We are again today without a speaker, so I'll try my best to project my voice. My wife tells me I'm pretty loud, so hopefully it should be fine. But if it's not loud enough, just let me know. Alhamdulillah. So we're going to be focusing today entirely on Ramadan. Ramadan is three to four days away, inshallah. So the entire class will be focused on fasting and how to best prepare for fasting in the month of Ramadan, inshallah. So what we talked about last time, what we spoke about last time was the importance of looking at the month of Ramadan as a month of mercy, as a month of forgiveness, as a month for us to work on ourselves. Those were kind of the three main components to the month of Ramadan. While fasting is obviously a core part of us getting there and of us achieving a less forgiveness and of us achieving a less mercy and of us being able to change ourselves, fasting is not the only component of Ramadan. It's the central component, but there's a lot more to the month of Ramadan. Somebody's not able to fast. Someone is pregnant or on their cycle or breastfeeding and isn't able to fast or someone has a health condition and they're not able to fast. It doesn't mean they can't take advantage of the month of Ramadan. There's a lot of extra benefits to that month that are not available in other months. And it's because Allah SWT, He gives special times, special weight. So we know that the nighttime and the time right before Fajr is very, very special. We know that the time right after us or on Fridays is very, very special. It's a time where the A' is accepted. And like that, there are months that are special amongst which the month of Ramadan is the most special month. It's a very, very important month. And I know that we have no chairs. So if anybody wants to sit on chair, you're welcome to get them from that room and bring the chairs in. And there's a few over here, sisters, especially if you'd like to use these, please, you're more than welcome to. And as you guys can see, there's new carpets in the masjid and there's some work going on to prepare the masjid for the month of Ramadan. Just like the masjid is being cleaned out and being prepared, the Muslim needs to prepare for the month of Ramadan. We don't want to enter the month entirely unprepared and with no planning or intentions or anything set in advance. And so the first thing we want to do for this month is you want to set intentions. The prophet, alaihi salatu wasalam told us that the actions are by their intention. And so you want to set lofty, big, significant intentions for the month of Ramadan. So of course we intend to fast. Yes, that's important, right? And most of the schools of Fikr you should intend to fast the beginning of the month for the entire month and then try to renew that intention every day. But there should be a lot more than just intending to fast. You don't want the month to go by without every day having some purposeful intent to it. And 30 days can go by super, super quickly. So what are some types of intentions that we can make? Among the types of intentions is what is the intent for fasting? We intend to fast so that we can achieve a special nearness to Allah. That would be one intention that we want to make. And these are intentions, I mean the month is a few days away, we should make these intentions collectively as we're discussing this right now. We intend to fast so that we can change ourselves and so that we can work on attaining good qualities. We intend to fast so that we can follow the sunnah of the prophet, alaihi salatu wasalam and for first of all, follow the command of Allah in this month and then follow the sunnah of the prophet, asalam to just limit food intake because the prophet asalam did not eat much. And then make any other intentions you have for fasting. The next big set of intentions should be for habits that you and I want to work on. And we'll talk about specifically types of things that we should do. But everybody should try to have at least one bad habit that they want to work on getting rid of in this month and one good habit that they want to cultivate. Usually the science of habit development says you need roughly 30 days, if some say 40, to develop a habit or to get rid of a bad habit. Ramadan is the perfect time where we have exactly a month to work on ourselves. And the goal is and we should intend that we attain virtuous habits that we can continue outside of the month of Ramadan. You don't want the month of Ramadan. We don't want the month of Ramadan to just be something we do. It's over. And then we go back to the same things that we used to do. This is a month in which people's entire lives change. That there are people who would be living lives of selling drugs, of partying, of doing various types of crimes and just not being generally fairly caught up, right? I mean, it's very, very common actually these days amongst Muslims and non-Muslims in Western society. And the month of Ramadan comes and there are people, I know quite a few people like this, the month of Ramadan has come and they gave all of those things up and they said, you know, I'm just gonna try this whole fasting thing out, right? I'm gonna try to do this properly. And they'll fast and they'll start to pray a little bit and their entire life will change after that. And you'll see that after the month of Ramadan it's completely different the type of life that they wanna live because what happens is when you fast and when you pray and you recite Quran, light enters the heart. Noor is entering the heart. There's all this noor. It's a significant injection of noor in your heart. And when so much noor is present, you can't have darkness. You just need a little bit of light and darkness goes away, right? If this entire masjid was dark, one bulb was working, the masjid would be lit up. It's not the same though as every single light being on and it's not the same as, you know, the power of the light of the sun, right? But there are people whose hearts are so luminous like the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam that the hearts are more illuminating than the sun but we don't see the reality. So you wanna see the month of Ramadan as a way to increase your noor, as a way to increase your light and you increase that light by fasting. It's one of the ways to increase light. The more light you have, the more calm and tranquil you'll feel, the less stressed out you'll be and that will be and inshallah that will be a vehicle for us