Fulfilling the Purpose of Ramadan

Fulfilling the Purpose of Ramadan - Part 2

Why Do We Fast? (Continued)

d they were lengthy lectures and I was mentioning how we need to bring into us the love of Allah and that we love Allah so much that we're shy to disobey Him, right, that we love Allah so much that we're actually shy, we feel ashamed to disobey Allah. We say to ourselves how can I let God down? That's what we need to incorporate into our lives, you know, that's what we do with our parents, your boss, right, you want to be so nice and go out of your way to do things because if you don't like you feel so bad, how could I let my parents down? How could I let my friends down? That's how close Allah needs, we need to feel Allah that close to us. Allah is that close to us. He's closer to us than our jugular vein, but that said, we need to feel that, we need to incorporate that feeling, we need to have that feeling, we need to know that feeling to the extent where we're so close to Allah that we don't want to do anything wrong, we feel like that we're letting Him down, right.

Reasons for Fasting

So number of reasons the ulema mention: appreciate, give thanks to Allah continuously, give thanks to Allah, give up things that are haram, weakens the shaitan, you know, always conscious of the fact that Allah is watching us, you know, to be able to make do with the little that we have, we don't need a lot, right, we don't need a lot. Most of us don't realize that all the things that we have in life, we actually don't need them. Yeah, we've become slaves to our own nafs. That's why a lot of times we can't blame the shaitan, we need to start, the first person we need to blame is our own self, right. That's where the journey begins. It's very easy to blame someone else, blame yourself, right.

That's why I generally tell people that if you're going to go shopping for anything and you're going to buy, you're going to acquire anything, ask yourself do you need it or do you want it? Right, do you need it or do you want it? That's why there's a hadith, the Prophet ﷺ, not the exact word but the meaning is to the effect of that half of one's wealth is just saving your money, is not being extravagant in your expenditure. That's half of one's wealth. Yeah, that's why most American Muslims can't retire ever, most Americans can't retire ever, because there's so many things that we've put our, you know, there's just so much that we have and expectations and the lifestyles that we set for ourselves that it's a never-ending story, right.

And I still can't fathom people who buy homes at the ages of 40 and 50 with a 30-year mortgage, you know, like they're going to be paying the same mortgage at the age of 65, 66, really. And of course there's no concept of paying it off, right. I mean if you have enough equity you just pull it back out to do something else. That's not the lifestyle we need. The lifestyle we need is a very simple lifestyle. Our goal should be that towards the end of our lives we're living somewhere close by the masjid and we're coming to the masjid for pleasure every day, we're coming to the masjid for isha every day. That should be our goal in life.

And the last point, you know, getting used to doing a great deal of acts of worship.

What is Saum (Fasting)?

Saum, what is saum, what is fasting? To withhold. This is the definition that is found in the books of fiqh, to withhold from, the legal definition, to withhold from eating, drinking and intercourse during the daylight hours with the intention of fasting. You have to have the intention, performed by one who is capable and required. So you can't expect a seven-year-old kid to fast yet, at the same time you can't expect an elderly ill person to fast or an ill person period, regardless of whether they're elderly or not.

Daylight Hours: When Does Fasting Begin?

Daylight hours. When does the daylight hour begin? What is daylight? What does Islam define as daylight? No one. Not sunrise. I've heard a lot of Muslims say we fast from sunrise to sunset. We don't fast from sunrise to sunset. We fast from dawn to sunset. And dawn is just the, try to be English definition of the word, the Arabic word Subh Sadiq is translated as true dawn. Why is it true dawn? Because there's a false dawn as well. But fasting begins at true dawn, Subh Sadiq, which also means that one must have completed eating prior to Subh Sadiq, right, and one must also know that the time of Fajr begins at Subh Sadiq. So the adhan is called after Subh Sadiq.

The Adhan of Bilal and Abdullah ibn Umm Maktoom

I might as well mention it. There's two things I need to mention here. One, there's a hadith the Prophet ﷺ in which we find that Bilal radiallahu anhu would be calling the adhan and the Prophet ﷺ would be eating. So a lot of people we find right here amongst ourselves that while the adhan is being called they're still eating in the morning, the adhan on the clocks, the adhan in the masjid, wherever it may be, they're still eating and they say oh it's the hadith, the Prophet ﷺ, Bilal would call the adhan, he'd still be eating.

So sahih hadith found in Bukhari and Muslim in which the Prophet ﷺ narrated that the Prophet's, in Ramadan, the adhan of Bilal radiallahu anhu was not the adhan for Fajr. It was the adhan that was the indicator that the time of suhoor is about to end. So when you go to your local masjid and you find all these people eating while the muezzin is calling the adhan, wrong. People only want what they, what's convenient for them.

The hadith that's mentioned, and I mentioned the wrong sahabi two nights ago at the MCA, I mentioned Uthman ibn Maz'oon, but it wasn't Uthman ibn Maz'oon, rather it was Abdullah ibn Umm Maktoom radiallahu anhu. During the month of Ramadan, the adhan of Fajr was called by Abdullah ibn Umm Maktoom radiallahu anhu. So when people mention that adhan of Bilal and say the Prophet ﷺ was eating, know that that wasn't the adhan for Fajr. That was the adhan which was the indicator that the time for suhoor is about to end. And the adhan of Fajr was called by Abdullah ibn Umm Maktoom.

Because you have to understand, if this is true dawn, the time for suhoor ends and then the time for adhan begins, how can while the adhan is being called and the time for suhoor has ended, how can one continue eating? It doesn't make sense. So know that. Now don't go around telling people what you're doing is wrong, you don't get into arguments, people are not going to listen. Just know what's right and follow that which is right.

