 Peace be upon you. Peace be upon you too. Peace be upon the Alawites, peace be upon you. So Inshaallah we're going to spend a little bit of time just talking tonight about preparing for Ramadan and the way we're going to structure it. Those will first start by talking about the virtues and the predicates of the month of Ramadan just to kind of help get our mindset refreshed a little bit, since obviously it's been about a year. And then inshaAllah we'll go ahead and talk about some of the goals of this blessing month and then some of the spiritual work that we should try to intend as we get into this month. And then we'll finish off with the six, kind of a very high level overview of some of the rules of the month of Ramadan and fasting. And then we'll have time for a question and answer. So the one of the most important things to remember about the month of Ramadan is it is, while it's a month of fasting, there's a lot more that's going on in the month of Ramadan as a means to try to draw the believer closer to Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta'ala. As we know that the Prophet, peace be upon him, told us that when Ramadan enters, when the first night of Ramadan enters, Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta'ala locks up the shayateen and the jinn and he locks up hell entirely, he locks up Jahannam. And the Prophet, peace be upon him, told us that no door of hell is left open. And he says then, he opens all the doors of heaven and out of single doors, and that there's a caller that calls out that tells those people who are seeking good to come forth and to encourage them to do good and those who are seeking the opposite of good to do something wrong to stay back. And then the Prophet, peace be upon him, told us that it is a month in which Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta'ala saves a lot of people who may have originally been going to the fire from the fire. And so the first thing the Prophet, peace be upon him, is telling us here is it is a month in which the forces that pull us towards our angelic nature, the heavenly nature that's inside of the human being. Remember that Adam, peace be upon him, father Adam, peace be upon him, was created to be in Jannah originally. And so those doors are all open, that pull should be happening, that magnetic pull is happening. And the lower forces which pull us towards our lower self, our nafs and the shayateen that are present, those doors are closed. And so we now have to know, okay, it's really up to us how we're going to approach this one, because Allah is making it a lot easier. He's saying I'm going to make it easier for you to stay away from your desires, and I'm going to make it easier for you to do what's right. And then he leads it to the human being, he's saying now the rest of the work is left up to us. Are we going to move towards our desires, or are we going to restrain our desires? Because fasting is a symbol, it's a metaphor for staying away from something halal, which means that we should also, outside of Ramadan, everybody's heard this before, be able to stay away from something that is haram. And so it is a month, first thing to notice, a month in which the spiritual khimma should start to increase, because Allah actually makes it easier for us to get closer to him by facilitating the opening entirely of Jannah and completely closing out the doors of hell. And then the Prophet ﷺ also told us that it is a month of immense, immense forgiveness. And this is not to be underplayed, that every single day in the month of Ramadan, from the minute the month enters, there is mercy that is being distributed throughout the heavens and the earth. And there are angels that are asking forgiveness for the believers simply because the believers are fasting. And the Prophet ﷺ told us that in this month five blessings are given to his ummah that were not given to ummahs before. The first blessing is that on the first night of the month of Ramadan, Allah gives a special gaze, a special nether to this ummah. And it is mentioned in other narrations that the one who gets this gaze will not be in a state of wretchedness after that. Secondly, that the smell that you accumulate while fasting, right, kind of towards the end of the day, that Allah actually likes that smell. It's more beautiful to him than the smell of perfume or musk. Third, as we mentioned, the angels are making repentance for the believers while you and I are fasting. The angels are observing the fasting, they're saying, They're literally seeking repentance for the believing men and women. So again, they're helping us out in this journey. And then the fourth, as we mentioned, similar to the other hadith, where Allah is actually telling and commanding heaven to prepare itself for the believers. And there's people in this month who may not have been going towards the direction of heaven, their life will change completely. And they will start going towards that direction. That's what it means when we say the doors, when it's mentioned that the doors of heaven are open and the doors of hell are closed. It's not like any single person here is going to heaven right now, or God forbid, going to Jahundah right now. We're in Santa Mon, that's not possible, right? But it means that the correction happens. Someone is maybe headed in one direction, the door is open, there's a magnetic pole that's pulling the human being in that direction, and now the life starts to change. And there's many of people, their entire life completely changed in this month of Ramadan. That they were headed toward in a very, very, very wrong direction. Maybe they were caught up in doing something majorly haram, whether it's drugs or partying or alcohol or whatever else it might be, and then the direction shifted. And one thing to note here is that Allah is being very, very merciful in this month for us to be merciful with ourselves, and especially our children and our family members. That this is not a month in which we should try to remind them of all the bad that somebody does. It's like, oh, once Ramadan ends you'll keep doing this bad thing. It's like, no, no, no, no, no. This is a month to try to encourage people to tap into the greater part of themselves, right? And this is what the Prophet, alayhi salatu wa sallam, is encouraging us to do. And lastly, he mentioned the fifth thing that is given to the believers in the month is that on the final night, everybody is forgiven in their entirety. And they ask him, he says, is this, is this lay of the Qadr? Is this the night of power? And he said, no, this is different than the night of power. That has its own blessings. He said, this is a night that just like when a worker finishes their work, they receive