to get closer to Allah. When your reserves are depleted in other months, you will tap into the reserves that were built up in the month of Ramadan, right? You have this light, okay, now I need to kind of go back and fall back on that. But if the month of Ramadan is not a month in which consistent habits are worked on and if prayers are prioritized, fasting is prioritized, just working on ourselves is prioritized, it's very difficult to have that light to carry on throughout the rest of the months. So that's another type of intention that we can make in this month. And then we should all make the intention that we intend everything the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam and the sahaba intended in this month, for fasting and for qiyam and for tarawee and for tahajud and for working on themselves and so on. And we can intend to get closer to the Quran. So like the four or five buckets of intentions that we should just write these out and make them as the month comes in is there should be intentions relation generally kind of getting closer to Allah and specific things we want to do. Intentions related to fasting, intentions related to extra prayers, example, tarawee, intentions related to Quran and increasing our connection to the Quran. And then intentions related to habitual changes that we want to make. If someone has those four or five buckets and they intend as Imam al-Junaid, one of the great imams of the path, he said that when somebody intends, Allah opens 70 doors of Taufiq, meaning divine assistance to fulfill that intention. You just have to make the intention and you may see it fulfilled immediately. You may not see it for another year or two, but the intention is super powerful. The Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam told us that the intention of the believer is greater than his or her action. That's how great the intention is because you might intend, you really want to help. Let's say you see people that are struggling and that are without a home and that need food and so on. You really intend, I want to help these people. I really, really want, if I could, I would do so much, but you're just busy, don't have the resources, don't have the structure, may feel unsure about ways to help them. Just the intention is enough to already have gotten you the reward. Allah's already written one reward for the intention. When you complete it, you get multiple times of the reward, right? Versus if you make a bad intention, you get no sin. We get no sin until we do the sin and then we get one sin written for us, right? So the intention of the believer is super, super, super important. And the grades, they attain grade stations first by just intending a lot of things. Intend to solve this problem, intend to work on this, intend to help as many people as possible. And then with that, if they're sincere, inshallah, we're sincere in that, Allah gives us the ability to follow through with our intention. He gives us the ability to actually act on the intention. So that's the first thing with regards to the month of Ramadan is we start the month by intending and being aware of the secrets that are available in this month. The second thing is that we wanna come up with, we'll focus the first part of this discussion kind of on practical things we can do and then second part on Fiqh and the rules, inshallah. So we wanna come up with a specific goals for ourselves, and a specific schedule to attain those goals. It will depend on how far along someone is in their own spiritual journey slash how busy they are for what those goals are. But we definitely wanna set goals. You start with intentions and then you set specific goals. What's an example of a goal that somebody might set? Maybe someone can share kind of an example of a goal that you already said you've said in the past or if you want to set, try to wake up at the Hajj, excellent goal. So that would be like an intention that's made and now it's a goal that's set, trying to wake up at the Hajj. And then we will put specific, you wanna ideally put a little bit of structure around that goal of like, okay, what will you do to try it, right? Are there other goals that people might have in the month? Okay, so finish the recitation of the Quran in the month of Ramadan. Yup, that's a very, very common goal. It's a very blessed goal to do, right? Ramadan is 30 days. There's 30 sections of the Quran. If you recite a little more than one a day, you should be able to finish. And then people will multiply that to how many ever they're able to do. Any other goals? Memorize a couple of ayahs every day. Memorize a couple of ayahs, love it. That's beautiful. And memorizing is so important. And in this month, remember there's the month in which the Prophet ﷺ was, the Quran was first revealed to him and it was imprinted on his heart, right? And so imagine now you use this month as a month to follow that sunnah or to follow that example you could say and get the Quran imprinted on your heart by trying to memorize a portion. Yes. Try to make at least half of tarawih, if not all of it, excellent. Yep, and you can always split it up such that you do on weekdays with work and things are busy, you try to do half and then on weekends, things are a little bit easier. You try to do the full amount, right? Excellent. Any other goals? Do you need something like if you sometimes fall into backbiting or anything so you can make sure you're not walking about negatively about people? Yep, excellent, yep. And so really, really controlling backbiting and making sure to control the tongue and to not fall into negativity and gossip. All excellent goals. So this would be like you set the intention to get closer to Allah and you set specific goals, right? And, oh yeah, Siddiqa, yeah. Some years ago Sheykh Mahmoud Minda told us that he said that you should make every day like we're in Ramadan and you should make every night like we're in Ramadan. And what he was trying to really indicate is not some concept as far off, but in other words, make what you're doing in Ramadan and the way you approach Ramadan, make it cultural, like that's how I do my eva'la. So that basically allow you to elevate to Islam. Excellent, yeah, that's an excellent point. The goal of Ramadan is to transform such that we continue ideally all of it, but if not all of it, right? It's hard to pray 20 rakat every night, continue a portion of it outside of the month of Ramadan, right, and we get consistent on that. That's