Suhoor Timing and Prayer Calculations

The second thing I should mention when it comes to suhoor, because we're talking about daylight hours. Suhoor, you see these are so lengthy discussions that when I have to like put them into like four minutes I become so difficult. The times for Isha and Fajr are calculated based on the degrees of the sun from the horizon. Okay, you don't need to know all these details but just understand that much. The predominant degrees that are followed here in the United States are the 15 and 18 degree methods.

Most ISNA's official position is 15 degrees and most masjids in the United States have adopted the 15 degree method. What is the 15 degree method? The 15 degree method is longer night, Isha comes in early, Fajr comes in late. That's what we want, right, brother deen is easy, don't make it difficult. Early Isha, late Fajr. That's the predominant calendars that you will find.

Then you have the 18 degree method which is a smaller night, Isha comes in late and Fajr comes in early. The time difference depending on where you are, especially in North America, whether you're as far south as San Diego or as far north as Vancouver, that variation could be quite a bit. So the ulama generally mention that, and there's a lot of opinions, but the predominant opinion in this regard is that Isha can be prayed at 15 degrees, Fajr should still be prayed at 18 degrees. And then some are of the opinion that you can pray Fajr at 15 degrees.

Generally we follow the 15 degree opinion, late Fajr, say thank you to us and you know go on and do that. That said, I mentioned this because some of you may recall certain Ramadan calendars up until about four or five years ago had a stop eating time. Do you remember that? Yeah, you remember that. And then you asked oh my God why did you get rid of it, right.

There was a specific reason behind that. The reason behind that was because, and the difference here in the Bay is about 15 minutes between the 18 and the 15 degree. So for example, can someone just check the calendar really quickly and see what time suhoor is the first day? 4:37. 14:37 that's a 15 degree time. So if you follow the 18 degree time it would be about 4:23.

So the real specific reason behind that is we would have people stop eating at the 18 degree time because according to some, at 18 degrees Fajr does begin. So just to be on the safe side, stop eating and then wait for Fajr to begin and then utilize that time in between to brush your teeth, make the hajj or whatever you needed to. That was the general idea behind this. But in all honesty it's not a requirement and in order to make it easy on people we've decided to delete the whole stop eating time altogether.

That said, in our own household we have individuals that follow the 18 degree time and who follow the 15 degree time. No one fights, no one argues, no one tells the other they're wrong, right. Oh you should do this, no, there's no you should do this. Whoever wants to do the 18 degree time, they wake up early, do their suhoor. Whoever wants to do the 15 degree time, they wake up late, they do their suhoor. We still pray Fajr together, we hug each other and we're still brothers and sisters in Islam. All right, there's no need to argue about all of this.

Categories of Fasting

Fasting is divided into seven categories depending on which book of fiqh you use. It could be five categories, six categories, seven categories. I don't plan to go into detail in these, in regards to these categories.

Kaffarah (Expiation)

Kaffarah, what's a kaffarah? It's an expiation. What's an expiation? It's fasting 60 days consecutively. Don't look at this. Well, here. If you break, if you either break the fast of Ramadan without a valid reason or you do not keep a fast in Ramadan without a valid shar'i reason, then not only do you have to make up the fast that you missed, but you have to do a kaffarah, you have to pay an expiation.

So say you're a kid, 15, 16, you decide mom and dad are not looking, hot day, popsicle, or you're just away from home and you're not a very practicing Muslim, you're like to heck with Ramadan, why do I got to do all that.

And then at the age of 40 when you have a few white hairs, you come to realize I got to be a Muslim and then you realize you missed some fasts. You got to make up those fasts. Okay, not valid reason, invalid reason for breaking the fast or not keeping the fast.

There are valid reasons for that, you don't have to give a kaffarah, but not valid reasons, just randomly deciding not to fast. I've come across individuals who haven't fasted for 10 years. That's not a lot, by the way. 10 times 30 is what, 300 fast. One day a week, 50 every year, you know what I'm saying. Not too bad, a few years you're done. It doesn't, it's not a lot, by the way. Our lives go by, you know what I'm saying, five six years have just gone by like this, like, you know. You've been, just imagine how long have you been at your last job, how long have you been at your last home. Time flies.

So one fast a week, four or five years, it's not a lot, you can make it up, it's doable. Here's the tough part though. The expiation, you have to give one expiation as a penalty for all of the, whether it was one fast that you broke or whether it was a hundred fasts that you did not keep or you broke, the expiation is one. What's the expiation? Fasting 60 days consecutively.

What does that mean? That means that if you miss the 60th day, you start all over again. It's a penalty, it's not meant to be easy, it is not meant to be easy. That's why you can't begin the expiation after Eid al-Fitr. Why not? Sorry, Eid al-Adha gets in the way. Eid al-Adha gets in the way. So you have to start after Eid al-Adha.

The women have it a little easier than the men because the days that the women miss, they miss, right, you miss those days, you pass along, you just, that's how you complete your 60. Guys, we don't have it that easy. Okay, it's 60 days, one shot. You miss day 59, start over.

And by the way, you can feed poor people but that's not an option. It's not an option that you can do this, this or this. You have to fast for 60 days. If you can't fast for 60 days, and the if is not decided by you, the if is decided by the Prophet, then you can move on to the next category or the next category or the next category. The if is not decided by us like oh no no I can't fast for 60 days I will. No, it's too difficult brother. Not my, it's not my decision here, it's the Prophet's decision.

