Eid Mubarak! We pray that Allah has accepted your fasts and all your ibaadah, we pray that He allows us all to witness many more Ramadan to come and we pray that you have a blessed and fun filled day! We have reached the end of a month that was mentally and physically challenging and today we will be be celebrating with family, friends and food. Last week we spoke about what reaching the end of Ramadan means for us in terms of good deeds and whilst over the next few days we will be busy with good company and laughter, our minds won’t be too focused on the rest of the year – yet. However, what does reaching the end of Ramadan mean for us in terms of spirituality? What does our mental roadmap consist of for the rest of the year? How are we going to keep that Ramadan feeling close to our hearts when we have to wait for its blessed arrival again?
The month of Ramadan has left as quickly as it came, and this year, it seemed to have taken a lot of us by surprise. A good surprise. Ramadan can sometimes feel like a shock to the system, physically, mentally and spiritually, and it seems to leave just as we adapt and make changes – but maybe that’s why it’s only a month. Ramadan shows us how much we can change, how much we can abstain from, and how much good we can do in just a month. It lets us taste the sweetness of humility with hunger, modesty with thirst, and purpose with the remembrance of Allah. It allows us to be the better person we want to be, it shows us the better person we can be, and it leaves just in time to remind us of the better person we should be all year round.
With this being said, a lot of us will be feeling low with Ramadan having left us, which can affect our faith and motivation. During this month, Islam’s collectivist nature is boldly highlighted with meals at the Masaajid, congregational Taraweeh, united charity given to other parts of the Muslim world, and a warm fuzzy feeling of everyone making dua for each other. All of this can make Ramadan and practicing Islam a lot easier, so of course when this month vanishes out of sight, the practices and feelings that we once celebrated may dissolve. The newly practicing Muslims who became practicing during Ramadan may find it difficult to keep up with what they were doing without the support and example of others.
Others may get deflated when they can’t stick to goals they had made, and others may get discouraged when they find themselves returning back to old habits they once had high hopes of defeating, but it is important to remember that Ramadan is not supposed to a short term imaan fix. It is not supposed to just come and go leaving us as a brand new Muslim. It is not supposed to cure the diseases of our hearts. Although Ramadan may inspire us to find the remedies to our troubles and fill gaps in our faith, we should treat it like a gift, a gift that teaches us about ourselves, and teaches us things that we can continue to learn and practice throughout the whole year. Fasting may be a big part of Ramadan, but that’s not all there is to it. Ramadan may be gone, but the ibaadaah that we did doesn’t have to leave.
That’s what we should remember mostly, the rest of year is still ours to revive that feeling Ramadan feeling.
Allah has blessed us throughout the whole year with days and months that we can treat like pegs to keep us holding on. We can use them to balance ourselves when we start to feel unsteady, and work towards one after the other in order to keep ourselves in check. After Ramadan, we have the blessed Shawwal wherein there is huge reward for just fasting an extra 6 days making it as if we have fasted a lifetime.
(Tirmidhi)
Give Ramadan its due right as being the stepping stone for the rest of your productive and positive year, honour it in a way that when it comes around again, your soul will be eagerly waiting to meet its closest companion. The same way you would prepare to meet an old friend after a long year, prepare to meet Ramadan in the same way.
We pray that Allah has accepted all our ibaadaah in the month of Ramadan and will continue to accept our ad’iyaat, Ameen.
