, every day right now, we're watching three hours of shows or time on social media and on our phones. Okay. First week, we say I'm going to reduce it to the one and a half hours in the first week. Okay. I'm going to still do a little bit. I'm going to reduce it. If we can't get rid of it completely, practically the second week, I'm going to reduce it to one hour of time only. The third week, I'm going to reduce it to half an hour in the last 10 nights. I'm going to eliminate it completely. That would be a plan for gradual reduction, right? Gradual reduction or any harm we're doing. Again, I'm giving example in media, but let's say like we're doing something that's, you know, that's, we're struggling. Maybe somebody's addicted to pornography, not giving example, somebody's addicted to pornography. Okay. Well, obviously during the day of fasting, let's say somebody's able to control that. But at nighttime, they are still engaging and watching inappropriate videos. Okay. The plan would be ideally leave it immediately. If they're not able to, to reduce, reduce, reduce and then eliminate at the end and then ask Allah for repentance and to emerge from the month clean of that sin. Any sin we're engaged in, right? But if we have eliminated most of those sins, then we work on making sure we're not wasting time, right? Same thing goes for listening. Let's say we just are constantly listening to, to, to, to wrap where like a misogynistic wrap. Okay. Well, probably not that it's definitely not good for our hearts. Every time we hear something that is actually bad to do, it has a bad impact. It leaves a black dot on the heart and actually the impression of what was said actually is drawn spiritually on the heart of the human being, according to Mama Qazali. Then the human being's desire is stirred according to what we heard. Okay. So an example there reduced the amount we listened to in the first week, then more in the second week, then third more and then the third week. Okay. Maybe we shift from listening to, to something inappropriate to something more appropriate to then eventually listening to classical music or something. And then finally in the last week, we eliminated altogether. And then we emerged trying to be clean from that. Don't think it's not possible for Allah to flip us immediately. It's completely possible for him. He's done it in the past. There's many stories of the great people of Allah who used to be in the worst of states. Look at somebody like Malcolm X, right? The Shahid of America. I mean Allah have mercy on him that Malcolm X was engaged. He was literally a hustler. He was engaged in with prostitutes. He was engaged in selling drugs. He was engaged in literally some of the, what we would consider morally to be very, very serious issues. But he changed. He set on his life to change. He set on an intention to change and Allah changed him. He guided him to proper Islam. Eventually he allowed him to go on Hajj and to make a complete Toba. And he then spent the portion of his life afterwards only focused on calling to justice and on calling to the principles that Allah wants us to call to. Allah is among those who are accepted. But look at that. If it's possible for somebody who is that engrossed to change completely. It's possible for us to change completely. Never lose hope in Allah but begin the step of change. When we then eliminate these habits, pick a few physical habits and then pick a few diseases of the heart. Pick a few habits of the heart that we're engaged in. So this could be again, maybe we're engaged in looking at things, maybe we're engaged in not controlling our tongue, maybe we're engaged in getting angry. The Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, he maybe we're engaged in like not thinking before we speak. The Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam an example, he would encourage us to think before we speak to and this is at the heart level. We have to know this requires what's called in our time now emotional intelligence. Knowing what I say, how will it impact the person with the situation that they're facing? How will it make them feel? One of the things that we might engage in is maybe we say something we shouldn't have said and we don't have any filter in our religion. It's all about making sure that we have a filter between our tongue and between what we actually say to other people because we think of a lot of things. If we all said what we thought, we'd be in trouble. We think, okay, no, I shouldn't say that. Like why am I thinking that? Okay, I need to work on that. I need to make told, but why am I thinking that? Right? But anger, it comes when we don't have any filter between the thought and what we say. Anger is controlled when we say, okay, bismillah. You say some dicker, put a filter, go and make wudu with cold water because anger is fire and hot and wudu will calm it down. These are advice from the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. Okay, now we think about what we say and we start working on this disease of anger and just saying whatever comes to us. That would be an example of a trait of the heart that we should pick. We should pick one trait of the heart that we want to work on. Do I get angry easily? Do I am I super impressed? Am I so into my looks that I want to make sure I look this way perfectly? I get the most amount of likes on my photo and it's