Ramadhan & English Session...

Salam to all. May all of us get Allah’s blessing no matter where we are.

Amma ba’d.

Ramadhan is about to come less than a week. How’s our preparation to celebrate this holy month? Hopefully this Ramadhan will be better than last Ramadhan. Insya Allah. Here, I would like to share a few things that we should do in Ramadhan.

PRAYING

Yes in pray, we have sujud where this is the closest time between the creator and creature. In every facet of our life, we need Allah to guide us from astray. Say more nawafil (sunat) prayers and also pray for our brothers and sisters in Palestine. They do not need us to join them to fight Zionist armies but they do hope we make a continuous prayer for them. The best time to say nawafil prayers is about at one-third of the night. Indeed, we have a lot of sins and we have so many intents thus why we do not want to get closer and pray to Allah. If possible, never escape from taraweeh prayer as it is only found during Ramadhan.

FASTING

Of course this is a month of fasting but fasting here means the way of Rasulullah PBUH fast. Despite of refraining ourselves from eating and drinking, we must avoid from talking nonsense or something bad. We also must lower our gaze especially those who are fasting in non-Muslim western countries. We also must remind ourselves and friends to talk and do good deeds.

SAHUR

Even though you say that you could stand the whole day without eating, but do not take for granted with sahur as Rasulullah PBUH said: “take sahur as it is a blessing” (Bukhari & Muslim). If you are too lazy to eat (read: cook), you can just have a sip of plain water. It will be better to wake your friends (or family members) and eat together. The more the merrier.

RECITING QURAN

I believe most of us will khatam Quran at least once in this holy Ramadhan. So, recite more the verses of Quran and memorize some of them.  We can also have tadarus (reciting Quran of many people) and tadabbur(research/ponder about Quran). *oh no, this reminds me to sweet voice of imam Masjid Negeri Sultan Salahudin Abdul Aziz Shah, Shah Alam.*

DONATION

Allah gives to us everything that we want. However, how do we want to show a sign of grateful to Allah? Yes! You are right. By donating some of our stuffs (money, food, clothes, etc.) to those in need means we are grateful servants to Him. The more you give, the more you get. The best if we could spend some money to make iftaar and invite people to have iftaar with us at our home?  

That’s all a little bit sharing from me. For those who are not going back home to Malaysia, this year will be the hardest time of fasting with the fajr prayer starts at 4.30 am and the maghrib prayer starts at 8.30 pm. Take it as a challenge and experience in life

ENGLISH SESSION

Do you wonder what English Session is all about? Actually, in our ‘circle’ we do have English session. Before we end our usrah, we have a question which normally has been decided prior to the usrah. This session is to make sure everybody in the circle speaks out and it must be in English. This is a good start for us to develop our confident in delivering our thought in English as we all know English is an international language. Here, I do speak English for sure with Americans, Turkish and Libyan friends but when we mingle among us (Malay), we speak in our native language. It is not the issue but like I said before, we want to build up the confident within ourselves in delivering our thought and information in English. Two questions that we had before were 1)” If you could choose the way you die, what cause of die would you prefer?” 2)  "By the end of today, what would you wish to happen?"

For the next meeting, can you guess what question will be asked? Akmal suggested that, “what are the characteristics of your future wife?” I replied “oh, this should be answered practically, not verbally.” Tettt. The End. ^_^

Wallahua’lam..Salam Ramadhan & Salam Perantauan.