really, really. If you look at the schedule of the Prophet, it didn't really change that much in Ramadan. Outside of the month of Ramadan, he would wake up for multiple hours at night, right? With pray, Salat al Isha, sleep for a portion of the night would wake up, well, the multiple hours of the night before Fajr and pray a very, very long night prayer, right? And then if he would fast quite often and even when he wasn't fasting, he wouldn't eat that much, very, very light. Most of the prophets ate one meal the whole day as mentioned by Imam al-Fazali, like if it wasn't food was not like a big thing for them, right, and especially, and it was by choice. It's not like they weren't hungry. It was, and it's not like the food wasn't always available. The food was available and they would be hungry, but it was a sign of, no, no, no, I want to limit this so I can get more in the next life, right? So that was, that would be the higher levels, but you see that for the Muslim, the month of Ramadan, it supercharges us so that we can continue more outside of the month. So the way we want to set aside the goals is very similar kind of structure to the intention, ideally coming up with a, of course, a fasting goal, right, that ideally all 30 days, that should be standard. But then a goal for prayer, extra prayer, a goal for Quran, a goal for knowledge, and a goal for what we want to work on for ourselves.  There's very little value for that in our deen, right? The ibadah is supposed to get you somewhere. It's supposed to transform you, right? Allah says in the Quran that prayer should keep you away from fahshah and from munkar, from fahshah and from lewdness and from evil actions. That's the goal of prayer. Someone is praying all the time, it's great, but if they're like completely have terrible characters, basically treating people wrongly outside of the prayer, that's, there's a big, big problem there. Something's wrong, right? It's the medicine is not working. All of these actions that we do, it's a medicine to purify the heart. The end goal is to attain this pure heart. The Ramadan is a month that really expedites that process, right?  In addition to the act in and of itself being worth 10 times, 70 times, 700 times in the month of Ramadan depending on the type of action. And in addition to all these extra doors of mercy being opened, in addition to access to nights like Laylatul Qadir with the eyes accepted, inshallah, where the night is worth more than 83 years of ibadah and worship. All of these other things that there's moments in the month of Ramadan which will just really, really, really quickly. They're called sweet breezes from Allah, what's called nafahat.  They push you towards Allah or for some they pull. Allah wants to pull them close. And those moments are accessible in Ramadan like unlike in other months. They're very accessible in Ramadan, especially in the night. The night has all these moments. So don't look at night worship in the month of Ramadan only as like, I gotta do this and I just gotta kind of, you know, tough it out. And it's like this, like very, very, there's no deep spirituality to it. Look at everything with some spiritual lens. Do it to the degree that you have himmah, that we have aspiration and we have the physical ability and push ourselves a bit but realize the barakah and that you are getting just by standing in the rows listening to the Imam recited Quran. Many times people feel like they have to have the English following along and, you know, on the phone and those are all generally things that should be, you know, should be avoided. They're not, that's not from the Sunnah of the Prophet ﷺ but the reason, one of the main reasons cause you don't need any of that in order to benefit from the Quran. Your heart is understanding the language in the Quran in a way the intellect might understand many years later. So it could have been an imprint that went into the month of Ramadan because of something the Imam was reciting that really started to transform you at a deep level and you might not see the fruit of that for two years. Like that's how breezes and access to these divine secrets work, right? Many of our teachers have said there might be a gathering that's held that in that gathering, people benefit in a way that they might not see for 10 or 20 years but that gathering will be so beneficial to them in driving things forward for them 10 or 20 years later. It's hard to explain cause it's all happening in the unseen, right? In the unseen, your soul, your spirit of yearning for things in the unseen and so Allah is operating in the primarily, dominantly, right? Allah operates in the unseen, right? You don't see Allah, you don't see the actions of Allah very, very visibly until people reach a state as we mentioned in the early discussions where they have realized certainty and then they're able to very crisply see this every single thing is from Allah, right? And it becomes much, much more manifest. So those would be the buckets of goals that would be recommended. Starting with the night prayers. So we'll start with, or we were discussed fasting. The, moving on to the prayer. So tarawih is a emphasized sonnah of the Prophet's son, meaning that for men, regularly leaving tarawih without excuse in congregation is considered sinful, right? You cannot, in the hand of the school, you're not just continually leave it for no obvious reason. However, it's not mandatory to do the congregation in the masjid. You also pray separately. So tarawih is really, really important in the month of Ramadan, right? The, it's important for men and it's important for women and it's important to do at least Isha in congregation, right? And then try to do tarawih raka in congregation or outside of congregation. So that would be like a goal to try to set, right? To say, okay, I really wanna try to do as much of salat al tarawih as possible. Do not look at tarawih as this kind of like optional thing. Oh, I'll do it in the last 10 nights or I'll do, oh, I just wanna hang out longer at this iftar. There will be plenty of time to kick it. I can guarantee you, there's a lot of time to hang out. There's very little time to achieve these types of blessings, right? So we really wanna try to maximize. And if it can't be done every day of the week to try to prioritize certain days of the week where we do it. There is a question that we discussed last time on makeup prayers versus tarawih. And that's an important question to consider if someone has a significant amount of makeup prayers in the Shafi Maliki school at least, it's makeup prayers are prioritized over salat al tarawih. And in the Shafi school, someone if they wanted to could intend fudger makeup while the Imam is playing tarawih, but that's not something that's done in other schools. So but just keep in mind that like you wanna use Ramadhan ideally first and foremost to make up prayers. That's my advice at least. And then once someone has made up the majority of their prayers due to tarawih or if they have or split it up, right? They'll do aid here and then go home and make up whatever prayers, but use the time at night, main message, use the time at night to pray extra and set a goal and try to stick to that goal and push when that goal becomes difficult. It's like anybody who's worked out before it's very difficult to make gains. And if you don't push, you won't make any gains.    