So one, now by the way on a more serious note, if for whatever reason in our past life we've, for whatever reason, just had missed a fast or whatever, at least make the intention that someday inshaAllah we will at least make up the missed fasts and then hopefully sooner than later do the kaffarah. I know, I'm going to be honest

Exemptions from Fasting

Exemptions. People who are exempted from fasting in the month of Ramadan. People who are ill, if you're ill, so ill that you cannot fast. Now this is again defined into two categories. You're so, you're ill in Ramadan, so you're going to make it up later, you must make those up later. Or you're so ill that you're never going to be able to make up the fasts, then there's, they have to give a fidya, right.

So ill, an ill person. A pregnant or nursing woman. A pregnant or nursing woman must make up the fasts that she misses. Giving a fidya is not an option for many women. They think that oh I'll give the fidya and then if I can make them up later on I'll do that also. Don't work like that. You must make up the fast that you missed.

I should also mention that you do not have to make them up prior to the next Ramadan, which is a very desi thing. Oh you have to make it up before the next Ramadan. I've actually, here's the best one, oh since you haven't made it up until the next Ramadan, now you don't have to make them up. Oh my dear auntie, where are you getting these rules, you know. Don't home-bake my rules. These rules come from the Quran and the Sunnah, okay. You're not my homemade, I don't make these up at home.

You must make them up, whether the next year, the year after, whatever, whenever you can. However, they don't have to be done consecutively. You can do them once a week, once every two weeks, once every three weeks. Eventually make up the fasts.

Just because you're pregnant doesn't mean that oh I'm not going to fast anymore. I actually know so many pregnant women that have fast into their eighth month of pregnancy with conviction in Allah that barakah will come through my fast into this child. And how do they justify their fasting despite the fact that their doctors don't tell them not to? They say that I sleep 12 hours in the night and I don't get hungry, I'll just stay up in the night and eat a lot and I'll just fast during the 12 hours of the day.

And I'm telling you, I personally know women who've done this and they have like a major diet plan, like, you know, their shakes and their high protein foods and just eating every two hours and then they fast, which is the equivalent, and of course mashaAllah their families and their husbands will support them so that they can get through the day without doing, you know, extra amounts of work. It's doable. So just because you're like fasting doesn't mean like just because you're pregnant, oh I'm not gonna fast anymore, no. Like think about it, if you can, khair, alhamdulillah, if you can't, no big deal, I'm not expecting anyone to fast.

Severe thirst. So someone asked me yesterday what does severe thirst mean. Severe thirst means if you don't drink you're gonna die. It's intense. You don't just break your fast. If we think we have it bad, why don't we travel to the Middle East and see the Pakistani, Bengali, Indian laborers that have to work building these buildings in Dubai that you and I go and see and have a great time in. So ask them how difficult it is.

Traveler. If you're a traveler, you don't have to fast. People ask how do you fast when you're traveling? You don't fast based on the watch, you fast based on the Subh Sadiq and the sunset of where you are. So if you get on a plane from here, you're traveling east, you will break the fast as soon as the sun sets in the airplane. Or if you're traveling west, you'll break your fast as soon as the sun sets in the airplane. Or if you're traveling west, your fast may be longer because if you land before sunset, then you're so.

So there, and then there's people who will, for example, travel to places like, you know, the far east, you know, they're flying on Kate or China Air or whatever and they're missing an entire day altogether. Still you don't fast in those cases, just don't fast. Whatever day you miss, you just make those up.

If you're traveling in some countries, you may end up doing 31 days but because you're there, you must fast. You can't stop fasting at day 30 and say this is khatam, no. You have to finish. It could be 29, if it's 28, by the way, for whatever reason because Muslims in America started to decide to go by calculation, totally screwed up the actual date, which is what's going to happen this year, and then you may only have 28 fasts, then you must after Ramadan make up one because the minimum is 29.

But you could, if you need to, you could go up to 31. You don't stop in 30 and say I'm okay, I'm not going to fast today, I'm going to make Eid with you tomorrow.

Sports training, these are not valid reasons for one to break the fast. A lot of young individuals ask swimming, basketball, things like that. Not valid reason. You got to give those up or do it and still continue to fast, right. Sharia comes first.

Fidya

Before we go, one last stipulation. Fidya. Fidya is the, fidya is the amount that we give for not making, for not doing a fast and not being able to make up that fast either. A person is so ill, right, they're old, they're alive but they're old that they're not going to be able to make up the fast, and even after Ramadan ends there's no hope of them making up that fast. So they give a fidya.

The amount of fidya is the same as Sadaqat al-Fitr, Zakat al-Fitr, Fitra, Fitrana. I just said it in like four different languages, whichever one you subscribe to, pick and choose. Fitrana, fitra, Sadaqat al-Fitr, Zakat al-Fitr, whatever you call it, it's the same thing. The method of calculation is exactly the same. Are you with me? So whether zakat, that's why if you ever need to figure out the fidya, you don't have to like get all worried, just look at the amount of Sadaqat al-Fitr on the masjid box and that's the amount of fidya.

Now the methods of calculating the fidya are based on grains that the Prophet gave and the method was either half a sa' or one sa'. These were specific amounts, imagine it to be a pound or two pounds. And the Prophet gave different grains at different times.

So based, these are last year's numbers, based on wheat, right, the fidya comes to six dollars, barley fifteen dollars, raisins twenty one dollars, dates thirty three dollars. If you're giving it as a fidya, it's per person per day. If you're using this amount as a Sadaqat al-Fitr, it's per person.