taking it a golden hour and shooting it at the right time so that I can get, okay, that's called ujjubinar tradition or narcissism being obsessed with ourselves. It's a disease of the time we live in with the selfie culture. That would be a disease we would recommend working on. Eliminate all the selfies for the whole month and stop being concerned about what people think and be concerned about a lot of things. These would be, we know what we struggle with. Once we know what we struggle with, once we know what's considered good, now we just have to go on the path of getting from where we are to getting on the path of virtue. It's very simple conceptually. It's not as easy practically but Allah can make it easy for us because He says in the Qur'an that for Him it is as simple as saying, kun fa yakun bi and it is and that He assists those who put in the effort. So we should come out then in this situation with one media habit we want to get rid of, one heart disease of the heart that we want to work on and then some other habit we want to work on and then add in good things that we can do in the time. Eliminate a few bad things, add in three or four good things. If we do that, we will have a very successful Ramadan because Ramadan is about change, it's about turning towards Allah and actually changing. What are good habits that we can do? Among the good habits we can engage in. Three things. Spend our time seeking knowledge is one of the best things we can do. If we spend our time, for example, if we don't know the proper etiquettes of fasting or how to properly pray or make wudu, those would be on the fixed side. If we don't know the diseases of the heart, if we don't know what we're supposed to believe about Allah, if we haven't spent time learning about the life of the Prophet ﷺ, these are all things. The first ones I mentioned of course are mandatory for us to learn and then these other ones are very virtuous for us to learn. We should spend time 20-30 minutes a day seeking knowledge, the one who seeks knowledge that the angels in the heavens and the fish in the ocean are making to offer them as it comes in the tradition. That it's one of the most virtuous things that we can do is spend some time seeking knowledge. When we read the Quran, especially in English, we make the niyah. One of the niyah is to extract the knowledge from the Quran and to use that time as getting reward for seeking knowledge. So it's one of the best good habits we can have. The second one is to actually spend time with the Quran. That biker is always good and Quran is the best biker. So reciting the Quran is immensely virtuous. If we don't know Arabic, we should spend this time, how to read Arabic, spend this time in Ramadan learning the basics of how to read Arabic. Then if we learn that, spend time trying to recite the Quran, one page a day, half a page a day. If we can do a whole chapter a day, which is 20 pages, we do that. If we can do more than one a day, 20, 40, 50 pages, very doable. If we just bake it in our schedule. If somebody were to read four pages after every prayer, very easy, very doable, simply. It takes us maybe 10, 20, maybe 30 minutes, okay? Four pages after every prayer. And then at the end of the day, they've read a whole chapter of Quran. One whole just don't try to break it or do break it down. Don't try to only get it in like, okay, it's the weekend. I'm going to try to get it all my Quran. And because what ends up happening is we get lazy and we don't end up finishing. And then one more year goes by where our goals are not met. So knowledge is one of the best things we can do. Quran is one of the best things we can do. And generally, Dua and other types of biker are among the other habits we can ink. Okay. Right. And then of course, we might not spend our whole day doing that. But of course, you have normal activities that we do. We are, you know, preparing food and we're working and learning, going to school, et cetera. But as long as we're making good intentions, just remember that the whole time you and I are fasting, we're just sitting there. We're getting rewarded as long as we're not engaged in sin. When you engage in sin, the fastest, not canceled. When I mentioned earlier, the levels of fasting, it's not that the fast, it's not that your fast is broken. Just your reward is diminished to me. And so you could have somebody who fasting, but they sin so much, the whole reward of the fasting is gone. The fast is still valid from a law point of view. But the goal is to be fasting, get a minimum reward with fasting, or get a certain reward, and then go beyond that by doing more. And then Quran and then biker and then knowledge and then, you know, serving people and talk in all these, all these ways to keep building and building. Among the other things we can do is spend our time serving people, spend our time serving our families. We should not overburden our families. We should definitely not overburden our mothers or our wives or other people to cook a bunch of delicious food for us, right? We should be involved, right? Especially the men be involved in helping out in the cooking and in the cleaning and everything else that's necessary so that our loved ones, our spouses, our mothers, others are able to actually have time. And of course, and same goes for the, for others in the family, that whoever is the one who does most of the work, we