There has to be something significant where you're like, no, no, no, no, no, no. I pushed myself. I increased the weight by this much. I did this many more reps and I am very, very sore because today because of what I did yesterday. That happens sometimes. So you have to spiritually push yourself. You think of Ramadan as okay, maybe all 30 days is hard to do in a lot, right? But do more at the beginning and then increase that a little bit more and then max out kind of at the end in the last 10 nights. But do keep in mind that no pain, no gain, right? Like it does take spiritual effort and it's called the greater jihad for a reason. It comes in a narration that the Sahaba came back from fighting a war and it was said, welcome back to the greater jihad. You are in the greater struggle now, the struggle against your nuts because the nuts is lazy. It wants to eat. It wants to hang out if that happens and then it's dinner and then you're hanging out and you're like, ah, now it's time to go to the masjid. Do I really have to go do it at home? And then next thing you know, like an hour goes by, no prayers happen. And you're like, oh, now I have to go to sleep and work and you just pray Isha and let's see, right? The nuts, that's lazy. The nuts doesn't go anywhere in Ramadan. It's still here, shaitan is gone. The nuts is still here, right? So it will convince us to try to be lazy and to try to not do more. We have to fight against that and that really push against the nuts. The second thing is put on goals. This will vary depending on how fluent someone is at reciting and how basically how much someone is able to recite. At the higher end, there are people who may do, there are people like this and they'll do a khatama day in Ramadan. They're doing full 30 day and Allah puts a lot of barakah in their time such that they're able to recite a lot of Quran. One of the teachers that I know that was, even though they do a lot of things in Ramadan, they did 56 khatams in the month of Ramadan in addition to teaching, in addition to doing all these other things. How that happens, Allah knows what type of capacity. He gives them usually these people a hofaat. Imam Shafi would do believe 60 khatams in the month of Ramadan regularly, right? So he would pause most of his studying a fiqh and he would entirely focus on the Quran. What it's showing is Quran is essential, right? For us, if we can make it to like one, it's great. If we can do two, even better, right? The advice I would give is try to aspire to do more and you fall back and do less. If you aspire to do one and two or three days are missed, it's very easy to fall out and be like, oh, I could only do half. So aspire to say, you know what? I'm gonna try to do two, right? I'm gonna try to recite a lot in the beginning so that when the middle days come and the nufs comes in and we get a little bit lazier, it becomes easier to say, okay, I have some in my reserve that I can lean on and at least I'll get to one khatam, right? So I know people, they'll be on a path in the beginning to doing two or three juz a day and then they're like, am I gonna get a little bit tired and then they'll go back to one or two but they'll still complete those one or two khatams and in the last 10, people get this extra Himmah where it becomes easier to do more Quran, right? Maybe especially at nighttime, people are usually staying awake to worship more so it becomes easier. At least try to do one khatam if you are fluent in reciting Arabic, right? If that's easy to do. If it's not easy to do, say pick, okay, I'm gonna try to get through one surah. I'm gonna try to get through surah barakara, let's say, right? Which is about two and a half juz of the Quran but try to have a goal and everybody knows what that goal is based on the capacity you have. If last Ramadan we did one, goals should not be one, right? Then the growth isn't there. That's minimum. Then you gotta get to at least one and a half, if not two. If the last Ramadan it was two, increase, right? There should always be a level of increase. Somebody who's in a job and they stay at the same level for multiple years, they'll probably at some point, at least someone in their family will be like, what are you doing? Why aren't you growing? Why aren't you promoted? Da, da, da, da. And then usually most of the time we'll ask ourselves those questions. Like in dunya we're very, very focused on increasing and working hard. See this as applying that same mentality, ideally more spiritually. So setting a set of goal for the Quran is very, very important. Then it's about practically breaking that down. I would highly advise having a schedule for the Quran in the month of Ramadan. Do not just set a goal of a one hatam and have no idea how you'll achieve the goal. Same thing, don't set a goal of more night prayers, have no idea how to achieve the goal, right? So at tarawih you can set a goal and you know you'll come to the masjid and you'll do it and if someone needs like a little motivation, you know, you'll have your motivation and I'll give myself a chocolate after the age will come and motivate myself. Whatever motivation that it would be, right? But the Quran goal, it has to usually done on our own time. No one's gonna have a very off, very infrequently or there like group recitations going on. So for that, the goal should be, okay, like I know people who will do fudger after fudger, they'll sit and it takes about 20 to 30 minutes to recite one juz and they'll just do a whole juz after fudger. Others will break it up to do a juz after fudger and a part of