Last Friday's Khutbah (29 Aug) - Ramadhan

(In the name of Allah, most Gracious, most Compassionate)

(Moon, Star. Found by Sultan Osman from Othmaniyyah, Turki. He got to know that moon and stars are spread throughout the globe. It has now bacome the symbol of Islam - just like moon and stars, found everywhere)
-picture taken from Ba'alwi Mosque

__________________________________________________________

By:Islamic Religious Council of Singapore
(Majlis Ugama Islam Singapura)

My dear brothers, may you all be blessed by Allah,
On this blessed Jumaah, from this mimbar, I remind myself and all brothers to increase our consciousness of Allah through taqwa. Let us do all that Allah has ordered, and refrain from all that He has forbidden. May we all be placed in His blessings and pleasure, Amin Ya Rabbal ‘Alamin.

My dear brothers,
In a few days time, we will meet a glorious and very blessed month. The Holy Prophet s.a.w. would break the good news to the companions when this month approaches:
Which means: It has come unto you the month of Ramadhan, a month full of blessings. Allah has ordered you to fast in this month. In this month, the doors of paradise are open wide, whilst the doors to hellfire are tightly closed, and the devils are locked up. There is one night in this month which is better than a thousand months. Whomever fails to reap its benefits and blessings, will never reap any kind of benefit and blessing. (Hadith narrated by Imam Ahmad)

I am sure we all know the benefits of the month of Ramadhan. But after knowing how special this month is, how do we benefit from it? Are we letting this Ramadhan pass by, as we normally treat it in the past? Or what should we do this time round?
My dear brothers,
If we truly want to reap the greatest benefits from this coming Ramadhan, we must make the appropriate preparations. Allow me to make a suggestion: Let us look at Ramadhan as a school or college. A school that nurtures us and strengthens our iman as Muslims. The question is, how do we prepare to step into the school of Ramadhan?

My dear brothers,
To become excellent students, we need to prepare ourselves before we go to school by reading the subject that will be taught at school. We are also encouraged to have a schedule or time-table to study or revise. Similarly, in order for us to be excellent students of Ramadhan, we need to prepare by having an effective scheduling or time-table for our activities in this month.

Part of our preparations to enter this school is to repent to Allah and ask for His forgiveness for all our wrongdoings. Indeed, this is the first step for us to prepare to enter Ramadhan. Allah s.w.t. says in the Holy Quran:
Which means: “and turn to Allah all of you, O believers! so that you may be successful.” (An-Nur verse 31)
But we need to stress here that when we talk about repent, it is not simply what we normally do; verbally saying Astaghfirullahal 'Aziim, but our minds not fully conscious of what we actually say. Let us repent to Allah truly and totally. Let us not repeat the wrong things that we have done, such as wasting our time and being lazy, or hurting others with our words, actions or our thoughts.
Secondly, we should prepare by training ourselves to be consistent and persistent in doing good. We should train ourselves to love Allah more than anything else and to rely fully on Allah s.w.t. Allah s.w.t. says in surah al-Anfaal verse 24:
Which means: “O you who believe! answer (the call of) Allah and His Messenger when he calls you to that which gives you life; and know that Allah intervenes between man and his heart, and that to Him you shall be gathered.”

Thirdly, we should train all our senses that are endowed upon us by Allah, to do good at all times. We train our eyes to always look at the Holy Quran and read it, and we don’t allow our eyes to look at the forbidden things. We train our ears to listen to the Quran, to knowledge, and we don’t allow them to listen to lies and unworthy words or conversations. We train our tongue to always mention the names of Allah, to remember Him, to encourage people to do good, and to stop others from doing evil, and to speak the truth. We will be asked on our actions manifested in each of these senses. Allah s.w.t. says in the Holy Quran:
Which means : “And follow not that of which you have not the knowledge; surely the hearing and the sight and the heart, all of these, shall be questioned about that.”
(al-Israa' verse 36)

Fourthly, we should take care of our health. Good health will help us to perform our ibadah consistently and seamlessly. All these are part of our preparations before we enter into the school of Ramadhan.
My dear brothers,
In order to excel and be consistent in this Ramadhan, we need to prepare a daily time-table.
A time-table will help us immensely to organise our activities and to achieve our targets and objectives. When we draw up this time-table, we need to have both short and long term objectives.
For example, if our short term goal is to complete the recitation of the Holy Quran in Ramadhan, we should then divide the recitation across the whole month and on a daily basis. But we should also then have a long term objective, such as to continue to recite the Holy Quran after Ramadhan.

If for example, our objective is to strengthen family relationship, then we should identify and allocate certain days in Ramadhan to break fast, perform terawih or qiyamullail together with our families. But for the long term, we should also have plans to have activities together with our family after Ramadhan.
When our objective is to further improve and strengthen our iman, we should plan to fill the days of Ramadhan with specific ibadah, but for the long term, we must also plan that our ibadah will shape us into morally guided individuals.
These are just some of the examples to serve as a general guide. But there may be some differences between an individual and another, based on capabilities and needs. Thus, the plans can differ and be varied.

Hopefully, when we make adequate preparations, such as by repenting, being consistent, protecting our senses and our body, knowing our capabilities and scheduling our activities, Insya Allah, we will be able to graduate from the school of Ramadhan with great success.
Amin ya Rabbal ‘Alamin.