should do it as a team, right? Not one person should not have to do all of it. So that everybody has time to spend in Quran and spend time with Allah. So a good schedule, what's a good schedule? A good schedule would be that we are able to use this time to, okay, we're praying Fajr, of course, we try to pray the extra Nawafil prayers, the Prophet's Salaam recommended, Salaat al-Duha is the prayer that the Prophet's Salaam recommended praying anytime from 15 minutes after sunrise to about 15 minutes before Lahore. That's, we should make that a virtuous thing we do. We should have a portion, maybe 5, 10, 20 minutes where we learn knowledge. Most of the Masajid are going to have classes or talks regularly every day, maybe some after us or maybe some after or before Isha, live stream talks, we should make an intention to try to benefit from those talks or other talks that are out there, right? Have a portion of our day where we recite Quran and have a portion of our day where we serve people and help others. So that would be five things, engaging in prayers, engaging in Quran, engaging in knowledge, engaging in dhikr and dua and engaging in serving others. Those would be the five things we can do to build our schedule appropriately, inshaAllah. And alhamdulillah, we are just going to now wrap up, just want to quickly mention just some quick thick review for Ramadan and then we will wrap up, we'll end with question and answer and we'll wrap up inshaAllah. So an apologies for going along, this is a lot of stuff we're just trying to pack in, just get the most critical things done. So the thick of Ramadan, the law of Ramadan, right? So just going to briefly mention, this is according to the Hanafi school, we have four schools in Islam, the Hanafi, the Shafi, the Maliki and the Hamdi school, and it's obligatory for us to follow one of those schools in our religion or to try our best to follow one of the schools in the religion, inshaAllah. So according to the Hanafi schools, first of all Ramadan is begun, how does it start? The month of Ramadan begins when the moon is sighted. This is the sunnah, it's the prophecy them told us to not fast on what's called yomashak, the day of doubt, which is the day when we don't know whether or not it is the first day of Ramadan. But again, we mentioned that earlier, we're not going to get into that whole thing. Ideally, we fast according to the sighting of the moon, we break our fast according to the sighting of the moon for Eid. Then next thing is sahur time. Okay, sahur time officially ends completely when fudger has come in. But we should, because we don't 100% know of every single thing that we're seeing on our clocks and our phone is appropriate, five to ten minutes before fudger comes in, we should end this sahur. Let's say fudger comes in at 4.50, we should stop eating and drinking water by like 4.45 latest. We should definitely not go to like 4.49 and 58 seconds or something like that. That's not a wise idea. If you and I, if fudger enters, we should have stopped already eating, drinking everything. The last bit of food should have already been come into our system. We can't take this lightly because the one who fasts even one minute, even 30 seconds after fudger has entered, the one who fasts, that fast requires makeup. And the one who does that intentionally, it requires what's called makeup with expiation, makeup with kafada, where the kafada is of one intentionally does that, knowing fudgers in and they keep eating just to get the last sip in. They know fudgers in one minute. It requires literally, it's very serious in our religion, 60 days of continual fasting or feeding 60 people. It's very, very serious, just to make up for obligatory fast. Then iftar, iftar is not only according, so our phone sometimes will tell us when mugrib is and they'll tell us mugrib according to the sunset. The astronomical sunset as evaluated according to most of our apps on the phone, we need to add three minutes of to that clock in order to ensure that the sun has actually gone below the horizon. That is the actual mugrib time. We should keep that in mind and wait three minutes, not 12 minutes, not 30 minutes that that's not a good thing. So delayed the waking of the fast, but three minutes, generally speaking, so if your sunset time says 751, 754 would be the right time to break it, not 751. Most of the massages have updated their calendars with this, but this is something for us to keep in mind that three minutes of being careful because the astronomical sunset is not the same as the sun disk actually going below the horizon, which is the criterion in our religion for the fast to actually end and for the mugra prayer to begin. This is in and out of Ramadan. We should not begin mugrib a normal day either when mugrib is not actually entered. Okay, what actually invalidates the fast, right? So there's two parts of invalidating the fast. You have what's called invalidating the fast with requires kafada, which requires expiation, and you have what's called invalidating the fast, which just requires makeup of one day. Three things will for sure invalidate the fast eating something on purpose, drinking something on purpose or engaging in sexual intercourse on purpose. Those will invalidate the fast completely requires 60 days of continual fasting to make that up outside of the month of Ramadan. So that's very serious. We should