a juz after fudger, part of a juz after loher, part of a juz after us or some other time of the day. For those who are like commuting and walking or barting to work, they'll say I'm gonna do my entire Quran on my commute, as long as obviously they're not, you know, driving, that's not advised. But the, you'll break it up and have some practical specifics of I will do this much at this time and make sure to start off strong and if you fall off a day or a few days later, it happens, but make sure to start off strong with those goals and don't set your Quran goals at nighttime. It's very difficult on weekdays at night to, Tarawih would be emphasized over reciting Quran. So if your Quran goal is at nighttime, Tarawih, and you're debating between do I come to Tarawih or do I recite Quran? Tarawih is an emphasized sunnah that would take precedence over reciting Quran at nighttime, right? So you would say, no, no, no, I gotta come to Tarawih. And then after that, it's like, how much time is there to do your own thing, right? So try, it should be done during the, you know, during the daytime and then maybe a little bit extra on the weekends. But again, trying to have some level of, if it's a Juz-a-day, 15 minutes after Fajr, five minutes before Doher, 10 minutes after the, if you break it apart like that, it becomes pretty easy to do, inshallah, because you just broke it up. It's like five minutes of scrolling on Instagram, changes into five minutes of scrolling the Quran pages. Like you can actually just have the Quran app on your phone. You just delete the social media apps and in the same place the social media app is, you put the Quran app, you'll automatically go there to press the button and try to open it and it'll be gone and you'll open the Quran. And then if you try to close it, you'll feel bad. You're like, ah, now I'm stuck. And then you're recited and it'll be amazing. So the, you know, you get down to this level of, we all know ourselves. We know our tendencies and we know what's gonna happen, right? Like the, I'll have times where like, I'll finish praying and I'll be like, oh yeah, I can just gotta check one thing on my phone and then I'll make the Dua. Next thing you know, it's 15 minutes and I just completely forgot to do all that because at the time I just let my, the little thought in my head say, oh, let's check one thing. I could have waited two minutes, finished the Sonando Azz and do, we know ourselves. So now it's like, we have to say, no, no, no, I'm not gonna check it until I finished A, B and C, right? Of my routine. For those of us who are prone, and I'm getting really specific here, you know, for a reason, for those of us who are prone to easily falling into scrolling on their phones and whatnot, but Quran recitation, ideally pick, do you do it in a must-have for something, right? Then the phone becomes, it's trying to recite Quran on the phone, you get, you know, after one or two pages, someone loses concentration and then they're like, oh, let me just read CNN and then let me just go on this and the next thing you know, 20 minutes has gone by, the whole just could have been completed and now we have to get back to work or whatever it is and the Quran goal wasn't met. So try to, we know ourselves to say, okay, you know what, I'm gonna put the phone away and have my Quran on a must-have or something else that you kind of carry around or whatever else it is. So that would be the specifics, yes, question. Is that the number of priori recitations? Great question, the question was, would we prioritize recitation over tafsir or just learning the commentary or reading the Quran in your language? Generally speaking, if you can do a mix of both, it's preferred. So if you are able to section out time to say, I'm gonna have this time to recite, right? And I'm gonna have this time to listen, either listen to a podcast tafsir or a read tafsir or read the Quran in English. It's, that would be ideal, right? So say, okay, I'm gonna try to get one khatam done here and then whatever portion I can get done here. If it's not possible to split out the time, it would be, it would really be up to you on what you feel like you need more. I wouldn't leave the recitation in Ramadan though. Like I've generally heard from our teachers to prioritize recitation as much as possible, but I've also heard that the, obviously the importance of understanding, you understand one concept and it can change the way you live your life and then that carries a lot of reward. The thing to note about recitation, sometimes we think recitation is like, oh yeah, we're just getting like, you know, five points for this word and 10 points for this and we're just like, that's all we see it as. That's not really what it is. What you want to see recitation as is that, this is Allah speaking to you and you're reciting like, if you really want to get like deep about it, think about it like a love letter, God wrote you, right, to you specifically, to everybody says it's a letter, God wrote you and you're reciting that to try to grasp what it means. Your heart already knows the meaning deep down inside. There's a part in you that already knows the meaning because it was present with Allah on the day when he asked, am I not your Lord? It already knows the meaning. The recitation of the Quran is a language that unlocks those meanings for you, right? That's not unlocked when you do other things and don't recite. You have to read it in the language and it was revealed in order to unlock that, which is Arabic. You couple that with the Tafsir and the commentary and the reading in English, let's say and it now creates this really nice blend where the spiritual meanings have already been unlocked and now intellectually you're starting to understand what to do, right? But keep in mind the recitation is doing, there's a lot going on that you and I don't even realize and so there will be people who have recited a lot, a lot, a lot. They have no idea what things actually say or mean intellectually but they somehow the concepts are just there for them, right? And it was because most of the time the barakah of that recitation. So ideally you wanna couple the two, yeah. I would try to have 20, 30 minutes a day focused on recitation, 15, 20 minutes a day focused on reading. Getting through a whole like English khatim can be difficult, like so just pick what I would go deep on a surah, go deep on a tafsir of a surah for one part and then surah bakra ideally a little bit of