their wage. This is the wage that, you know, the wage that someone is getting, like this idea of complete, complete forgiveness. And so here we see that the month is a month of mercy. It's a month of forgiveness. And most importantly, it's a month of change. It's a month of us thinking through what's gotten into our hearts in the last year that we're not happy with. And where are we at spiritually compared to where we want to be? And what are we going to do practically to try to change? Everybody, when it comes to their school, their college, a master's program, or their career, most people have goals that they set. Like, I want to do this, I want to get to this level, I want to get this type of grade, I want to be promoted here, I want to make this much, whatever it is. And usually we work really, really hard to try to get to that, right, to try to achieve those goals. Adhan is meant to be a spiritual boot camp, a spiritual boot camp for the believer to say, hold on, there's other goals that are much more important than the goals we usually focus on. These are spiritual goals. These are, this is Allah now saying, time to take a break, a little bit of a break, take a little bit of a step back from everything else and really focus on me. Right, and this does not have to be a lot of quantity. The most important thing in Ramadan is quality, especially in the time that we live in. We're really, really, really busy with so much going on. But it's a time of quality change that we should find a few things inside of ourselves that we want to work on this month, right. The advice that many of the scholars give is, pick one trait, one trait that you and I have that we're not satisfied with and work on that trait. Because if you can change one bad trait in the month of Ramadan, that trait that's transformed will stick with you, inshallah, for the rest of your life. It will pay off dividends for the rest of your life, right. And if you don't know any, you feel like you have no bad traits, you can just ask our spouses and I'm sure they'll have a list of the traits and then we can pick which one to work on, right, or our family, right. But we all know something or another that we have to work on. And we should know that the religion of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam is a religion of character. It is a religion of akhla. It's not a religion of just doing acts of worship and then being a rude person or being a jerk. That's not the point of this religion. That if the acts of worship are not transforming the soul and we're not becoming better people. We're not becoming kind and gentle and merciful and compassionate with our families and our children and our spouses and so on. We're doing something wrong, right. And the month of Ramadan is supposed to be a month in which that mercy is not, Allah is giving us that mercy so that we can also distribute the mercy. We're supposed to also become more compassionate, more expensive, more magnanimous, more generous in this blessed month of Ramadan. And so keeping that in mind that it is a month of forgiveness, a month of mercy and a month of change and ideally a month where we pick specific things that we want to be doing, right. We want to and we want to work on it, inshallah. Then there's the famous ayah in the Quran that when Allah commands the believers to fast, right. That ya yuh aladina amanu kutsi baale kuma siyah that fasting has been described for you like it was prescribed for those who came before you la'allakum tattakum in order that you might attain the state of taqwa, the state of being ever mindful of Allah and realizing that God is always with you and is always watching and is always listening and is ever present. And that is again one of the deeper goals of fasting. When the believer is or when somebody for the sake of Allah limits their food intake and their water intake and their stomach is empty that opens up a door to the spiritual realm that they did not have access to before. It opens up a door to action that was also not easily accessible before but somebody has to be paying attention. Someone has to be paying attention. What I mean by paying attention that we have to be aware while we're fasting. The goal of fasting is not to make it to star time and then to eat five times as much as you would eat. That's not the goal. The goal of reducing hunger as the model of Nizali defines it that you actually start to become more astute, more clear in thinking and your spirituality becomes stronger. The spiritual eye that's within every human being. Every human being has something called basira, the inner eye. The inner eye becomes stronger through the act of fasting and that inner eye is what connects you and me to the spiritual realm that exists. The goal of fasting and one of the goals of accessing the state of Tapua is to start to feel access to that spiritual realm. It's not just to be hungry and then to be hungry, tired and cranky. That's definitely not the goal of the month, right? When somebody is in this state of hunger, that access becomes more accessible and then there's people who, while outside the month of Ramadan they try to keep their stomach light in order to keep this access very, very present. This is the Sunnah of the Prophet of As-Salaam that maybe it was not common for the Prophet Salaam or for the Sahaba to be eating often. Very few meals, one to two meals a day. Most of the prophets would eat like one meal a day and then the companions would have two meals a day according to what most of the scholars say because it was a goal to keep things light. It wasn't supposed to be all about consumption. The idea is you keep quite a little bit of food in order to keep your back straight. One must, one third food, one third water and one third food in there for air and for breathing and so on. And so the fasting is supposed to bring us back towards that because it's not part of the nature of the human being to always be eating. It's part of the nature of Western society to always be eating and snacking and fast food and so on but it's not part of the nature of the human being to always be eating and you'll notice a difference in your spiritual state when food becomes a primary focus because the idea of you and you are when you eat is very, very present in our tradition. And so it's very closely linked to Taqwa and one of the ways to identify how you and I are doing with our state of Taqwa is on one end you have heedlessness, right? Just kind of not being aware of God constantly slipping up and falling into things you should be falling into and on the other end is the state of Taqwa which is you can be defined as being really, really careful about doing staying away from wrong and doing what's right. So