 Bismillah ar-Rahman ar-Rahim, Alhamdulillah, Al-Rabul Alamin, Wassallahu Alaihi Wasallam, Wa Barak Alaa Sayyidina Muhammadin Wa Alaa Alihi Wa Sahbihi As-Sallim, Abishaiq Sathriwa As-Salli, Amri-Wahil Al-Nakutatina, Al-Nusalli, Al-Qawli, Wassallahu Alai Wasallam, Wa Barak Alaa Sayyidina Muhammadin, Wa Alaa Alihi Wa Sahbihi As-Sallim, Alhamdulillah. So we are continuing on, this is actually the final class of the series on Deceptive Desires and we are going to be focusing today specifically on the Blessed Month of Ramadan and we're going to be talking about what it is that we need to do in this blessed month of Ramadan in order to begin taming our desires. We've been talking about the various types of desires that we have. We've been talking about the various different ways desires come up inside of the human being. And now we're gonna be talking specifically about the month of Ramadan and the kind of details around that. So, Alhamdulillah. In this month, one of the main things that we can do is we need to really invest in understanding the inner world that we have. So there's the outer world that we engage with and then there's an inner world that all of the Muslims have, everybody has inside of them. The inner world is the world that regulates our emotions, it regulates how we're feeling, it regulates all these different spiritual aspects as well. And in order for us to really succeed when it comes to purification, when it comes to controlling our desires, that understanding of the inner world is very, very essential. Alhamdulillah, Ramadan, there are a lot of things happening in this inner world that are important for us to understand. First and foremost is that in Ramadan, we know it is a month in which the heavens are open and which hell is closed. So the gates of heaven are open in the month of Ramadan as per hadith and the gates of the hellfire are closed. So what does that mean? We've been talking in this conversation about desires, we've been chatting about this idea of being pulled upwards or being pulled downwards. And so you can be pulled spiritually up, you can actually be pulled up in a very, very positive way or the downward forces of life and in this case of Satan can pull one down. So we have to be able to be pulled spiritually. We have to be able to be pulled up instead of dragged down. Ramadan is the month for us to be able to do this. So it's very, very important for us to keep that in mind. I'm just checking one thing, sorry about this. So Ramadan is this month for us to try and achieve this kind of state of spirituality where we are again being pulled upwards. How do we go about doing that? It is a chance for us to work on our nafs. So in Ramadan, shaitan, the shayatin are gone. We know that the shayatin are gone. So it's really just us and our nafs, right? And so you're left with your nafs, which is your ego, your lower self, your lower soul. And you've got to resist the nafs, you have to resist the desires of the nafs, you have to fight these desires in order to succeed in the month of Ramadan because the nafs wants to eat, the nafs wants to do other things, the nafs wants to waste time. And Ramadan is supposed to be this month of productivity. It's supposed to be this month of worship. It's supposed to be a month where you and I are trying not to engage with our nafs. So if we try not to engage with our nafs in Ramadan, in this blessed month of Ramadan, the more and more we resist the desires that the nafs calls to, the more and more we will be able to succeed in this blessed month. So Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala is already assisting us by commanding us that we have to stay away from food. He says we have to stay away from food and from drink and from even lawful sexual relations during the fasting period. That already begins a spiritual taming process for the nafs. So that's really, really important. And then the other thing to keep in mind is you actually get to kind of microscopically look at yourself in a way you don't get to look at yourself another time, because another time is when we do something wrong, when we do something bad, we attribute it to shaitan many times. So we say, oh, this is because of shaitan or he whispered this in my ear or we feel like, oh, maybe all of that is not necessarily coming from something I'm doing. But in Ramadan, the shaitan are locked up. So we actually now know, okay, this is something that I have to work on. This is an inner problem that I have, right? Versus outside of Ramadan, we might not always know it. This is a problem I have, but it was incited by the shaitan, by the great deluder of shaitan, as Allah mentions in the Quran. So it's a chance then for us to do what? To focus on this topic we've been talking about, which is to hone out, to control our desires. Ramadan is this month where you can achieve a state of a higher spiritual state by controlling your desires. We have a hadith with the Prophet Muhammad indicated that none of you truly believes until his desires are in accordance with what I've brought. So your desires in order for us to achieve the perp-pinical of belief, in order for us to start achieving perfected belief, our desires, what we want, what we don't want, what we desire to do, what we don't desire to do, should be in accordance with the sunnah of the Prophet Sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. And that's not easy. That's so that they could take a lifetime of work, but it is possible. And