longer surah, it might take a little time to get through and then go with the recitation. But allahu ala meh, everyone will kind of choose their own. None of these things are farth, right? So it's kind of up to us on what we wanna do most. Does that make sense, yeah. Any other questions on the Quran part? And then what we did not touch on was memorization which was mentioned earlier that that's also of course very, very virtuous to do. And again, I would have a goal of I wanna memorize this surah, right? And try to make it like instead of something that's too large of an amount and too small of amount, pick something in the middle and then work towards it and say, okay, let's say surah kaaf. Surah kaaf is 110 ayahs I believe, right? Somebody could realistically do four ayahs a day roughly, right? And they could actually get through all of surah kaaf in the month of Ramadan. Four ayahs a day is doable, right? It might take a little bit of time in the later days because you're reviewing the past ayahs, but it's manageable. So you pick something that's manageable. If we don't know some of the longer surahs, again, if we're always reciting and you know, the short ones, it's all good, but we wanna expand, right? Ramadan is a good time to learn few of the longer surahs. So we can at least expand the recitation in our prayers, right? So try to prioritize those in the 30th choice and try to do so gradually throughout the month of Ramadan. So that's recitation. The third thing would be Salat al-Dahajud, which is dissent, right? So we're going to start with Salat al-Dahajud, which is a very important part of the recitation. Which is distinct from Salat al-Tahawih. That's the dominant opinion is it's not the same on prayer. Some people think that the two are the same. Salat al-Tahajud, Salat al-Tahawih are different. Salat al-Tahawih is the prayer that is prayed at nighttime post Salat al-Ishaat, Salat al-Tahajud in Ramadan will be prayed well before Salat al-Fajr in the last one-third of the night. Try to at least get two raka'in every day, where everybody ideally is up for sahur, right? So it's like five more minutes of being up or waking up, making wudu, going and eating and then five minutes before, already we shouldn't be eating well into the time or right before the time, we should not be like chugging water and it's 30 seconds and five years. And then ideally five minutes at least, we should stop eating. And in those five minutes, knock out two raka'in, it's easy. It's a time do'a is accepted. You're as far as accepted inshallah and you'll feel a huge difference in your day. A huge difference in your day brings Salat al-Dahajud. So it should be prioritized to try to do and if we can do more than two, someone on a weekend can get up and do like 20 minutes of tahajud, 30 minutes of tahajud. You'll see a lot of benefit. The goal is to continue outside of the month of Ramadan, right outside of the month of Ramadan. The fourth part is extra other thicker someone wants to do, right? So Quran is the highest form in the month of Ramadan. Ideally prefer to recite as much as possible, but you're walking around, you just try to have a portion of istaghfar and a portion of salawat that we do in the month of Ramadan. Astaghfarullah, astaghfarullah, astaghfarullah. Use every moment and try to take advantage of every moment, right? And I mean that in a balanced way, right? Again, if someone is like trying to talk to you and have a conversation, you don't say, I'm just focused on the thicker, you have to be, we have to have good character and other with somebody. However, if someone is getting like excessive, unnecessary conversations, you find your way to nightly excuse yourself and go and do some thicker because it's going to be much more beneficial in the month of Ramadan, right? And then we should also have a charity goal for this month, right? We give a portion of charity every day or every week, but try to get as many benefits as possible, right? A portion of all good, inshallah, will be accessible in this month. And so we want to try to attain that. Astaghfarullah, great. Any questions on what we mentioned as far? Okay. So then we'll get into the, astaghfarullah, yeah, we'll get into media a little bit and then we'll wrap up with the thing. So highly advice, I don't know if I mentioned this last time, but if I, even if I did, I'll mention it again, that in the month of Ramadan, fasting is about a lot more than food and water, a lot more, right? So we mentioned last time, there's a fasting of the eye. Does anybody remember what the fasting of the eye is? Anybody remember? Fasting of the eye. Yes. Excellent. Yep, not looking at haram and lowering your gaze is like the most essential part of it. And then there's a higher degree of that. So it's like, at the most essential, it's not looking at haram and lowering your gaze. At the higher degrees, it's not looking down on people, right? The eyes weren't created to look down on people. They were not created to be judgmental. It's a higher, at the higher degrees, it's not looking at something that pulls you towards the dunya, right? But these are higher degrees. They're not far things, but they will, you'll see the spiritual effect on your heart, right? And then similarly, not looking at things that will waste our time. So you, someone could conceivably be, not seeing most of the time, I think like probably 80% of the time, a lot of what we see on social media does have haram intertwined with it because it's bound that the eye will catch something that's impermissible. However, if that's not the case, the eye was not created to just look at a device and scroll. That's not the, a lot created the eye to look at the heavens. And so all of us now we go like this instead of going like this and it has a big impact on the heart, right? And it has a big, big impact on how we're supposed to be thinking about what's our purpose here? What, what are we, what is all this other amazing creation a lot created and contemplating a lost creation? We don't end up doing that. We instead contemplate if we're going to get a few likes or someone's going to share our post or whatever else it is. So what we want to do in the month of Ramadan is limit the time wasting that the eye engages in. Ideal, if we can, the ideal goal is to shut off forms of media that we feel like are wasting our time. So highly advise shutting down our Netflix accounts, Lulu, HBO Max, Disney Plus. What else is there? I don't know, is that any more? Yeah, Prime, Amazon Prime Video. Shutting those down. It's a highly advise shutting those down. And whatever premiere is coming and new season is coming, all of it will be accessible after the month of Ramadan. Who knows, maybe you will have no desire to really watch it, if you don't know. But minimum that, because TV is, there's a lot of, it's very difficult to find a show that's like completely permissible to watch. You're going to have components of impermissibility in every single show, right? It's just to have a show where expect everybody to dress modestly already that's not going to exist.  