when this pandemic first started now people are careful, when the pandemic first started literally had everybody who was super careful with distancing and with wearing masks and with washing hands and hand sanitizer and staying away from anybody who might have been exposed or staying away from anybody who might have had any symptoms. That is Taqwa personified in one way, right? But Taqwa spiritually is to do that level of carefulness but with your theme, to be really, really careful you can't watch this, it's going to mess my eyes it's going to mess my heart up, I can't listen to this I can't say this, I can't go here I have to be careful, right? That's Taqwa. So on one end we have heedlessness which is not being aware, another end is Taqwa and then in the same spectrum you have anxiety and you have tranquility. The more Taqwa someone starts to attain the more they get closer to this inner state of tranquility and peace, the inner state of feeling calm and feeling present with Allah is very much linked to tranquility and then the more heedlessness that becomes present with somebody, the more restlessness that's accompanied. Constant restlessness, constant worry, constant stress, constant anxiety. You won't see the people of Allah Allah says in the Qur'an Inna Al-Awliya Allah La'a Khufun Aleykum Wa La'a Al-Yamsinum The Awliya of Allah, the saints, the close friends of Allah they are not ever worried nor do they have fear they're not in this state of worry, trepidation they have problems, things come up they have difficulties but the worry doesn't go deep down inside because they're trusting Allah's going to take care of it It's a sign of progression spiritually when tranquility becomes the dominant state when things start to happen in our life It's a sign of not progressing when we're constantly in a state of worry constantly in a state of worry, constantly in a state of worry One of the goals of Ramadan is to bring the community back to this reality when we go for an entire month without eating we go for an entire month without drinking we go for an entire month we're trying to ideally pray extra we're exposing ourselves to all of the spirit and light all of the spirit and light and that ideally results in a state of tranquility results in a state of calmness and tranquility So in this month of Ramadan as we start to enter one of the first things that we can do is make significant intentions that Allah the Almighty told us that actions are by their intention So just you and I first intending now the action inshallah we already get the reward for the action just by making an intention and then it's also been stated by one of the great Imam that when you make an intention Allah opens 70 doors of divine facilitation of Tawfi to be able to achieve that intention So the first thing is just intending what do we mean by intending just literally think it write it down articulate it discuss it with somebody but say I wish to do this, this and this in this month of Ramadan So the first intention we should make of course is to fast the entire month and to do it out of servitude to Allah out of love of Allah and to obey Allah and then from there we now start making our specific intentions that we want to try to fast in accordance with the Sunnah of the Prophet that we want to try and work on our bad habits that we want to try and increase in earness to Allah that we want to try and develop good habits spiritual habits as well that will allow us that we can continue after the month of Ramadan is over and so on right we want to intend to recite Quran and we intend to to stand longer in prayer and so on but the main thing to focus on is whatever things we are struggling with spiritually to use Ramadan as a time to work on those things everybody has their own challenges everybody knows their own sins that we're struggling with problems we have the attachments that we have the desires that we're falling prey to and Ramadan is a month where Allah is making it easy to work on that and there's not like one thing that one answer that's kind of present for for everybody and so that's where the path of change starts there and then from there we keep in mind okay, how am I doing on this path of heedlessness and going to talk about it like am I present or am I not present and the more present we begin to be with Allah the more we realize Allah is with us the more we start to articulate in our daily actions we start to remember Allah right this can be done by reciting a lot of the sunnah du'ad, the Prophet alayhi sallam recited when waking up when putting on your clothing when using the restroom, when making gudu and so on because the Prophet sallam was always present he was always present that when you do dhikr with everything you are present and when you are present Allah is present and shaitan will be absent but when you become absent, shaitan will be present and now the shayateen are trying to get with that and trying to mess with us and trying to whisper things and trying to really make us move in the wrong direction and so that's why presence is so important and dhikr literally means remembrance and what are you trying to you only remember when you've forgotten someone and one of the meanings of insan is the one who forgets and so the human being insan is the one who's forgotten Allah gives us dhikr to remember remember who, remember him and so Ramadan then is this month of a lot of remembrance a lot of dhikr because you're fasting and that's dhikr and you're praying and that's dhikr and then making gudu and that's dhikr and then serving the family and that's dhikr and so on there's so much dhikr going on we need to be with Allah we need to be mindful from the time that we start our day from the time that we end our day then Allah is watching and should I do something that would just please him and maybe before Ramadan yeah sure whatever that was the thought that occurred to our head but after Ramadan or during Ramadan we're like we can't fast and I probably shouldn't do that and ideally after Ramadan it's like no of course I can't do that ideally we should know we are kind of progressing upward and an upward trajectory with our spirituality so we should look back at how am I doing where I was two or three years ago and if it's literally the same and that can be measured by two or three things how much character someone has like how strong how many good traits someone has and how many bad traits someone has and how strong someone's character is and then it can be measured by overall acts of worship and acts of obedience those are two kind of easy ways to measure and if it's like same or less than it used to be we've got to work on it because nobody would be satisfied at most other stages