that's what we have to be encouraged by, that everything the Prophet Sallallahu alayhi wa sallam is telling us. He wouldn't tell us if it wasn't possible. He's telling us because it's possible and he's encouraging us. So never let anybody tell you that, hey, I can't do this or that I can't succeed in Ramadan. No, you can do it. You can succeed in Ramadan. You can achieve your goals. You can achieve your spiritual goals. All of these things are totally possible, but it takes work. And so we have to put that effort in. We have to put that work in. If we put that work in, we put that energy in. Allah can assist us in ways you would never think imaginable. Things have happened. People have changed their lives in Ramadan in ways that they never even thought possible and in ways that you could not recognize them after the month is over or maybe a month or two go by and you could not recognize them. Because maybe somebody who is in a state of they're going to the bars and they're going clubbing and they're drinking and they're smoking and in one Ramadan, they have one night of sincere repentance where the tears flow from their eyes and they turn to their Lord and they're sincere to him and they conquer certain desires. Allah helps them conquer certain desires and then you'll never see them in those places again after the month of Ramadan. I know people personally who this has happened to. So use this as a month of change. And again, whatever desires, we're talking about the big stuff or the subtle desires, this is the month to conquer those desires. Somebody's asking, what is the best time for the ad during Ramadan? So there are many good times for the ad during Ramadan, but the specific time we should be thinking about every day is while we are fasting and right before we break the fast. So there are traditions which indicate both of those is being very, very good times to make dua while we're fasting and right before we break the fast. Other good times to make dua in this blessed month of Ramadan are of course during Sahur time because that's already a very, very virtuous time. Outside of Ramadan, that's the Hajj of time. During Ramadan, it's still the Hajj of time, meaning it's the time the last one third of the night where Hadith indicate that Allah in no physical anthropomorphic way, but figuratively just to help our human minds understand it, descends and he asks, is there anybody who needs anything that I may fulfill their need? Anybody who wants forgiveness or seeking forgiveness that I may forgive them. So that time, right? The time one or two hours before Fajr Sala is an amazing time for dua throughout the year, especially in Ramadan Ramadan, then it's good to make dua right for sure before we break iftar. Try not to be caught up in food prep or to be caught up in watching something and whatnot. Definitely don't have the TV on in that last 10 or 15 minutes before iftar. It's a very, very good time for dua, inshallah. So those are some times and then there will be specific nights that we know, again, every night is amazing in Ramadan, but there are specific nights, of course, the last 10 nights, the odd nights of the last 10 where we can try to catch the night of power of which many, many, many dua's and openings are answered and are given. So there are levels then that we should try to focus on in this month of Ramadan. What do I mean by this? Look, you and I are all, we're all in different stages of our journey, right? So we might be caught up, okay? Like somebody might say, hey, I'm trying to leave very, very specific haram thing in Ramadan. Someone else might be like, oh, I already left most of the haram stuff I got, I had to do. I'm trying to advance in a different way. And someone else might say, you know, I'm already done that, so now I'm trying to continue growing. Hamdullah the month of Ramadan allows us, there are levels of fasting in the month of Ramadan. Levels of fasting. So it allows us to progress in these levels. So we're gonna talk about these for each of the limbs that the human being has. We're gonna talk about the different levels that you and I can try to achieve in terms of controlling our desires associated with the eyes, with the ears and with the tongue. And then we will wrap it up, inshallah. So, and again, as you have questions, there's just please, please post them and we'll get to them, inshallah. So first is the eyes. Now at the basic level, the eyes gravitate towards doing haram things. They gravitate towards looking at haram. They gravitate towards looking at pictures and bad images at not lowering their gaze and looking at the opposite gender. The eyes gravitate towards that. Ramadan is a month where we're supposed to control, we should always control it. Ramadan is a month though in which we are taught to fast from what Allah usually allows us in normal times. Allah usually allows us in a normal period to eat and drink food, right? To eat food and to drink. But in Ramadan, he says, stay away from this, even though it's halal in normal situations. So for sure, then you can stay away from this stuff that's haram in a normal situation, right? So the eyes are going to gravitate in most times to looking at things that are impermissible. In Ramadan, you control yourself. Say, no, I can't look at that person. No, if somebody has like their sexual desires acting up, no, I can't check that person out. No, I can't look at that bad image. Somebody wants to watch pornography. No, I can't do it because