But if that interests you, right? But for most people it's not going to interest them. And at some point it will move on to different shows. So if that's the case in Ramadan, try to limit it. You don't want, this is a night, these are nights when the angels are literally going through the earth, searching for homes that are worshiping.  They'd probably just go to someone else's house, right? And so you really don't want to try to actively think like if this were to happen and this is what I would be doing, like would I not feel, you know, somewhat weird about that, right? And so that would be the first thing with television. The second is with social media apps. Everybody has their own level of, what's the right word?  So everybody has their own levels of addiction, frankly with social media. We know now studies have shown releases dopamine, it's truly, you know, it's created for anybody here who works at a social media company, you know exactly how the product is designed to create addiction tendencies and that really, really makes sure the human being is always trying to check. Try to delete. The first goal would be to try to delete. I highly advise deactivate, right? If you can deactivate Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, Snapchat, Discord, I don't know what I'm missing, but a few of the others try to do so, right? At least four or five of those. If you can't delete, if you're like, no, no, no, no, no, like this is so important to me. Your nostrils try to tell you, no, but the Islamic quotes, you see the Islamic quotes on Instagram. I mean, they come up and they'll try to tell you, be like, but the Islamic videos on TikTok, you see those. I mean, it'll tell you the one video out of every 100. It'll tell you that.  And so the nostrils try to come at you with all sorts of ways, right? Like, oh, it's Facebook live and all of these types of things and what if there's a lecture going on? Like that's the trick.   You'll be spending time with his book. You'll be spending time in trying to improve ourselves. We'll be spending time actually feeling better, right? You because you detach from these things a little bit and focus on remembrance, you start to feel a lot better as a human being. Like it actively, things start to change, right? So at minimum, the goal I would advise is to try to deactivate, right? And don't let the nuts come at us with any level of saying, no, no, there's like an Islamic benefit to these things. Yes, there is, there can be, but the primary Islamic benefit lies outside of those things, 100% in the Quran and in the books that have been written and podcasts and so on are also good forms. If someone is not able to, they just really gotta have it, gotta have their fix. Then acknowledge it as an addiction and work on it, right, in the month of Ramadan. They actively just say, you know what? I'm reliant, can't, it's like, it's too much. I love the little red dots.   Like all of these things are designed to impact the human mind. So you say, okay, no, I'm gonna reduce them now. I'm gonna try to say on certain days I will go on it on certain days I won't I will give myself 10 minutes a day or 20 minutes a day or whatever, but try to reduce that and see the time that comes back. Most of the time in the month of Ramadan we feel like we don't have time to do our, to follow up on our goals, right? To accomplish our goals. Sometimes that's the case. Most of the time though, it's because we don't create the time. Time is there. Everybody has, you know, if there's other people who are 24 hours in the day that are able to do things, it means it's possible. But most of the time in the extra moments we have, it adds up and we spend them in, you know, things that are not usually as beneficial. So we try to limit those things, right? And then if we can, then in the last 10, try to get rid of it. That would be the advice. I mean, still can't do in the last 10, at least the last five. The last five, okay, at least the last three. You don't want like the last few nights of Ramadan to come and we're just like caught up in these things. Ideally, you will find a big, big benefit. I remember that the it was 2013, someone I know decided, you know what, for the month of Ramadan, just going to give up Facebook. And then it was like, oh, this is great. Like it lasted 30 days. Oh, I would try it for 40 days. And then it was like, great. Let me try for the whole summer at the time Ramadan was in the summer. And then great. And then it's like never got back on Facebook again. Like there was no, it just wasn't, this was back when Facebook was like, people actually were on Facebook now, and nobody's really on it. But like there was some active impact, right? Like it was like, oh, used to be super reliant on this, had all these, you know, these connections and so on, but decided that maybe I'll try to take a break and the heart really liked it, right? So give yourself some room to subvert the dominant paradigm. Like the dominant paradigm says you have to do all of these things, every part of this, everybody else in society does, in order to just function. It's like, well, how will I connect with my cousins in Pakistan? There's a lot of ways to connect with Pakistan. Facebook doesn't have to be the only way. You know, you can, there's other ways to do it. But the dominant paradigm says that you have to do certain things. Say, no, no, no. As a Muslim, we're not followers. We're supposed to ideally be leaders, right? That Kuntum Khaira Ummatin ochre jetlen nas. You were sent as the best people ever sent forth to humanity. That's the umma. The umma was the best people ever sent forth to humanity. What defines whether they were the best people are those who encourage and enjoy goodness and guide away from badness. That is the quality that defines the best people. The umma today, globally, we struggle with this. When we struggle with this