of life investments in school and so on of just being same or like trending down nobody is satisfied with that so spiritually this is the time to recalibrate hold on a second where am I and where am I relative to where am I there's really not that much time left and Ramadan reminds us of that it starts and then it's like oh man it's gonna be a long month 29 30 days and I don't know if I can do this and you start it and you're going and you're going and next thing you know first 10 days are done and you're like oh man it's gonna be a long month next thing you know it's last 10 nights and it's like maybe we didn't even get through some of the goals that we had or maybe we did but it moves quickly and it's supposed to be a metaphor it's supposed to go by really really fast without us sometimes even having a chance to realize this might accept the one who's present the one who's present will be you know in every moment Allah is watching me and now I'm trying to make sure that I live my life in a way that Allah will be easy so with that we'll go ahead and get into the next section I guess I'll pause there if anybody has any questions that's far so there's three levels of fasting that the scholars lay out there's what's called the basic fast there's the more advanced fast and then there's the super advanced fast so we'll start with the basic fast the basic fast is literally not eating anything from when Fajr enters until sunset not drinking anything and then not engaging in conjugal relations that's the basic fast when that fast is when someone does that they fulfill the basic fast that person may have been angry and rude to somebody but they fulfill the basic fast they did not let anything enter their body their body cavities did not engage in in relations that's supposed to be easy it's supposed to be okay everybody's supposed to do this it's physically challenging but you know like extra effort necessarily that someone is putting in beyond the basic level but alhamdulillah that fulfills the fasting requirement from a fixed perspective then there's what's called the fast of the people they're actively trying to work on themselves spiritually that is the fast of the limbs the fast of the limbs meaning that that person is fasting of course with their food and from water and of course engaging in relations during the day but they are also now keeping the fast of the eye the fast of the ears and the fast of the tongue at minimum and then we'll talk about the other things what are these fasts so the fast of the eye is the fast of staying away from looking at anything around if someone sees an inappropriate image lowering their gaze if someone sees a lot of violence that's happening that's also not permissible to look at they lower their gaze if somebody is seeing something going on if that is wrong they help out that would be now the eye is in the state of fasting the fasting of the ear similarly is if somebody is hearing something that would be if they turn it off or they try to move from it so most music these days especially the vulgar music that would not be advised to listen to generally but especially in the month of Ramadan because everything you and I hear everything you and I see it makes an exact perception of the heart spiritually and this is actually one of the main problems in our times that a lot of people are struggling severely with depression and with anxiety because society as a whole has forgotten that everything we've heard and saw growing up makes a spiritual impact and when the heart becomes impure the first things to kick in are severe amounts of worry, angst, depression, anxiety I'm not saying that's the only reason of course but those are some of the main reasons that it happens and so anything that we see any Haram image that we see it makes an imprint on the heart any Haram image that we listen to it makes an imprint on the heart and it literally, as I said it's like a drawing that's embedded and now you have to find ways to erase it so like the vulgar music that's misogynistic, that's encouraging violence and all these other things the heart has taken that trait on the Haram image that someone is looking at that takes it on and so on and so the fasting of the eye that we mentioned the fasting of the ear and the ear would also like to listen to someone's gossiping, someone starts backbiting we want to leave because the ear is permissible to let that stuff get inside of your ear it's like toxins you don't want that in your body and you don't want that spiritually affected and then the tongue and the tongue would be let's say actually backbiting ourselves backbiting and gossiping those would be considered Haram anytime but in Ramadan we want to be especially careful that's considered the level of fasting of the tongue and then it would be to curse, to say impermissible language, to lie all of these types of things and then there's an even higher level within each of these that some people they're at the point where they're like I'm not doing the Haram with my tongue, with my eye or with my tongue or with my ear and I'm also going to make sure I'm not wasting any time because it's a month that I want to fast from anything that is that is not a good use of time I'm trying to fast for but there are people who go to this studio they're like okay well I'm not going to just let myself watch TV because there's no benefit to it so I'm going to try to make sure to use that extra time to do what or to be with my family and to just be present or to do some big or or to make doha because I don't want that getting in my eye I'm trying to keep the fast to be high and then I'm not going to just try to let myself listen to vain talk that's empty, just not really beneficial I'm going to try to stay away from it it doesn't mean if someone starts coming up and talking about something you just generally you don't try to engage in those types of conversations that would be a higher degree but that has to be done with an intelligent and wise way, not done in a way that would of course turn someone else off and so that same thing that applies to the limbs, the other limbs to the hand and to the feet, let's mention with the hands anything, not touching anything that would be impermissible or not hurting anybody obviously physically with your hands and then with the feet not walking towards anything or heading anywhere or driving anywhere, that would be impermissible and this is surprisingly a month in which you might have somebody who outside of the month of Ramadan is going to all sorts of wrong places but as the month of Ramadan kicks in, something happens and they're like, no, no, I got stopped I knew many people like this in college, it was like no Ramadan, nothing, no partying