obviously not eat something on purpose. We should not even if like we're outside and it's raining and we're like just the rain water enters and we're trying to swallow it on purpose invalidates the fast and requires that. So we have to be very, very careful, right? Then you have what's called being invalidating the fast and requiring us to make up not 60 days in a row, not having the kafada, but requiring us to make up one day of requiring us to make up that day that we broke. Example of that would be like something even as simple as biting our nails, anything entering the simple thing to keep mine, anything entering any of your cavities, the mouth, through the nose, through the ears, or through any of the other orifices in the human body will invalidate the fast and will require a makeup of that day does not require the 60 days makeup in the Hanafi school, but it requires a makeup of that day. So even if something is simple, like I know and my wife will tell me I struggle with biting my nails, I got to stop. It's already a silly habit. I know I need to work on it. But in Ramadan, it will invalidate the fast for that day and you would have to. So it's it's serious. Just like people say, why is it so restrictive? Just like Wudu, right? Something like Wudu, you could you could literally make your whole Wudu and then like you have a little, you know, release of gas, light release, your whole Wudu is done. You have to remake it, right? The law of this religion is set by Allah and we follow the law according to what we can't swallowing water while rinsing our mouth. Even on accident requires makeup and the fast for that day is broken. It requires makeup for the fast. And when you break the fast unintentionally, you actually have to keep fasting. You can't just start eating, but you also have to make it up. So we have to be extra careful. Most of the scholars will say that brushing the teeth and having toothpaste with sugar in the mouth will invalidate the fast and will require makeup for that day. So the recommendation for most of our teachers is to use the miswak and to and or use our toothbrush without toothpaste and just to, you know, we're not going to work and stuff. Anyways, it's all on remote. So hopefully there's no issue there. For asthma inhalers, eardrops, again, anything entering either of the cavities in the human being, it will invalidate the fast and require one day of makeup. The only thing that requires kaffar of 60 days of makeup that we mentioned is intentionally doing something, intentional intercourse, intentional food, intentional drink. If somebody engages in kissing with their spouse or engages in any type of sexually arousing activities that then results in actual ejaculation. The fast for that day is broken. They do not have to have kaffar unless they actually engaged in intercourse. So these are some of the examples. What's fine in most of the schools. Eyedrops are generally fine. Injections are fine. IVs would generally be fine. And even like taking a shower and whatnot is fine. But we have to be really careful to make sure water is not entering us in any way. When we're doing would do don't do every single thing to make sure the water doesn't go down. Do a light linting of the mouth and just be very, very careful. And regarding sickness, so hopefully that makes sense. There's fasting, which is mandatory kaffara, 60 day expiation, which are intentionally breaking the fast by food, by drink or by intercourse. There's something that will invalidate the fast requires us to make up one day of the fast, which is the ones we just mentioned. And then there's what's allowed, which we also mentioned. And then regarding sickness, it should be a serious and a real sickness that a Muslim doctor has told us we can't fast. Not like, oh, my head hurts. I can't fast. Oh, I'm tired. I can't fast. Oh, if I fast, my head will start hurting a lot. It's going to become difficult. No, no, no. The sickness has to actually be real. And if somebody gets to the point where they have to open the fast or break the fast, that's different. But we don't enter upon it of all my thoughts hurting a little bit. I shouldn't fast. Or because we're scared of the coronavirus and we need to think we have to hydrate. We don't fast, right? We have to be really, really careful here of how seriously we take a fit in our religion is very important. And we have to make sure we understand what breaks the fast and what doesn't make the fast, but purposefully missing the fast for any reason requires 60 days of continual fasting in most of the schools. So keeping that in mind. And lastly, inshallah, we're just going to end with a few spiritual hacks and shortcuts in our religion, five shortcuts that we have in our religion to get us the most benefit of fasting. You have what's called the shortcut of the hajjud, the praying, the prayer right before fajr time, right? So ideally we eat sahur and 10, 15 minutes we stop eating and we go and we engage in what's called the hajjud prayer. It's a prayer that the Prophet's son would do every single day. Doa is regularly being answered at that time. That's the first shortcut. Do that regularly, two rakat for five minutes a day will go a really, really long way in terms of our spirituality. Second is you have what's called staying up after fajr and praying the ishrak prayer after the sunrise or any time before doha enters. The