A very special guest came and has now sadly departed from us. We tried our best to prepare for it with sincere intentions. We tried our best to honour our guest by performing the fasts, doing extra worship and tried to change our behaviour. We even tried to impress upon it by thinking about others and gave in charity and invited family and friends for Iftar.
Whoever fasts the month of Ramadan, faithfully and optimistically seeking reward shall have all his previous sins pardoned, ﴾whoever stands the night of Qadr, with conviction and due anticipation of reward, shall have his previous sins forgiven﴿.
But what has this special guest left for us that we are able to carry its sweet fragrances for the rest of the year? Of course, we would have wished for it to stay forever. ‘If people were to know the good (blessings) in Ramadan, they would have hoped that Ramadan would last for the whole year,’ says our beloved Prophet.
Having bid farewell to Ramadan – the reality has now hit us. Even in the cosmos – things have gone back to its previous state. The devils that were chained are now free. The gates of heaven that were open are now closed. The gates of hell are now open. Our Iman (faith) and practice have now started to fluctuate at a greater level than before. We are only human – it is hard to keep the same special effort that we exert in Ramadan.
We can at least try to do our daily prayers, dhikr, and recitation of the Qur’an and exert as much effort as we can to do other optional acts of worship. There are some aspects of the spirit of Ramadan, however, that we have no excuse to not continue, such as avoiding what is prohibited and abstaining from falsehood (in words and deeds) and frequenting the mosque.
Dr Jamal Badawi offers some practical advice on what we can do now to keep some of those fragrances of Ramadan alive:
1. Continue with the regular Sunnah prayers. Did we try to do the Tarawih – a Sunnah prayer during the month – let’s try to do the Sunnah prayers now.
2. Continue the practice of reciting the Qur’an on a daily basis no matter how short it may be.
3. Try to fast the 6 days in the month Shawwal and thereafter try to make voluntary fasting even one day per week as best as you can. This may invoke the good memories of Ramadan so that its spirit may continue.
4. Continue even on a lesser scale the reading and studying about our religion.
5. Continue the spirit of brotherhood and mutual caring fostered in Ramadan. For example, having a potluck Iftar or dinner once a month to gather the people in the mosque. It would be nice if the people fast on that day.
So let us not dwell over the farewell – let us welcome it once again for next year.
is it just me, or point no 1. doesnt make any sense?
@Yasin It says that if we tried to do Tarawih in Ramadan, which is only a sunnah act anyway. Then we should equally try to do the other Sunnah of the normal prayers/waqt now. Obviously it applies to people who regularly miss it, saying it’s only ’sunnah’.
The point is if the sunnah tarawih was taken seriously we should take the normal sunnah prayers seriously as well.