I'm fasting. If I do it, the reward of my fast will completely diminish, right? The more sins you and I do throughout the day in Ramadan, the lesser and lesser the reward of the actual fast gets. So you might have like this much reward at the beginning, but because we look at this thing, we curse at somebody, we lose our cool with someone, et cetera, et cetera, and by the end of the day, we, our reward has diminished. All we got was hunger and thirst because we didn't actually get the spiritual training. Remember, it is a month of spiritual training. That's the purpose of Ramadan. It's a refresher for us. And so it is a refresher for each of the limbs. For you to remind yourself, this is why this limb was created. Allah tells us, Allah tells us to worship him as one of the main reasons why he created us. And each limb was created for a specific type of worship. So Ramadan has every limb is engaged in some form of worship. If we are following the Sunnah of the Prophet of Solomon and most of us, we're gonna fall short, but we should try to do our best to follow the Sunnah. So what's an example of this, right? The eyes, if we follow the Sunnah of reciting Quran from time to time in Ramadan, we try to recite one section of the Quran a day, one Juz a day, safara a day, or even a little bit less if we can't do that much or more. Our eyes are engaged in worship. That's what the eyes are created for, to look at Allah's words, right? To look at Allah's, what Allah has revealed to the Prophet of Solomon. But we might, or we might do something else. We might just scroll on our phone instead. It just depends on what somebody wants to do in Ramadan with the limbs that Allah has blessed them. The person who's trying to achieve a state of nearness to Allah will say, no, I'm gonna use this in obedience. Person who's like, eh, I just gotta get through this fast. Okay, let's just do whatever it is that they wanna do. The same thing goes with the tongue, the same thing goes with the hand, the same thing goes with every other part of the body. So it's just about us trying our best and we're gonna fall short. It's all good. We just get back up and we keep trying. But that's the goal is to aspire, is to aspire to higher levels. It's to aspire to get closer and closer. So again, the eye at this first level is trying to, it doesn't lower its gaze and looks at Haram. So we should, with reminding ourselves that I am fasting, I'm not supposed to look at bad things. We remind ourselves of that and inshallah we will start to progress, right? The eye will emerge at the end of Ramadan, not wanting to look at the Haram things or at least being in more control because of all the fasting and all the thicker that happened. That's one desire specifically that we're talking about linked to the eye that in Ramadan we try to get a control of. Another desire linked to the eye or another negative trait you could say is looking down on other people. The eye has a tendency, it's not created to look down on other Muslims. That's not the purpose. Unfortunately in our umma today, we are filled with, we look down on each other. We somebody might practice more than someone else and they look down and they say, look at this person, he or she's not religious, he or she's not this and they judge them inside and they look down on them. And that's not what the eye is created for. The eye is created to have a good opinion of others, right? So you're supposed to say, okay, you see someone doing something wrong and you come up with, okay, what's the process I'm saying? 70 excuses you say? Maybe he or she did this. Maybe they're going through a tough time. Maybe this is what they are struggling with, right? And so you try not to look down. That's looking down on somebody is someone who's already started to work on the major haram things with the eye will now start to focus on this one. They'll be like, you know what? I'm really trying to improve myself. I'm trying to improve my spiritual state. So I'm going to try to work on this aspect, right? So that would be another example here. And somebody asked, do you have to lower your gaze from bad vids and just overall lowering gaze? Yes, so anything that is not allowed or haram to look at in real life, it's not allowed to look at in a video, in a photo, in a drawing, in any other image representation. So yes, we would have to, which is unfortunately why this age of internet and social media, it has its positives, right? Like we can't do this video in these classes during COVID and whatnot, if we didn't have the blessing of being connected to so many people we wouldn't be connected to. But at the same time, it has its detriments and so there's a lot of haram out there, right? A lot of bad images, a lot of people just dressing inappropriately, a lot of basically near pornography type of images that are flooding Instagram, flooding TikTok, flooding Facebook and just letting the internet in general. So in Ramadan, if we can't control ourselves, we got to deactivate for a little bit because we're literally going to lose the reward of the fast. And remember, you only have 29 or 30 days. The point of the fast is not to make you hungry, it's not the point of the fast. The hunger elevates you to a spiritual station you could not achieve without the hunger that is among the wisdoms of fasting. La'allakum, Allah says in the Quran that He has enjoined fasting for us. La'allakum tat takoon, that in order that you might attain a state of God