can't do any of that and so the feet got used to not going, instead of going towards the party, they went towards the masjid and then that happened one day and then the next day and the next day and then by the end it was like, oh I don't need any of that anymore the person literally became transformed and you're just like, well I might as well just try to go more towards the masjid because the heart, the transformation happened, remember the limbs are linked directly to the heart, whatever the limbs do, the heart is going to be affected and so if you train yourself to say no, no, no, I can't do that, but you just force yourself to say, okay I'm going in the masjid every night we'll keep it up after month of Ramadan it's amazing to pray Salat al-Tawih but it's also very, very amazing to play Salat al-Isha every night in congregation, that should be habits that start in Ramadan and then we keep outside in the month of Ramadan because you train yourself and you're kind of in that rhythm you're in that pattern so that is the at a high level that is the fast of the limb, so that's the kind of the higher level, right, someone is like saying okay I'm going to try more than doing the basics so each of us should pick one or two of these things we just mentioned and try to really, really carefully guard ourselves from them now for the people who are doing this fast, for them it's like they fall into this they treat it as though I'm losing a lot of reward in my fast your fast by the law point of view is not broken, right, it's like if you get an argument the fast isn't broken by the law but the reward is significantly reduced right, if someone catches doesn't lower their gaze and looks at something improvisable, doesn't mean the fast is gone but the reward is significantly reduced so these people they're like okay I'm going to really try to maintain the highest level of reward with my fast by being super, super careful about what I say about not letting my anger come out about what I look at, about what I listen to where I go and so on and through that character development happens and someone starts to become a better human being and again one of the goals of this month is to try and be changed and when you start to become a better human being your taqwa increases, when your taqwa increases you become a better human being this really, really amazing opportunity to try and improve and alhamdulillah honestly if Allah didn't make this mandatory for us really who would ever do this, right it would just be like I'm just going to not eat for 30 days and I'm just going to pray a lot most people would just be like yeah maybe for like a weekend but it wouldn't be like a concentrated thing alhamdulillah that Allah knew that you know but most of us are going to be so caught up and so busy with work and family and school that we just he's like no you need to just take a little bit keep doing those things but try and now focus this month do some extra in this in this direction because it's going to benefit you and we have to remember fasting it doesn't benefit God at all there's no benefit to Allah any worship that you and I do it's not for him like it's not to benefit him rather it's so that we can show Allah you know what, you know what's good for me and he knows this is good for us and it's to show him that out of our love for you and because we want to obey you we're doing this right and it only benefits us at the end of the day again it has no benefit to Allah and then there is the fasting of the elite elite in this case of people who are like they're really spiritual that's their whole game and that is for them the fasting of their trying to maintain a state where you go from from sood control to controlling your limbs to controlling your thoughts those are their kind of levels and so these people now they're at the point of their thoughts are being controlled they're trying not to let themselves have thoughts outside of thoughts about Allah that they're fasting for them they're like any thought that comes in that's a worldly thought or that's a distracting thought they're like now my fasting reward for them and this is not again according to the this is just for their own own selves you can say but they're like now I'm reducing my reward for my fasting so this is fasting of the elite this would be the fast of the the greatest people of this Omar that they're really really present in the month of Ramadan now for most of us obviously that's we're not going to be able to do that but we can do that for maybe 10 minutes we can do that for 20 minutes or for a few hours we should try to take a portion of each of these and implement that that there should be portions of time at least one of the last 10 nights in the month of Ramadan for one hour we really try not to think about anything other than Allah and it's actually really hard to do someone could be reading Quran this thought comes in about our families and this thought comes in about what if I'm going to eat breakfast tomorrow and all these different thoughts come in and next thing you know we're doing bigger but we can't control the thoughts but there are people who this month becomes a month of really really being so present that the thoughts now begin to become much more controlled and that's a state that we should try to inspire to it's not easy of course but it's a state straight that we should try to inspire to even for okay so we're going to touch a little bit kind of on some of the practical things that we can start to do now to achieve what we just discussed they'll pause there for any questions that anyone might have if there's questions on the sisters side I won't be able to see so someone will need to just okay so then one of the main things that will help with what we just mentioned like trying to go from these levels is to limit how many things are going to distract us in this month and so one piece of advice that scholars recommend that I have for myself and for all of us is to really try to make this Ramadan a time where we also fast from media to try to have at least a portion of this month where we fast from media there's the majority of the month we're on our phones watching Netflix watching rubies on Facebook on Instagram on TikTok on Snapchat on Discord on all the different apps and we're constantly playing video games online something is constantly constantly entering now when you and I constantly have something entering us it becomes very very difficult for us it becomes very very difficult for us to be present with our own thoughts because you're not we aren't allowing ourselves to be present I remember earlier today I was thinking about something and I was like trying to probably think about this and I was like let