And in regards to Sadaqat al-Fitr, Zakat al-Fitr, fitra, you should also know that you give it on behalf of everyone in your family, even the children who haven't reached the age of puberty, right. So keep these things in mind.

Imam Ghazali's Three Grades of Fasting

Okay, Bismillahir Rahmanir Raheem. Imam Ghazali, rahmatullahi alayh, mentions so we've moved on from the fiqh of fasting, by the way that fiqh of fasting can be very very detailed but we sort of just went through it in brief. Imam Ghazali mentions the three grades of fasting.

First Grade: The Ordinary Fast

One, that's the ordinary fast. The ordinary fast is that in which you, or in which we, no eat, no drink, right, no relations with our spouses, that's pretty much it, right. Which is sort of your average layman's fast, right. The only thing we don't do is no eating, no drinking, no relations with our spouses, but our lives continue to go on like it's any other day, right. That is just an ordinary fast and our reward will be very ordinary, it's not going to be a special reward.

Second Grade: The Special Fast

The second fast or the second kind of fast as Imam Ghazali mentions is a special kind of fast. He mentions in this category, and this is a very lengthy category:

• See not which is prohibited by Allah
• Speak not which is prohibited by Allah
• Hear not which is prohibited by Allah
• Do not which is prohibited by Allah
• Avoid overeating
• And look to Allah with fear and hope

Now very briefly, if we were to go into each one of these categories, seeing not, to not look at, to not see anything which is prohibited by Allah. Now our threshold of that which is prohibited by Allah is actually very low and I'm going to give you an example and this example will bring things to perspective.

Shaykh Salik, you know Shaykh Salik, Shaykh Salik is a Mauritanian shaykh who lives in Hayward, old school, been here for about 10 years, very old school, still makes wudu out of a cup because he says that's closest to the sunnah, right, very old school. When he came here some years ago, some of the students around him decided to take him to UC Berkeley for a lecture and he agreed. When he got there and he got outside the car, he screamed and his scream and his complaint was why are these people naked.

There was no one naked there to our standards. Our threshold is very low. Our threshold of naked is extreme naked. His threshold of naked was anyone who, man or woman, that wasn't covered, right. So that's something

that, you know, and he, by the way, he didn't deliver a lecture there that afternoon, he left. He saw guys and girls in shorts and tanks and he thought that was naked, right.

So when we talk about seeing not, some of us go to, in our mind we think of something very extreme like oh I'm not supposed to see this, no, it's even a day in day out billboards, the way people are dressed at the malls, right. Think so basic, now even the way people are dressed at work, but we must, we need to go to work whereas we don't need to go to the mall. There's a distinct difference. Do you need to go to the mall? No, you don't. Do you need to go to work? Yeah, you do, right. So there's a distinct difference.

And avoiding, as when you, when you read the books of tazkiyah, one of the things that's mentioned is, for example, when you know when you know someone is doing or saying something and they don't know you're there, taqwa means to turn away and not listen to it. Taqwa means to turn away from there, between you and Allah, whether they know you're there or not doesn't matter. Like so for example, if you have a two-story house and the neighbors around you have one-story homes and they're out in their backyard, they don't see that you can see them in their backyard, but taqwa is that you shut your blinds and you don't look at them, you turn away because we are accountable to Allah. That is a good Muslim, that's a good person, all right.

So seeing not which Allah has prohibited. Speak not which Allah has prohibited: lying, right, cursing, gossiping, very common, right. I mean from certain, in certain cultures gossip is part of your day-to-day life. It doesn't matter whether you're fasting or not, you have to get a phone call every day from someone, you know what happened, no I don't. Yeah, any kind of speaking.

In fact I was mentioning yesterday that if someone older than you calls you and begins to gossip, just hang up and you can later on tell them your battery died. That would be a permissible lying, if you can't tell them, if you can't tell them like look mom you're gossiping, I'm done. If you don't have the guts to do that, then just hang up and tell them the battery died. No like really, you know.

I've been going and I would urge you to get this. I've been going through this book, the Ramadan of Shaykh Muhammad Zakaria and other elders. Shaykh Muhammad Zakaria was a scholar from the Indo subcontinent, spent the last few years of his life in Medina Munawwara and because of the commentary that he wrote on the Sahih of Imam Bukhari, the Saudi scholars revered him. And when he passed away, the time that was spent between his death and his burial, his janazah was prepared in 30 minutes and he was buried within an hour of his death and he is buried right next to the wives of the Messenger.

He happens to be my father's shaykh and my father spent six years with him. And my cousin, some of you know my cousin Imam Siraj, Imam Siraj's father spent 13 years with him. And let me tell you, my father says that when we, they call him Hazrat Shaykh, and when my dad, when I read, there's an autobiography that he has written of how he was raised, and when I read the, when I read the autobiography, we read it with my father, my father says you're just reading it out of a book, I can picture my shaykh saying it, the way his facial expressions were and his hands were, you know.

He died in the early 80s. My father spent six Ramadans there. My father says beta, we only had one rule. I was like wow, that's a pretty easy rule. You couldn't speak. You only had one rule, this was in Saharanpur in UP in India for those individuals who know, in India you were not allowed to speak. That was it. He says one month,

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no speaking. And you didn't get into trouble if you spoke, it was between you and, he would just announce it, if you want to be my student, if you want to spend your Ramadan here, this is one rule. If you break that rule, you're accountable, it's between you and Allah, all right.