consciousness and being mindful of God. So He didn't say so you could be hungry or so you could be thirsty. The thirst and hunger help you attain a state of mindfulness of God. But if you are thirsty and hungry and again cursing at this person and getting angry at this person, stealing from this person, lying from this person, checking out this person, all the different things we might do, how we are negating the aspect of attaining a state of mindfulness of God. So again, keep in mind the higher goal and then we keep in mind the different things we need to do. So let's come up with a goal then for each limb that we have, we're talking about three today, eyes, ears and tongue, to attain a state of taqwa, to attain a state of mindfulness of Allah and by controlling our desires. So first level for the eye is not looking at haram. The second level is not looking down on people. The third level is just to not look at things that will waste the time, that will not be of benefit. Again, this is a higher station but we should try to have portions over Ramadan at least. Maybe in the last 10 days we'll say, you know what? For a portion of these last 10 days, I'm gonna try not to look at things that are just gonna waste my time. Maybe I'm not gonna read this, maybe I'm not gonna go on this site, maybe I'm not gonna watch these videos because I know it's just gonna waste my time and I'm in the most blessed time. I'm in the last stretch of the month of Ramadan. So I don't wanna waste my time. So that would be an example in the situation. Same thing goes with like watching movies, watching shows, as long as there's nothing haram in it, you can't necessarily say that the whole thing in and of itself is haram and whatnot but you should think about, it's a good use of my time in this blessed month. And can I control my watching habits in this blessed month of Ramadan? And remember, the angels are descending regularly in this month, hell is closed, heaven is open. What is heaven? If heaven's open, then who can come, right? The angels are descent, already they come down all the time and they're descending far more often in the month of Ramadan. We know that in Surah Al-Qadr, Allah says, it's an azalim alaykatu uruhu that the angels and Jibril al-Islam, according to the dominant opinion, I descend down and there's a certain tranquility that comes with them. Now imagine the angels descending, they see us like, watching a Netflix show, like they would be like, come on dude, what are you doing? Or they see us like, flirting with someone via text or they see us looking at something impermissible or they see us like yelling at our parents or they see us, I mean, how would they, what would they say, right? Like what state do we wanna be in when the angels are descending down? Just one example for us to keep in mind. So we should imagine and we should remember that this is a month of very, very special blessings. And again, we start by trying not to look at Haram things, then we improve upon that by trying not to look down on other people with the eyes and then we improve on that even by trying not to look at things that will waste our time, especially as the month progresses and we are getting closer and closer to the end. Then we move on to the tongue. The tongue generally speaking can get caught up in many, many, many diseases. Most of the sins that the human being commits relate to the tongue. Backbiting, lying, accusing people of things, making unnecessary fun of people. All these types of things happen because of the tongue. Cursing, right? These types of things. So the tongue we should come up with, okay, you know what? We all know the bad habits that we have. Well, I'm gonna talk about three right now. Backbiting. So we know when we gossip, we know when we talk bad about people. We all know that with our certain types of situations or certain people that we might talk bad about. So we have to control ourselves in this month of Ramadan with regards to speaking bad about people. We really have to work on ourselves in this month. How do we go about doing that? Well, we should remember first that our reward for the fast will get significantly diminished. And we should remember that backbiting is worse than multiple acts of adultery. Also, some said in Hadith that the backbiting, and I'm paraphrasing here, but that it's worse than many acts of adultery, right? And which one of us would be cool with like, if we committed or if our family member or somebody committed adultery, nobody's gonna be cool with that. Yet regularly we gossip about people. We talk smack about them behind their back. We, you know, we try to say things, even if we couch them in various words, but that the other person would not like. And backbiting is defined as if the person were to hear it, they wouldn't like it. Doesn't matter if it's true. Backbiting is if it's true, if it's false, it's called slander. But backbiting is when something is true. So in Ramadan, we have to be careful. We should not backbite. We should try to limit them out. We talk about other people. But the way to do that is first, stay away from people who gossip. We know that we have certain friends who gossip or we might be the friend who gossips. Stay away from texting them. Stay away from interacting with them. Number two, know the types of people who, know the types of people you backbite about. Usually there's a handful, this coworker, this classmate, this family member. Like we all know, hey, there's like