me just read the news let me just see what's going on and I was like no but I need to think about this thing it was like literally I didn't even let myself have some time to think because they just wanted to go and read the most recent news that's going on or check out my email whatever it is we have so many notifications so many things that we are constantly constantly being impacted by and I think most of us don't realize we're being impacted and so it's very difficult to be spiritually present and spiritually to gain spiritually when there's so many distractions and so for ourselves and for our families we should try to make a commitment what level of media control can we bring to ourselves in another time for the people who want to have a more lofty goal try to just turn the television off most of the extra time on devices obviously communication might not be important but the extra time is off completely and it's not going to be like a good aspirational goal it's not really a month where the angels are all coming by and we're not like watching CNN and they're like oh this house I should probably leave right like Lanawan OICN so these realities are taking place and there's also people who witness these realities they're so in touch with their spirituality that they're able to witness what's going on but we're so distracted by everything that's going on and by media being that we are becoming out of touch with these things we're becoming out of touch and we just kind of just do stuff ritualistically and formulate and so limiting media will have a major impact spiritually in this realm of thought so try to kind of come up with some type of three things right television social media and then just general phonics those three things for ourselves and for our children this is not parents one thing I would not advise is imposing this on your children and then not doing it yourself so if you have no you can't do any of this I mean while watching television and doing this and scrolling on your own Facebook kids know of TV it's Ramadan it has to have to walk the walk and talk the talk right so walk the talk so that we want to make sure that we try to come up with some agreement as a family to say you know what let's all try to do this and if we can't do it for 30 days try to do it for at least the last 10 the last 10 nights at least that night time in the last 10 nights the last 10 nights for sure the night time should not be a time where we're on meet we're on social media and we're watching television and movies and so on because those are especially times it could be the night of power and the night where a thousand so you'll get a reward for a thousand months of news instead of a thousand months of work so we want to really be mindful of these things and the more in touch we are with our spiritual side the more in touch we will be at the end of the day with what matters most which you can hear after and that's part of the goal of our life is to slowly slowly slowly not be so obsessed with this work and to try to be much more in touch with the next world and so the television Netflix that kind of all falls on the line through all the streaming services yes Disney Plus as well and then the second one right our social media and try to reduce that and come up with goals for ourselves if we're like on it 2-3 hours a day try to reduce it and you'll see how much time we have sometimes it's like oh it's very very difficult to do a whole khatim of Quran maybe it takes 30 minutes to recite one 30th of the Quran 30 minutes is sometimes hard to find but when you take media out you're like oh I got 3 hours there's a lot of time you could go and recite like 4 khatims of the Quran there's a lot of time that they had that that might be hard to do immediately but it's so possible and then what happens someone starts to realize the value of time in Ramadan when time is used wisely outside of Ramadan time becomes filled with water because the blessings that started in Ramadan extend then outside of Ramadan and so if we already have a lot of these kind of basic things now that we mentioned this is now something we should aspire to slightly more advanced we should try to aspire to it and reduce it if we can reduce it reduce it if we can eliminate it for the month eliminate it and that will have advanced spiritual benefits so we'll go ahead and I think we have about 15-20 minutes left so we'll go ahead and get into some of the thick now of the month of Ramadan I guess it's pausing there again many questions as far as actually right before we get into the thick we'll outline some of the special times in the month of Ramadan like of the day kind of a good schedule that we should try to have so ideally that we should all try to be up in the morning and so forth it's very very important as I've said there is a special blessing in that meal and it is a time when we already know the time before Fajr per various hadid it's a time when Dahai is accepted it is usually the time of the Hajj outside in the month of Ramadan but in the month of Ramadan specifically it's a time for us to be eating if we don't eat if we have gotten into a habit of eating at night and sleeping through that we should try to try and try not to but that would be considered spraying away from the Sunnah of the Prophet ﷺ it would not be considered something that would be recommended at all we were changing what the religion has asked us to do so we should try to make sure we're present at that time and then on certain days try and stay Fajr in congregation and then try to stay awake until Israq Israq is the time of Sunrises there are about 7-10 these days and to try to pray two Rak'as after Israq about 10-20 minutes after Israq of what's called Salat al-Guhat and then that the person who raised Fajr in congregation and does thicker between the time of Fajr and the time of Sunrises and then prays these two Rak'as they get the reward of a complete Hajj in Umrah the Prophet ﷺ told us Ramadan acts are multiplied 10 times up to 70 times up to more than that so there are people who are literally getting the reward of 10 to 70 Hajj in Umrah every morning because they're doing this every single day in the month of Ramadan these are the extra shortcuts it's pretty hard sometimes to work to do this so at least on the weekends at least on the weekends to try and do these extra boosts and then we should also make sure that obviously in addition to taking advantage of the times throughout the day at least the 5-15 minutes before Maghrib comes in before Israq that we are present and making Guhat do not let Israq come in and again that the TV is on or that we're just talking and hanging out and then next thing you know this is a time to be present