So, and it's just imagine we'd be saving so much time and you know what else falls into this category? Unnecessary chatting, facebooking, tweeting, all of that, it's all waste of time, right. It's Ramadan. This goes right back to the first thing I mentioned, Ramadan is about the direct ibadah of Allah. If you don't need to be there, you don't need to be there.

And now so you know a very common question is so Imam Tahir, what do you expect us to do, read the Quran all day? Yeah, and you need, it's a training manual. You get, you know, when you're when you're younger you have little money, you learn to live, you get more money, you learn to live, you have a better job, you learn to live, you buy a bigger house, you buy more furniture, right. Spiritually that's where we need to go. If we were reciting five juz the year before, it should be six this year. In 30 years you'll get to 30 juz per day, but you need to get there, right.

I remember when I had the honor of spending some, a few Ramadans with my grandfather. My grandfather in his 80s would complete one recitation of the Quran daily and that was not a big deal, that was the norm, that was the norm amongst the pious men and women of town, right. It was just the norm, right. I mean I tell you the ways of the pious were, yes, to recite Quran daily. I have numerous teachers, numerous teachers who complete the Quran daily in their voluntary salah, daily. So the sunnah of Dhuhr takes them at least an hour and then they go to the masjid just for the fard prayer and then the sunnah, they come back home and the next two sunnah, it takes them another half an hour because they're reciting the Quran from memory in their salah.

Those who are not hafidh of the Quran, they would recite the Quran but like they, these are people in their 50s, 60s and 70s, but they took them, their lives, they got there, they eventually got there, it's a journey, right, it's a journey, you get there. Even amongst us, cousins and brothers, we in Ramadan actually have competitions, we have internal competitions like who's going to finish the most number of Qurans this year, right.

And then we sometimes set aside a day and say that tomorrow we're going to recite, so this is after the khatm and taraweeh, like tomorrow we're going to recite the Quran in one entire day. How many of you have joined the bandwagon? And like cousins, males and females, we all like join the bandwagon and we complete, we complete the khatm and we do it for our grandparents, right.

That's why I tell you, I was mentioning this, it is, I find it almost impossible to see, to meet anyone, a scholar in the United States who would like show us this Ramadan through their actions. That's why it's very common in England where we have scholars, we just invite scholars from the Indo subcontinent or the Arab world to spend Ramadan with us and they do nothing but spend Ramadan in our masajid. We don't have them do anything. It's not like oh we're invited you so you have to do a lecture every day, shaykh, no, they just come, make dua, but we just see them and we see them for days on end, right, for weeks on end, and that's how we learn Ramadan, right.

So yeah, if you're telling, if you know, no facebooking, no tweeting, yeah, that's what I'm telling you, I'm telling you to recite the Quran, that's what I'm telling everyone to do. Um, hear not that which is prohibited, don't listen

to anything which is prohibited. This is primarily for young individuals. Most of us listen to a lot of music and I am no one to tell you that music is haram, but I can definitely tell you that the lyrics of the music that modern day-to-day hip-hop that we listen to, that's definitely haram, right. It is what it is, that which is being described, all the things, that's not allowed, right, it's definitely questionable, you know.

I have a classmate from Burma. Sister Yasmin knows this. Some years ago, through Sister Yasmin, actually I sent him a few hundred dollars, okay, in Ramadan. Before, I can't remember anymore, you know, he wrote back to me. He wrote a letter and said for the entire month of Ramadan, for the entire month of Ramadan, let alone taste meat, we never even smelled meat for the entire month. We used to have potatoes every day. That's the level of people's poverty. That's the level, if it's making too much noise, I mean that's the level of people's poverty. We need to be conscious of people's poverty around us.

I mean look at what's happening to Muslims in Syria and Muslims in Burma today. I mean it's just really really sad. So don't listen to anything that's not allowed. Don't do anything that's not allowed. Avoid overeating. Someone just told me a few days ago that it takes 15 minutes for the stomach to tell the brain that it's full, right.

How many of you, well don't, I really don't want to know, but if you happen to be amongst individuals that eat out, fast food, look up, write down these two words, go home and google them: pink slime. You know pink slime is? Yeah, for those of you that eat out, you should know what pink slime is. And meat glue. Okay, just look up these two terms, you'll stop eating out. And then you wonder why our children are disobedient to their parents and Allah. Meat glue.

And then looking to Allah with fear and hope.

Third Grade: Fasting of the Heart

Imam Ghazali mentions that the third quality, the third grade of fasting is fasting of the heart from all unworthy and worldly concerns, right. Absolutely no dunya in your life whatsoever. Absolutely no dunya in your life at all. It's nothing but Allah, it's nothing but Allah, and it's nothing but Allah, okay. That's what it comes down to.

So those are the three grades. Generally we should as individuals try to see if we can fit in to at least the second category, right. At least fit into the second category, very very important. Okay, let's move on.

The Prophet's ﷺ Ramadan

The Prophet's ﷺ Ramadan. We all know the Prophet ﷺ made dua at the beginning of Ramadan. He made dua at the beginning of Sha'ban. The Prophet ﷺ made special, the words of the hadith are, he made arrangements to see the moon of the Sha'ban that he did not make for other months. And it's specifically mentioned for Sha'ban and not Ramadan because if you have the adad and the count of Sha'ban perfect, then you're bound to have a more perfect adad and count for Ramadan, right. That's why it's the fasting of Sha'ban, sorry, the sighting of the moon of Sha'ban which was so necessary. And we do see that. So do keep that in mind.