Prophet's son said, the one who prays fajr and uses the time until the sun rises in remembering Allah. And then they pray two rakat of doha of ishrak. What do they get? They get the reward of a complete hajj and umrah. Complete, complete, complete. In some narrations he emphasized it three times. So guess what? Makkah is closed, but we could be doing umrah every single day. All we have to do is sit from the time of fajr till the time of ishrak and read Quran, read something beneficial, listen to something beneficial, do some dhikr, talk to Allah, make doaa. Of course pray, do this after we prayed fajr and we'll get this secret reward. So that's spiritual hack number two. Spiritual hack number three is spending our time learning and while we're fasting and especially learning what's important to learn in this deen will actually give us multiple, multiple rewards because Allah emphasizes knowledge and he emphasizes us seeking out knowledge when it is obligatory and you're getting immense reward when you're seeking out knowledge especially if it's obligatory. The fourth hack is to spend a lot of time in doaa because the doaa, the fasting person is not rejected especially at the time before the fast. 15 minutes before the fast comes, make sure we're there sitting before Allah presenting our needs to him before the fast finishes before Maghrib and our doaa inshaAllah is being answered and then the final one is use this month to develop a deep relationship with your Lord and get intimate, have an intimate relationship with Allah. That's the goal of this month to actually have an intimate relationship with Allah that should ideally be done through his book right through the Quran but whatever means works for us right. We aspire to that and then we eventually deepen it by deepening our relationship with the Quran. Think of the Quran, it's a love letter that was sent by your beloved to you. Allah personally has the Quran, there's stories there personally addressed to each one of us because Allah loves us. Now he's going to ask us on the day of judgment, did you read my love letter? You did all this stuff. You read every book for your school and your math book and your English book and all these other books but did you read the letter that I sent you, the book that I sent you and if the answer is no it's going to be really embarrassing. So spend the time and it's and we are going to lose because Allah doesn't stand to gain or lose from anything from us. We are the ones who stand to gain or the ones that end up losing and so use this time wisely to get a connection to the Quran and finally be in service of other people and with these spiritual hacks with the Hajj with Ishraq with spending time learning with making dua and doing dhikr and with serving other people inshaAllah. The Prophet ﷺ he mentioned that the one who feeds a fasting person has the reward of the fasting person. So just go and prepare a bunch of food for your whole family and you'll get that reward inshaAllah. So these are some of the secrets inshaAllah. Hopefully this was beneficial. I know we've gone over time. Just a last takeaway is remember be excited about this month. It's an immensely blessed month. The doors of heaven are open inshaAllah. The doors of hell are closed. The shayatin are locked up. Secondly, have a goal of trying to attain a state of nearness and intimacy with Allah and a state of being conscious of Him and a state of being trying to attain a state of tranquility which if we attain taqwa we should then eventually that tranquility will accompany that taqwa that we have. And the more perturbed we are when situations happen that don't go our way the more that's a sign that we have to work harder to attain this state of taqwa. The third is that we should make big intentions in this month and we listed out some of the intentions earlier for what we can make sit down and make big intentions. The fourth takeaway is make a serious effort to get on the path to change in this month. The fifth takeaway is pick a specific platform of media to leave for this month because it's bringing us down and it's not the goal is Allah's closing hell which is supposed to bring us close out the doors of your nuffs and other habits which bring us down. The sixth is pick other habits that we want to work on some have bad habits that we have right. The seventh is pick a trait that we want to work on. Okay, the trait I get angry easily I'm arrogant. I am obsessed with my looks all these bad traits that we might have pick certain ones to work on. The eighth is to spend time learning spend time learning ideally learn the laws that are obligatory for our religion to practice our religion and spend time learning how to get closer to Allah. And lastly, the ninth takeaway is use this time wisely make a lot of dua speak to your Lord and emerge from this month completely pure completely clean and attaining the highest states of nearness to Allah that Allah says in the Quran that he honored Bani Adam. He says he gave them immense potential and he says that he created the human being in the best of forms. This is our chance to go from the state that we are in right now and to achieve the potential that we have. Allah believes in us and he believes in our potential. The question is do we believe in ourselves and do we believe in our Lord? Use this time wisely inshallah. Let this Ramadan be the best Ramadan that