a handful of people that we all talk smack about. And we like, whenever they come up in topic and someone asks them, oh, how's this person doing? We start going off about them, right? And like, oh, they did this, they did that, and we just start to backbite. So we stay away from talking about those types of people and even letting that topic come up. So if we know that, hey, I might say something that's not good. Just don't even say it. Don't mention that person. Don't mention then the name of that person. Don't ask about them either, because you know as soon as you ask somebody, oh, how is so-and-so doing? Boom, the door's open to backbiting and we're in trouble then. Those are the two ways that we should start with. And the other thing is just to remember the punishment that comes and the amount of reward that you lose in Ramadan for doing this. Your whole fast can go, right? The whole fast can go because somebody spent an hour or two gossiping about somebody because it's such a bad thing spiritually. And you won't feel the benefit of the fast. You'll start to feel trepidation. What sin is associated with feeling off and feeling trepidation. So the more that you sin, the more trepidation that you tend to feel. So that's one of the diseases of the tongue we should work on in this month. Second one is the lying. And this is fairly straightforward in the sense that we all know if we lie what we lie about and who we lie to. So we should try to stay away from those types of topics and we should try to stay away from people who we either lying because we wanna impress them or we're lying because we feel obligated about something. Usually most people aren't just straight up telling huge lies about themselves most of the time. That's at least what I found. Usually little lies here and there people will say about situations at work or school, whatever it is. And so we have to make sure in this blessed month that we stay away from any type of lying because it is a very, very dark effect on your soul. Ramadan, the goal is make your soul full of light. Any sin makes your soul adds darkness to the soul so you don't want to counterbalance all the light that you're getting from fasting with all this darkness and then it just kind of cancel each other out. You don't wanna do that. And the third thing, and this is actually something a lot of us struggle with is cursing, cussing, like saying, explicit word, insert word here, right? That type of stuff. So we wanna stay away from that. And we all know we should come up with a list. Hey, I say the F word a lot. I say this word, I say the F word a lot, whatever words it is that we're saying. And we make a commitment, I'm gonna stay away from it. I am going to go a whole one day in Ramadan without saying anything bad. I'm gonna try it because I know the reward of my fast is being diminished, right? And then watch, you'll feel good. You'll do it the next day, right? And then the next day, maybe you go a whole week because you set my little, little, little goals, right? And then you say, okay, now I'm gonna make this habit and I'm gonna stay away after doing this for a week and I'm gonna stay away from saying things. So as soon as like something crazy happens, instead of saying, oh, and then insert word here, you replace that with something else, either a lighter version of it, even if it's not the best word, it's still a lighter version or you replace it with something else. I know people who like, as soon as something intense is about to happen, God forbid, like someone's driving and they have to break suddenly, most of us would say like, oh, and then some word. They say, yeah, Allah, or their heart is already, their heart is already attuned inside, like they say, Bismillah first, they say, Allah first, right? Because they're always in a state of thicker. So they're not, the last thing that's gonna come to their mind is, you know, whatever word that comes to most of our minds. And I've totally been in this spot. So it's something we all just have to work on. So it's fairly straightforward, list out the words, list out the situations, the people who we talk to that we end up saying these words in front of and then we just commit to reducing them and then eliminating them. Great. So we're just gonna move on now to the ears. And the main thing here to keep in mind is that in Ramadan, you wanna avoid two things. You wanna avoid listening to Haram, right? So you wanna avoid that ideally and you want to avoid so listening to, you know, explicit music and that type of thing. And you wanna, after you kind of established that level, okay, I stopped listening to like generally bad things, curse words, misogynistic lyrics, lyrics talking about sex, anything that they're talking about killing and all these other violent things that they could be talking about, those would be considered impermissible to listen to and they will mess up your spiritual state when you're fasting. Again, there's a difference between having an outward accepted fast and an inwardly realized fast. Your fast can be accepted outwardly by you staying away from food, drink and sexual relations from the time right before fudger enters until the time right after mugrim enters. Your fast can be accepted, but you could get zero reward for the fast. You might get a lot, you might not. You could get zero though, depending on how many sins we do. And then even more than that, your spiritual state, right, can be, your spiritual state can be