this is a time when Guhat is accepted this is a time to be asking Allah the door and the door opens and you just run away now the door is open to ask so we should ask at this time and at least be present for a few minutes before so I would advise that everybody try to gather as a family at the table and before breaking the fast try and do a collective Guhat and if that's not possible to at least do it kind of on our own but presence at this time is really really important at least these two times of the day we can be present various throughout the rest of the day inshaAllah we will be doing it taking advantage of the day and then it comes to the taking advantage of the night of which the praying Isha'an congregation is central in this month especially for men, central in this month to pray Isha'an congregation it is an emphasis on the popular Islam throughout the year to pray Isha'an congregation it's more important to pray Isha'an congregation than to pray Tarawee at all Isha'an comes so to Tarawee and you were late and then we quickly rush through Isha'an so we can get to Tarawee that would be inverted Isha'an is the more important and if someone cannot stay for the rest of Tarawee okay but try to catch at least Isha'an maybe another few rounds and then try to also do so with praying Fajr and congregation and if someone cannot do this to do so at home but congregation at home with our families so we'll briefly cover the the thick of the Ramadan so the first thing is when to stop eating so we're the morning time the morning meal ideally a few minutes before Fajr comes in we stop eating we would not recommend drinking water and getting the last sip in and then Fajr has entered that's really really really risky at that point if it's entered the fast is in value and you don't want to take risks with your fast and some we don't want like fasting is not done at Muslim center they see standard time it's then on the time that Allah is prescribed right so then five to six minutes before stop eating and if that's not possible someone just woke up okay two to three minutes before but like definitely once it's like one or two minutes before all the food, water should be put away and someone should be preparing themselves we're cleaning up or we're preparing ourselves for Fajr ideally to try and get to do that and then for Iftar this is done Alhamdulillah that this Masjid does this but not all Masjid do this Iftar comes in five minutes, three to five minutes after the sunset time that you see on your iphones Iftar is not the time that you see on your iphones you go and you drive let's say you're on like the 80 near the water by Berkeley and you're driving and your phone says it's sunset so it's agrib like 725 today you see the sun hasn't gone down the sun is like like this much in the air still because they're doing it based on astronomical sunset sunset it's not other time at that point if you do not break your fast at that time add three to five minutes at least three minutes and I think again the calendars that the Masjid gives here that's already done but if you're relying on the phones just be super super careful of this because again these are basically if you want the sun to have gone down completely below the horizon right the sun has gone down below the horizon at that point three minutes after what your phone says you should be you should be clear then and again I already mentioned at this point this is the time to be making go out but you don't also delay for like 20 minutes or you don't make go out of the supermarket once in you know okay three to five minutes pass Bismillah open the pass and then so then we'll get to what invalidates the fast so there's two types of that there's two types of invalidation of the fast the first is invalidation that requires what's called kafara this is a type of invalidation which kafara means 60 days of continuous fasting to xp8 to just basically say sorry to God for making that big big mistake these are three things the first is eating something on purpose like someone's fasting and they're like thirsty and drink water or they drive by they smell the french fries that requires how you make up the fast and you have to do 60 days of xp8 and that's preferred to 60 days and then someone cannot do that to feed 60 people second is if someone engages in relationships on purpose and this has to be the full relationship there's children in the group so everybody generally knows on purpose right here and then the third is intentionally also let's say it's raining and someone's become so thirsty and they just kind of catch the rainwater like anything done intentionally it's not like only done with a meal anything entering you intentionally and this can be really really careful about little things that would enter the body any body cavity intentionally because that will require that will require anything entering the mouth I should say that will require the 60 day excretion then there is what's called a fast that you have to make it up but you don't require the 60 days so there's the 60 days that would be that if somebody like bites their nails and they get a little bit of something in them and that the fastest broken something is enter the cavity at that point but it does not require excretion right the second is if somebody is making or doing a whistle and it's like rinsing rinsing and then you know water goes down sure water went down at that point the fastest broken but you're not required to make this do the 60 days you just have to make up that one faster the fastest broken the way the law works there is you have to finish the fast and you have to make up the fast so it's you finish the fast for that day it's not like oh water went down at early burger the fastest fast and invalid but someone has to note that down and make it up and then if someone is like forced to make fast like that cello will never happen God forbid if it did it's important to important to know if somebody has that intentional so if somebody has a let's say a wet dream the fast is not invalid at that point but if it happens due to anything intentional the fast is invalid and someone has to make that fast up but again it does not require 60 days and then anything else that enters the cavities of the body right it's required to make up the fast but like eye drops and stuff like that are okay that nose drops that are going in that could go in that would be considered at least in the Hanafi school not ideal so I mean those are really the the main rules it's not like that complicated easy the main other thing to note about traveling at least in the Hanafi school traveling when fasting is if somebody has set out for the travel the four fungerants coming if you were traveling at 3pm