When Ramadan would begin, the Prophet ﷺ would make a special dua. The Prophet ﷺ would congratulate the companions. There's no harm in doing that, to say mubarak, Ramadan mubarak, send emails, call people, hug, whatever it is that you do.

The Prophet ﷺ delivered, there's a very specific hadith, Salman al-Farsi radiallahu anhu narrates this from the Messenger ﷺ, in which he ﷺ mentions that the reward of every nafal and voluntary act is that of a fard, and the reward of every fard act is multiplied by 70, right. That's why in the month of Ramadan we should endeavor to pray all of our prayers in congregation. We should ensure that we don't omit and miss the sunnah and nafila prayers that are associated to the fard prayers. The sunnah of Dhuhr before and after and the nafal after and the sunnah of Asr before and the sunnah of Maghrib and the nafila of Maghrib and the sunnah of Isha before and after and so on and so forth, right. The reward is multiplied.

The Prophet ﷺ tells the companions and says feed people, feed them a meal at the time of breaking the fast. The sahaba turn to Nabi ﷺ and says ya Rasulallah, we're poor people, we hardly have enough for ourselves, you're telling us to feed people. And so what does the Prophet ﷺ say? The Prophet ﷺ says if you give them a date, a sip of water or a sip of milk, Allah will grant you forgiveness, right, grant you forgiveness.

That's why subhanAllah, you know, I've mentioned this story so many times, but just a few weeks ago we got, you know, I got a phone call, I've mentioned this a few times, I got a phone call from an individual and left me a message and says Imam Tahir, call me back, it's urgent. Urgent, you know what's urgent, I call him back and long story short, he decided that he wanted to donate money for the entire fasts for the masjid for the month of Ramadan. I mean there's people out there, there's people out there who will do that, they want that reward, they want. Yeah, I get an email a few days later from someone that says you know can we buy water for everyone for the month of Ramadan. There's people, there's good people out there, we just have to remind people, that's all there is, remind them. The reminder benefits the believers, right. There's good people out there, there's a lot of good people out there.

And the rewards are multiplied. Ramadan is like a, it's like a, it's like a big sale, right. It's a big, everything's on sale. The rewards are just multiplied and multiplied and it's just, you can't have enough, right. You can, sometimes I hear women saying that you can never have enough shoes or you can never have enough purses, right, or whatever, however you define, you can never have enough of whatever. I don't know, for guys it's like stocks or money or whatever. That's what it is in Ramadan, you can never have enough about, it's not like oh I've done enough today, I'm done, we'll start tomorrow again, no. It's just, it's never ending, it keeps on going, it's multiplied and multiplied and multiplied.

And Nabi ﷺ would mention the virtues of fasting. The Prophet ﷺ says, the smell, we've been given five things that were not granted to any previous nations. Number one, the smell of a fasting person's mouth is more beloved to Allah than the fragrance of musk. The Prophet ﷺ knew that our breaths would stink, let's be real here. And so the Prophet ﷺ encouraged us, he says don't worry, I know that you're hungry, you're going to be hungry, it's going to stink, but know that that smell is more beloved to Allah than the smell of musk.

Now of course, if you're going to, if you need to go to work, you're going to be in public, you are allowed to brush your teeth. Brushing your teeth with toothpaste does not break your fast as long as it doesn't go inside. In fact, if you're going to be amongst non-Muslims, you're encouraged to brush your teeth and be clean, right. But if you're not going to be, it's okay to have that smell, right. It's more beloved to Allah. When Allah loves that coming out of your mouth, why should you stop it, right. Now I'm, so be careful, you know, shoot you, you decide and you judge for yourself how it needs to happen.

The Prophet ﷺ says the fish in the sea keep seeking forgiveness from Allah for the fasting person until iftar. Next Sunday the sea and the fish are going to be, in fact the sea and the fish are making dua for us right now because the Prophet ﷺ says that whenever someone leaves their home in pursuit of sacred knowledge, the fish in the sea make dua for them. So the sea, the fish in the sea making dua for us right now and there's a lot of fish in the sea, the last time I checked. No, like it's so real, it's so real, like if we just start.

The Prophet ﷺ says that when an individual goes to visit a sick individual, you're in the khurfa of Jannah, you're in a garden of paradise when you're and what does in paradise, whatever we want we get. So like when we go to visit a sick person, it's the time when we should be making. We saw our teachers when they would say like after Asr they would, because we'd have dars all day, from Asr to Maghrib would be the free time and so after, before Asr one of the teachers would call you and say bhai Tahir, we have to go and meet someone today after Asr. And so, you know, I take my car, pull up in front of their house, they'd get in and we go and meet that person. And while we would be going, our teachers wouldn't be talking because they're making dua. They would say literally I'm in Jannah right now, why should I be talking.

Imagine being a doctor, imagine being a Muslim doctor. Have the right intention when you leave for work in the morning, for which you're going to get paid a lot of money that you actually don't deserve. You're getting rewards like, it's an amazing thing, it's a deen, Islam is an amazing thing if you only realize.

Prophet ﷺ says Allah describes Jannah every day, the devils are chained up in the course of this month, and the ummah is forgiven in the last night. Okay.

Suhoor

Suhoor. It's a blessed meal. The Prophet ﷺ would make suhoor with dates. The suhoor is the distinction between us and the Ahl ul-Kitab. In the initial days of Islam, I don't know if I mentioned this, but in the initial days of Islam there was no such thing as suhoor. You would eat and then you would go to sleep, right, and when you woke up, that was the beginning of your fast. So it was the sleep that was the indicator of the beginning of your fast.