affected as well. Right, so that is something to keep in mind that your spiritual state, the state that you have of calmness is also affected by good deeds and by sin that somebody does. So for the ears, we just have to keep this in mind that we try to avoid listening to things that we would not want to listen to or that would have impermissible lyrics. And then we also avoid listening to as we try to get to a higher level, we try to avoid listening to anything that won't be a benefit to us. So again, we try in the last 10 days, anything that's not beneficial, I'm gonna try not to listen to. I'm gonna try not to listen to, I'm gonna try not to listen to something that is not gonna be beneficial as we get closer. So these are a couple of the things. And someone says, thank you for thinking of fasting for Ramadan, but I'm not Muslim. Masha'Allah, may Allah bless you. You should just try it out in the life. Even if Allah is inspiring you with it, I would try it out, try out fasting, try out some of these other spiritual tips, try out doing some prayers in the month of Ramadan, even if you're not Muslim, and insha'Allah, you'll feel the benefit. Fasting is actually, God says in the Quran, that fasting has been prescribed for you, we're speaking now to the Ummah, to the Muslim community, as it was prescribed for those who came before you. So those who came before us, many, many other religions had to fast. Many of them have stopped fasting, but many of them had to fast. We know that Mosul al-Islam fasted, we know that Dawood al-Islam, Prophet David fasted a lot, we know that Isa al-Islam and Prophet Jesus fasted a lot, and of course all the other prophets did as well. So fasting has immense benefits, we very highly encourage you, Masha'Allah, that's really good. And someone says, what is your favorite part about Ramadan? My favorite part about Ramadan is probably getting a chance to kind of like quiet at my thoughts and everything that's going on, and have moments, at least at the force myself too, just kind of calm down a little bit, and just be quiet and just listen to what's going on in here and just try to connect myself, do my best to form a connection with Allah. That's one of my favorite parts about the blessed month of Ramadan, alhamdulillah. Cool, so we'll just finish off, and the last thing we just wanted to mention, and keep the questions coming, we'll save about five minutes for questions, is if you have the desire to aim to argue or get angry in Ramadan, again, while you're fasting, you actually are supposed to say, like I am fasting, I am fasting, and you lead the situation. And if it's with another Muslim, they should know and they should not try to force you to do it, right? Because this is all now us, usually Shaytan. He is going to, he's going to push us to argue. Shaytan is going to push us to argue most of the time. But in Ramadan, Shaytan, they're locked up, right? There's still humans in Shaytan going around, like human devils. We know that there are definitely many human devils in society, but the actual Shaytan, they are locked up. So the argument of that, argument of energy, or the anger, what does that have that comes from us? So we have to work on ourselves in Ramadan to try to control it. So a couple of things, remind yourself that you're fasting if that happens. And again, all these are desires we talked about in the past series. And so, you know, the desire for getting angry and desire for arguing was covered a couple of weeks ago. So I'm just kind of distilling it now into what we should focus on for the month of Ramadan. We increase then our thicker, we increase our remembrance of God in order to calm down the anger, be of course, practice the sunnah of if you're standing, you sit, and if you're sitting, you lie down and you try to go and make cold wudu to calm yourself down, right? And we try to leave the situation. So these are things we can do in this lesson month of Ramadan to avoid just doing the basics. I would encourage myself and everybody else, challenge yourself this in this month. Really, sincerely challenge yourself to aspire to the higher levels and higher station. Don't just be content with the basics. Don't just be content with staying away from food and drink and relations. Try to stop looking at bad things. Try to stop looking at down on people. Try to stop listening to bad things. Try to stop talking and speaking bad things and bad words. Try to stop lying and cheating and all the things we might do here and there. Try to make this a month of purity in order that you and I may attain a state of God consciousness and mindfulness of God that will then benefit us. It is a month where you fill your spiritual reserve to help you out throughout the year, Alhamdulillah. And if you fill that spiritual reserve, you and I will have so much benefit after the month of Ramadan. We just have to take one step and Allah multiplies and multiplies and multiplies and remember Allah says that fasting, everything that you and I do has a specific reward to it, except fasting. God says fasting is for me. It's for him, meaning he rewards it however he wants to reward it. It has unlimited potential for reward. Fasting is very, very special. The secret of fasting is that nobody knows you're truly, if you're truly fasting except God. Because at any moment during the fast, I could literally just go and I can drink a little bit of water, right? I could just do that. I mean, today I'm not that, and it's not a