that day you start the day fasting you are fasting that day you do not break the fast if your flight or whatever is at 3pm that day you set out this again according to the Hanafi school I don't know the rulings of the other schools but you have set out before the time of the time of budget so it's important these these rules they take like 20 to 30 minutes to learn it's pretty but it's really important because entire fasts can be I remember somebody told me once that they thought if they didn't wake up for Suwur then they didn't have to fast and so then many days go by just oh well then wake up that would be I can see where somebody might think that but of course that's not correct fasting is happening regardless if someone wakes up or not but of course we should try to wake up and it's energy and it is and the there's again like difference of opinion on things like brushing teeth and toothpaste and so on the main thing is like you're trying to be careful just brush your teeth before Suwur comes in before budget comes in so you're extra careful and nothing goes in and then brush it again after it starts the main thing is just try to be scooby you don't want to put your fast at risk you don't want to put your fast at risk and then another thing to avoid is if someone does not usually eat like Zabihamid in Ramadan do not break your fast with Don Zabihamid that would also be considered you've got all these spiritual benefits from staying away from food so make sure that the food that you eat is according to the rights of Islamic law during every time if someone is not doing that definitely envy and lastly with regards to Tarawee and sorry we're just kind of touching on a few random points here because we're coming up on time regards to Tarawee Tarawee of course is very very important in the time that we live in someone has a lot of makeup prayers to do I mean that you know we just haven't prayed or if we have like a ton of certain prayers we miss like we just always miss Fajr we always miss Maghrib or whatever it is in the Maliki school the Hambali school and the Shafi school it's preferred to make up your prayers versus doing Tarawee but it is more preferred to make up your prayers so just keep that in mind that in Hanafi school you have to say do both but you have to take in this in the time we live in Allah this is just my my understanding and what I feel like makes sense in the time we live in really prioritize the debts you have due to Allah because it's very difficult to find time throughout the year where someone is going to do a few dozen prayers a day it's very difficult to find time so if you have a lot of Fajr's or a lot of other prayers to make up prioritize making up those prayers are highly highly highly encouraged prioritize making up those prayers and then if someone of course already has all their prayers made up and they're in that Tarawee but Tarawee is also an emphasize Sunnah and so what that means is it shouldn't be left unless someone has an excuse and that doesn't mean Tarawee that much you can do 20 raka at home but just do pray extra in this month that's really really important I'm just keeping in mind to try and pray extra in this month so Alhamdulillah it's a very very important month it's a month of worship it's a month of mercy it's a month of forgiveness it's a month of immense immense blessings so we should try to just make strong intentions to try to work on ourselves in this month and try and make strong intentions to try and transform inshallah in this month and add any little bit of good that we can to our lives that we will consistently do hopefully after the month of Ramadan to try to do some light review again on the rules and the things that it is that we need to do inshallah Allah will make a month full of blessings and barangad for us Alhamdulillah Alhamdulillah if anybody has questions we'll just do a few minutes of questions so I'm 7 years old so how do I think 7 years old so you don't have to fast but if you want to and you want to practice you can do a fast for like half the day and then you can eat lunch and then fast again for the other half of the day but when you're 7 years old there's no need to fast especially when these days are long because Islam makes things easy for people so you don't want to fast when it's going to be difficult for you you're growing, you need nutrients right now so I would not recommend doing the full day fast but you can do half day and have lunch but you should play because you're 7 inshallah Allah bless you any other questions did you say if I dropped yeah I dropped you fine yeah I dropped so you're okay yes you're rushing with Miswak yeah rushing with the Siwak is totally fine yeah rushing with the Miswak the Tutsiq the Sunnah Tutsiq is totally fine many of them are to someone else anything else if anybody has anything that they didn't get a chance to ask we can ask afterwards we'll just do a quick du'aat Bismillahir Rahmanir Rahim ala Sayyidina Muhammad ala alayhi wa sahbihi wa sallam Allahumma s.a.a wa ta'ala wa tawala ar-arabina wa bihna wa bihna wa bihna wa bihna wa bihna wa bihna ya Allah ya RasulAllah ya Karim ya Fatiha ya Allah we ask Allah that you accept us ya Allah forgive us and we pardon us ya Allah you make this month of Ramadan immensely less for us and for our families for the Ramadan Prophet, may Allah say the month of us going near to you the month of us detaching from dunya detaching from our desires and that we attach to you and only you may Allah make this a month in which that we pray abundantly and that we make abundantly du'aat and that we recite abundantly and make it easy for us ya Allah may Allah please put newre in this month and opening this month and barakah for all of us and for our love for all of the Muslims that are suffering throughout the world may Allah make this month the month of relief for the Muslims in Palestine Pakistan, Shamiar, Syria and in Yemen and in Myanmar and Libya and all of it and in Iraq and all of the other places ya Allah we ask for the suffering ya Allah Ya Allah, we struggle in our lives. Ya Allah, we struggle to prioritize you. Ya Allah, make it possible for us to prioritize you. Ya Allah, we ask you to bless our children and our family members. Ya Allah and the youth. Ya Allah, we ask you to make this month a month where they get closer and closer to you. Ya Allah, we ask you to protect them from the fitna that are present in your society. Ya Allah, we protect them and ask for the fitna at the end of time. Ya Allah, we ask you for everything good for the Prophet ﷺ. We ask for your protection from everything evil that he has to protect him from us. Ya Allah, we ask you to bless our children and our family and to protect them. Alhamdulillah.