And then the verse was revealed, right, that's the Subh Sadiq, right there, right, that the from the white line makes distinction from the black line, right. And so that's, for us that was it. And what does the Prophet, in fact in the ayah of, in the ayahs, in fact they were mentioned in that first slide, Allah intends ease for you and Allah does not intend difficulty for you. Allah intends ease for you, Allah doesn't. And that's so suhoor is to make, in fact the Prophet ﷺ encouraged us to fast, all right. So keep that in mind, it's a sunnah to make suhoor.

Also at the same time, I like to tell people eat healthy, don't eat junk food. It's not a time to eat all this oily food that we normally eat, you know, eat healthy, have a decent suhoor. The other thing is that, you know, it's, we don't have, you know, people, everyone in the household should come together to prepare for the suhoor. Now I'm not asking everyone to cook, right, there's some people who can cook and there's others who can't. But those who can't, they can at least set the table, they can do things, right.

And then the typical male attitude is like they get done, if you're a desi male, right, this is the average like desi male, you get done eating and then you just walk away, right, no. And like oh yeah, I have to pray tahajjud and I have to go for Fajr, like she doesn't, you know. Just help out in whatever way possible with the right intention.

Clean up the table, put the plates away, take out the garbage, you know, maybe leave the dishes, when the husband wakes up in the morning maybe he can wash the dishes before he goes. I don't know, whatever. These are not real rules. Yeah, there's people looking at their like, like you know, my husband's gonna wash the dishes.

But we should honestly, we should like whatever we can with the intention of like specific reward and you know like let me do this despite the fact that I haven't done it for the last 25 years of our marriage, but like I want some extra reward here, right. So something along those lines.

I already explained the suhoor, right, the distinction, are you okay, is that just a question, okay. I explained the suhoor, the adhan of the suhoor, you remember that right. So right, the adhan. And by the way I should have mentioned that some of us have this experience in countries where we come from, prior to the adhan of Fajr you would have a siren or an announcement or something along those lines. At least where I was, where I lived in India, we'd have this siren, right. In America we had mom, mom would scream at us. She still does. That's what moms are for, they love you so much.

My mom, she spent, I think around last year, the year before, I can't remember, she would still scream at us and I actually enjoyed it honestly, like it reminds you that you're still your mom's kid, no matter, you know, no matter how old you are, no matter what happens to you, they're still your parents, you know. As my father says, you're still the same kid that I brought home from the hospital 30 some years ago. So don't you go, go on talking about, you know, talking my face. And so it's a reality, we're children, we will always be our parents' children and, and it's love. So doing things, but suhoor is a sunnah, we should make suhoor.

I already explained the timings of suhoor, you know, how, whatever you feel, whatever you do, don't go past the time and then don't cheat by having a clock in your home that's pushed off by two, like, you know. You know, let me tell you something, a very specific stipulation. If you forgetfully eat or drink something, your fast doesn't break. But if you go past the suhoor time eating, you need to make that fast up. There's no forgetful there.

So during the course of the day, say it's the first fast, you know, whatever day it is and you're, you know, a friend of yours brings around some steak, you know, filet mignon and you just mashaAllah, you know, you eat the whole thing, you burp a little and then you say, you know, mashaAllah and then you're, it's fast, alhamdulillah, that's about, that's considered a blessing from Allah, no. And so, but if you go at the time of suhoor you have an extra, you know, spoonful of cereal, you got to do that fast over again. So be very careful, suhoor is meant to be very, you know, something that we need to think about.

During the Day

During the day, during the course of the day, recite Quran, recite Quran and recite Quran. This is the month of the Quran. If you cannot recite that much Quran, listen to the Quran. This is a month in which reading holds the precedence, not the translation of the Quran and not the tafsir and explanation of the Quran. The translation and the tafsir are reserved for the 11 months. The recitation is what's meant to be done in Ramadan.

People say I can't recite so much, I don't know how to recite, I have a hard time. You know, the Prophet was very kind. The Prophet says if you can recite you get a single reward. If you recite and you do it with difficulty, your reward is doubled. I envy, for, I envy those individuals who can't recite correctly, no really, the

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reward is doubled. Like if you come to think of it, in other words, encouragement from the Prophet to recite, right.

Over the years and generations we've been taught that the Quran is meant to be recited. Yes it's meant to be understood as well, but the reward of recitation in and of itself is an actual act and reward altogether. And one should not underestimate the value of reciting the Quran without knowing the translation. Don't ever underestimate the value. And if anyone ever tells you that there's no benefit in reciting the Quran without the translation, walk away from them. You don't need people like that in your life.

The Quran has its own barakah. These are, what is the Quran? The Quran is the direct word of Allah. We read Shakespeare, we read this spear, we read that spear, we read all kinds of things and oh my god, this is written by so-and-so, you know, this is Steve Jobs, you know, like oh my god, we spend all kinds of money, like this is Allah. This is Allah. This is your Lord and my Lord. There's a Lord of everything that exists on the face of this earth. There's a Lord of every bright person, every bright man, every bright woman, every writer, every poet, every artist that came on the face of this earth, this is their Lord. And that Lord had some things to say to humanity. He had a special message for humanity. And this is that message.

And we get to recite it words. This is the exact words that Jibreel brought from the heavens to the Prophet. And Allah is so kind that He shared this with us. He didn't hide it away somewhere and say no no no, this is not for you, not yet, nice. This is all yours, take it. And Allah was so kind to the Muslim ummah:

"Inna nahnu nazzalna dhikra wa inna lahu la hafizoon" - Not only did we reveal the Quran, we protected it.