we have. Use the time that we have extra because of this situation to our benefit and Allah will give us the reward for everything we were intending to do even if we can't do it and much much more and inshallah keep us and your masajid in your duas. If anybody has questions, inshallah, we will answer them. Please just leave them in the comments or the live chat. This marina is asking what can be said about a lot of our masajid and religious groups utilizing social media to promote their programming especially in this time. Do you seem to be the only way we can be aware of which programs we can have to have the wash all throughout the place? Bismillah. So the question is regarding social media and the fact that many platforms are social media platforms are being used for purposes of khair for purposes of good with masajid but talk. So generally speaking as long as somebody has discipline and can control control their time, there's nothing wrong with like quote unquote keeping our social media accounts active right? That's that's if we're using it for good that's all good. What we're trying to distance ourselves from though is the time when we get when we waste the time. So we can do many things right? We can have many of the many of the Facebook lives, many of the YouTube lives that are happening don't necessarily require an account to actually watch so we can keep that in mind if we want to disable our account in order to not waste time or we just have limits and restrictions on ourselves. Okay, I'm not going to do this beyond the hour or 20 minutes that I watched something good and maybe five, 10 minutes to check up on a few other things but we have to just it's about disciplining the nuffs and not giving it more. When the nuffs gets one thing, you give your nuffs one chocolate covered strawberry, right? It's going to want five more. It's going to want more, more, more, more. But if you just give it the bare minimum and just put the rest away and say I'm not giving you anything else and your nuffs is able to be disciplined, that will actually be very beneficial. So the goal really here is to be balanced, to be disciplined and to know what we can handle and what we can handle. But definitely if our intention is to use it for good, Alhamdulillah, we should use it for good and just have a degree of scrupulousness and discipline about it, inshallah. Next question is, does the feeding of others for 60 days include all meals of the day for 60 days or just one meal each day for 60 days? The feeding of others generally speaking includes one meal for that person. So you could feed 60 people one meal and generally speaking, I believe according to the Hanafi school, that would suffice the requirement. However, there are restrictions here and it gets into some technicalities. If somebody is able to fast, some of the schools will say that you have to actually do the fast before you can feed the people. The feeding requirement there, the feeding kind of dispensation is there for let's say those who are elderly or those who are weak and they're not able to. But because, you know, we're all weak, let's at least if we made the mistake, we should go feed 60 people, inshallah, find a place to go online, donate Islamic relief or something, feed about 60 people and then we should try at some point to make the intention to do the 60 fasts in a row if we can. That would be the to do things with Ehsan, inshallah. What's the difference between wither at the Hajj and tarawih? What is the difference between wither at the Hajj and tarawih? Great question. So let's start with wither. Wither is a wajib prayer in the Hanafi school and in most of the other schools it is considered a highly recommended sunnah. Wajib would mean the right below the level of fard but it's sinful if we leave it. So what it would be is with the wither prayer is ordained as three rakah regardless of the time of year. So that is a prayer that you're supposed to do after Isha, anytime after Isha until fajr three rakah with the niyah of salat al-witzar. The Hajj prayer is a specific nafila prayer known as a super auguratory prayer. It is not a prayer that has the status of wajib or the status of fard but it is the best prayer. The Prophet ﷺ said praying at night is the best prayer after the fard prayer. The Hajj prayer is something the Prophet ﷺ did every night and most of the scholars say that it is mandatory for the Prophet ﷺ. It was mandatory for him. Allah made it fard for him to do the Hajj prayer and it brought him nearer and nearer to Allah because it is a time when you are alone with your Lord and it is a time when you are communing with your Lord in the state of being alone with him. It is generally considered as again praying anytime after Isha until before fajr. But it is a different niyah. Generally it's prayed in sets of two rakah with the niyah of nafil with the niyah of tahajjud. So that would be and the best time is the time right before fajr. Let's say the last third of the night, the last two or three hours before fajr. The tarawih prayer is a prayer that the Prophet ﷺ did in Ramadan. So the other prayers you mentioned with there you have to do all year long. Tahajjud you can do all year long. You don't have to but you can. Tarawih is something that was ordained in Ramadan as something you and I could do on our own in our homes or in congregation in the masjid and the different schools