tafka mugra, but I'm not fasting. Anyways, but I could just do that, right? And nobody would know. If I'm just in my room, only God knows though if you're really fasting. It's special, it's for him. That means there's a special significance of building a special relationship with him this month. So lastly, we'll just end with try to increase your relationship with him in this month, talk to him more in this month, connect with the book that he sent you, the love letter that God sent you to, all of his creation, the Quran in this month, try to connect to it, recite it if possible. If you can't recite it at the very least, read it in your language, English, or whatever language it is that we might speak and engage in deepening the relationship. Aspire, make an intention right now. We have short of a week before the month Ramadhan comes in that I'm trying to get closer to Allah in this month. I'm trying to make fast intentions. I'm trying to follow the sunnah of the prophecy of the month this month that we intend to try to follow the sunnah of the prophecy of the example of all the righteous who came after him in this month and to try to attain stations of nearness to Allah that he only gives his most highest servants and that we try to attain forgiveness of Allah for all of our sins and that we intend to let the fasting elevate us and to remove our sins and to allow us to attain a state of purity even after the month of Ramadhan is over and there's so many other intentions you can make. So let's try to do that, inshallah. We're gonna be doing lastly a class on Sunday, this coming Sunday, so Sunday, April, or I think April 11th, right at 6 p.m. PST. We're gonna be doing that and it'll be live, inshallah. It will be focused specifically on Ramadhan prep, tips for Ramadhan prep, a little bit of the thick review of Ramadhan and a little bit of time for question and answer and also how to manage our time in Ramadhan, how to use our time most effectively. Inshallah, join that and then in the month of Ramadhan, we're gonna be doing class every Sunday and going live every Sunday at 6 p.m. We're about 30 minutes specifically focused on 6 p.m. PST, specifically focused on repentance, repenting in Ramadhan. How do we turn back to Allah in this month? How do we seek his forgiveness? So, inshallah, if it's beneficial, please feel free to attend. So if there are any questions now, please post them, we'll get to them and then we will end, inshallah. Inshallah, yeah. Just listening to the Quran, English translation, that's really, really good. That's really, really good. Keep that up, alamdulillah. Understanding the message of the Quran and then implementing it is so important. It's so important, alamdulillah. If anybody has any comments or questions, again, just feel free to post them, otherwise we will end with the dua, inshallah. And somebody asks, do we go live every week? So, kind of, we will be though as I just mentioned the schedule, we will be following that in Ramadhan and we might do some more lives as well. Okay, cool, we'll end with the prayer. Bismillah, alhamdulillah. I mean, we ask you. Grant us forgiveness for our sins. Grant us forgiveness for our wrongdoings. Grant your gentleness mercy upon us and upon all of our family members, upon all of our loved ones, please spread your mercy in this month of Ramadan. Please, Ya Allah, by your mercy remove this COVID and this disease from us. Ya Allah, make us be able to meet each other again and to restore a state of normalcy to this world. Ya Allah, give us spiritual tranquility in this month. Make this month easy for us. Make the fasting easy for us. Make the fasting especially easy for all of our brothers and sisters who are struggling in refugee areas, who are struggling in war-torn areas. Ya Allah, bring refuge and bring ease and bring faraj to the Muslims in Yemen and in Syria and Myanmar and in Palestine and in all the other parts of the Muslim world in Kashmir, all the other parts in the Uyghur Muslims in China, all the other parts of the Muslim world, Ya Allah, that people are struggling. Please assist them and please give them assistance from your special assistance, Ya Rabbil Alamin, Ya Allah. Please give us the Taufiq and the Divine Assistance to follow the Sunnah of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam in this month and to worship you abundantly in this month in a state of gentleness, fiqheir wa l-lutfu al-afiya in a state of health. Please give us and those of us who might be sick, Ya Allah, please give us health. Please give us health. Please give us good health. Allahumma yasalq al-afiya. Ya Allah, we ask you for afiya. We ask you for complete and total well-being, Ya Rabbil Alamin, Ya Allah. Ya Allah, we ask you, Ya Allah, that you allow us to enter this month with the best of intentions and allows to gain the best of knowledge before this month comes and allows to use this month productively and allows to leave the haram that we are doing and leave the bad thoughts that we have and to be excited for this month rather than seeing this month as a burden, Ya Rabbil Alamin. We ask you for everything good that the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam asked for and we ask for protection for everything evil that he asked for, wa sallam wa barak al-asim, wa muhammad al-mualim, wa sallam al-hamdulillahi, wa bi hurmati al-Alami. Al-hamdulillahi, wa bi hurmati al-Alami. Alright. Great. Sallallahu alayhi wa bari, salamu alaykum wa rahmatullah.