So that you could recite it. That's the beauty. That's the Quran. Like, you know, it's the direct word of Allah, the God, Allah, the only message that He had for all of humanity, His final message, His complete message. We have it, unchanged, unadulterated. In fact, if we try hard, we can actually recite it exactly as the Prophet recited it and how he taught individuals to recite it. We have that.

And what do we say? There's no benefit in reciting the Quran without the translation. Where do we get this, right. So be very careful, it's a time to, like I said, recite as much as you can. Carry, you know, most of us carry smartphones these days, the only smartphone is the iPhone, I'm sorry. We carry smartphones these days, we have apps, images, Quran. We carry a mushaf with you. Historically people carried masahif with them, recite, you know.

And by the way, it's, for many of us it's not in our culture to recite, it's just not. We don't recite the Quran, we think like reciting is some big magnanimous glorified thing that we have to be all prepared for. I'll give you a simple example from today. A few, we prayed Dhuhr at about one, 1:30, is that when we prayed? 1:30, we prayed Dhuhr at about 1:20 ish. Two young men, we have a large contingent of students from Saudi Arabia who go to San Jose State and other schools here. And two young men walked in, they prayed their sunnah. There's about three minutes left for Dhuhr.

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What does the average desi male do when there's three minutes left for sunnah? Looks for a flyer or find someone next to them to talk to them, right. These individuals, there's three minutes left, three minutes, like what can you get done in three minutes? Both of them, lord behold, walked up, picked up the mushaf and began to recite until the iqamah was called. We're not, we're not in that habit unfortunately, culturally we don't do that, all right. So we need to get ourselves doing that, recite the Quran, you know.

You, this, just skimming through it as we normally read books, that's not reciting. Reciting is when you can hear it, it's got to come out of your mouth.

Be generous, give something every day, give something every day. There should, there shouldn't be a day that goes by in which we don't give something, be it a dollar, be it five dollars. We can, every day, every day, something to follow that sunnah of the Messenger.

And not spend all day sleeping, you know. People do things to distract themselves from fasting. Really, there's so much that you're supposed to be doing, how could you like, you know, it's like someone going off on a vacation and saying you go and sightsee, I'm going to rest in the hotel and you can come back and tell me all about it, you get the point.

There's no, I don't want people to think oh I'm going to recite five juz daily, ten juz daily, whatever you can, but a good portion of our day should go with reciting the Quran. If we, if we just can't recite, if we don't know how to recite the Quran, let's endeavor to learn. And for individuals of that, of those kind, let's read the translation. Allah will reward us. Allah is very kind. Don't underestimate the mercy of Allah. Don't underestimate the kindness of Allah.

Iftar

Iftar. The Prophet did iftar after sunset, immediately after sunset. He didn't wait. So as soon as it was sunset, the adhan would begin to be called and the Prophet would break his fast. Iftar here means breaking the fast and not dinner. The sunnah of Nabi was to very briefly break his fast, pray Maghrib and then go for dinner, you know, like the Prophet's iftar was dates, that's the sunnah, right. It's just subhanAllah, he did iftar with the poor. He did iftar with the poor, right. He did iftar before salat, not Maghrib as in the time for Maghrib, as in before Salatul Maghrib.

So it was adhan and it's correct, it's perfectly permissible and correct to make iftar while the adhan is being called. You don't have to wait for the adhan to complete, right. And then there's the hadith:

"Lissaimi inda fitrihi dawatun mustajabah" - For the fasting individual at the time of iftar is an accepted dua.

(Sunan Ibn Majah 1753, Sunan al-Tirmidhi 3598)

The time of iftar historically has been a time of dua. I have seen in my life certain times of dua for my teachers: the wee hours of the morning on a regular basis before Fajr, the time between the sunnah and the fard prayers, that's a moment of acceptance on any given day. Once the sunnah prayer is complete, be it Fajr, Dhuhr, whatever, and the fard prayer, whatever time is in between, that's a moment of acceptance. I would see

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historically, I have seen the masjids filled before Salatul Maghrib on Friday, the wee hours of Yawmul Jumu'ah, the time between the two khutbas, and the time of iftar.

Of all the teachers that I have studied with and spent time with, I don't ever recall any of them doing anything but two things between Asr and Maghrib in Ramadan: Quran and dua. There was no third, there's absolutely no, it's Quran or dua, one of the two. And the times closer to Salatul Maghrib were a time for dua.

And so I like to mention, and I mention this usually when we do my Hajj workshop, make a list of duas, make a list of all the duas that you want to make for yourself, for your children, for your family, for your friends. Make a list, right. And utilize that list when you're making dua. And have that list with you, have it on your phone, have it on your email, have it on your laptop. It should be with you wherever you are, wherever you go, that whenever you have a moment to make dua, you can open that list and you don't forget things that you want to ask Allah for. You can utilize that list. So make a list of duas. The time for, the time of Maghrib on Friday is a very very sacred time.

Iftar Parties

Iftar parties. Iftar parties are contrary to sunnah. If there was a correct iftar party, it would be simple and quick. Our iftar parties are lengthy, we do nothing but waste time, right. It takes the women an hour and a half to get ready to go to the party and it takes the men two hours. They say that we pick on the women all the time so we pick on the men this time. You know what I'm saying. The amount of makeup and the clothes and we have to get ready because we're going to a party, right.

And then the 25-30 minutes to get there, taking two cars because the husband's going to go to the masjid and the wife's going to go back home, right. Getting there, looking for parking, walking in, time of iftar, people talking,