of thought will differ on which one is more virtuous. Some of the schools do say actually it's more virtuous to pray at home. Others will say it's more virtuous to pray in congregation and the tarawih prayer does not have to have a khatam associated with it. You still have a valid tarawih prayer while doing as we mentioned earlier in every rakah. Tarawih prayer in the Hanafi school takes the ruling of sunnah muakkadah and emphasize sunnah in Ramadan as it is very important to keep. So if somebody had the option of doing something nafil and something sunnah muakkadah it would be more important to engage in the sunnah muakkadah in Ramadan and to engage in khayam and in standing in tarawih and then to go and do the other beneficial actions that we want to do. Hopefully that clarifies. Can we pray tarawih behind TV? I think they mean can we pray it behind like a live? The question there is can we pray tarawih behind a live stream? The dominant opinion right now is no we cannot pray tarawih behind a live stream so we should what we should do is we should pray Isha at home we should pray tarawih do our best to pray tarawih at home right with whatever surahs we know and if we have a few people in the house let's establish a jamah and a congregation together you just need a man and his wife can establish jamah your kid you and your kids could establish jamah right you could pray in congregation or pray by yourself and the other thing to keep in mind is that if we want like throughout the some of the masjid mashallah mcc and lighthouse both I know are going to be having Quran recited by the hafad that would have generally led the prayer they're going to be having Quran recited it will either be live streamed or posted every day so we should listen to that Quran if we want to get it in or listen to the Quran while we read our own and kind of getting it in but generally speaking it's not among the dominant opinions to follow a prayer in live stream we want to be careful of doing that if we want to make up missed prayers from previous years should we focus on that over tarawih after Isha if we want to make up missed prayers over previous years should we focus on that over tarawih after Isha yes I myself will be doing that I definitely have missed prayers to make up and definitely will inshallah make the niyah to be doing that versus engaging in extra prayers in tarawih so the niyah there would be that we come up with whatever we should have a sense of how many years we have if three years five years we should know is it fudgers though or as us or as maghrib isha or all of them we should then kind of write all that down track it in some way and then just take it off one day by one day but believe me in Ramadan if we use it wisely you can get through a lot because a lot of barakah inshallah but yes it does take precedence over any extra prayer that we do even throughout the day it's better to engage in extra missed prayers than to engage in extra nafil prayers that's it alhamdulillah inshallah may Allah bless this Ramadan for everybody may he make it a means of immense nearness to him and inshallah we will all reunite as a community again soon inshallah and I hope that that you all have a very blessed Ramadan Bismillahir photographim Alhamdulillah la ilaha illa Allah Subhanakak allow us to get nearer to you in this Ramadan than we ever have you Allah Allah allows to turn to you in repentance you Allah and allow us to attain a sincere repentance by means of which all of the sins that we have done you Allah are completely forgiven you Allah let that repentance permeate our bodies your Allah and allow us to become people who want to change Allah and who want want to help Ya Rabbi Alaymin Ya Allah, who want to help others Ya Allah and who want to serve others Ya Rabbi Alaymin Ya Allah. Ya Allah use us in your work Ya Alahaım Ar Rahimi Ya Allah. Ya Allah allow us to be beacons of light in this time Ya Alahaim Ar Rahimi Ya Allah and lift is disease from humanity and from our communities Ya Allah and make this time in this Ramadan full of immense barakah for us Ya Allah and limit the time that we waste Ya Alahaim Ar Rahimi Ya Allah and turn our hearts towards you Ya Ya Allah and allow this to be the best of ramadans and change us completely in this Ramadan Ya Alahaim Ar Rahimi Ya Allah and make this time easy for us and make the fast easy for us and make the fast full of barakah for us and make the fast light for us and make the fast full of light for us Ya Alhamdulillah I mean we ask you for everything the Prophet ﷺ asked for in this blessed month Ya Allah Ya Rabbi Ya Allah Ya Allah we ask you for everything he asked for and we ask for protection for everything evil that he asked for. Wa salallahu wa sallam wa barakah ala Sayyidina Muhammadin wa ala alayhi wa sahbihi wa sallim Wa alhamdulillahi rabbil alameen. One last question, are we required to make up prayers before puberty? The question is, are we required to make up prayers before puberty? No. Any farad that is ordained on the Muslim comes when you attain the state of being balig or the state of puberty. So this fasting, prayer, zakat, those are the farads that will come and come in upon a Muslim when they reach puberty and then Hajj when we have the means and the time to do it after puberty as well. So no, we don't have to make up prayers before puberty. JazakAllah Khair. As-salamu alaykum wa rahmatullah.