globally, we start to see the types of things that happen with the umma. Umma has lost dignity and has lost respect globally because we just follow what everybody else does. We follow the Western standards, Western technology, everything we just kind of follow versus the Muslims used to be, believe it or not, not long ago, 500, 300 years ago, everybody followed the Muslims. The Muslims were the ones inventing things. The Muslims were the ones who discovered coffee. The Muslims were the ones who discovered soap. The Muslims were the ones, believe it or not, I mean, you could probably believe it. These people didn't clean themselves properly. They still don't really. So the Muslims were the ones who, and they came up with these ideas and these innovations and then people, they adopted them, right? But we weren't always followed. We've now gotten to this culture where we just like, ah, new thing come in our, the people who we look up to is basically, there's usually not always many like much moral value to what they're doing. There's goodness in what they're doing, but it's not really much moral value. Because so we don't wanna be people who are constantly following, right? We wanna ideally be people who fit this, this trait mentioned in the Quran and this is a goal to focus on in Ramadan is in addition to reciting, in addition to studying, in addition to praying, try to adopt the meanings of this book in our life, right? That there's a whole Aya that says, oh, you were the best people ever sent forward to humanity, like what does that even mean? That Aya in and of itself is so amazing, right? It could solve so many self-esteem issues that we might have in Umma as a community, right? Where people we feel like less than other people, right? But it takes reflection and it takes using these months and these times that Allah has given us to try to benefit as much as possible, right? So that would be the thing on media is to try to limit it as much as we can, ideally completely and if we can't do it completely then for a portion of the month. Great, so now we'll just finish off. We started a little late so we're gonna go for like 15 more minutes, inshallah.  Does anybody have questions that we just mentioned? Questions, questions, okay, from the left. Okay, so we'll go ahead and get to the thick of fasting. Okay, so the first thing with regards to the thick, first is that the month in and of itself, I think as everybody generally knows, is established by the sighting of the moon. The moon will go, people will go out at least in this area to look for the moon on Friday night. If it's sighted, the first day of fasting will be Saturday, inshallah. If it is not sighted the first day then you'll go out. Obviously the 30 days of Shabbat will be completed the first day of fasting will be Sunday. Some people may follow the calculation method which is saying that the month, the first night will be Friday and the first day will be Saturday. Up to you, which one you would prefer to follow. The traditional opinion on it, this so everybody is generally aware, is the moon sighting. And local moon sighting is the one with the strongest evidence from the Sunnah of the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam but it's not, don't debate with people, don't get in, don't start the Ramadan moon fighting and getting in arguments. Do whatever makes the most sense to you but try to look into it a little bit to try to make sure you're doing something that's in alignment with the Sunnah. So then we get into the stick of the rest of the month of Ramadan. Hamdulillah, it's not very complicated, generally fairly straightforward. You want to have an intention for the fast, you want to intend to actually fast the fast of Ramadan, the required fast of Ramadan versus let's say intending to fast and make up fast or something like that, you actively intend something. And this does not have to be something you like, you don't have to articulate it, it's good to, but you can think it, you can intend it in your heart but that intention is important. And then we get into what is the requirement of fasting. So starting with the, with Sahur, Sahur is not a farth in the month of Ramadan but it is an important Sunnah to follow in the month, right? So we don't want to miss out on the morning meal. There's a prophet, some told us there's blessing in this meal and it's a blessed time, right? So if someone is in that mentality where there's like, yeah, I'm just going to eat a lot at night and then go to sleep. And then in the last five minutes of Fajr, wake up real quick and pray to Rehka then go back to sleep, like try to, try not to have that mentality this month. We want to try to be awake at Sahur. We don't have to have long conversations or anything but try to be awake to eat and to pray a little extra and then to start the fast. It is not advised to eat up until the exact time, at least a few minutes before we want to stop eating, right? Because your clock, technically it could, let's say Fajr is at 547 or something and your clock could say it's 546, something could be off and Fajr has already entered. And at that point, if you're still eating by thick, the fast would not be valid, right? So you want to give yourself a little bit of room here to stop eating a few minutes before Fajr and obviously drinking water and so on. The iftar enters not at the time when our iPhones tell us that it's sunset, that's really, really important to note. That is not the sunset, that is the true sunset for Saddam-Ul-Rib. If anybody ever goes on and drives along like the 80 and you'll be next to the water right near like between Berkeley and Richmond, you'll see if you're going at that time, let's say today with 7.30, the phone says sun is setting, the sun hasn't actually set, there's still about 15% of the sun that you can see on the horizon past the ocean, right? They do it based on what's called astronomical sunset. The actual sunset is three minutes past the time that they say. So most must-shids, if they have a little calendar, they'll add it to that. But most of us, we're not using those calendars, we're using our phones and whatnot. So just make sure you give yourself three minutes, minimum from the time the sun is setting. Otherwise, again, the sunset will not have entered and right before the fast, we will have jumped the gun and have done it too early. Doesn't mean you wait for like 20 minutes also, right? Don't, that's not something we should do. But at least three to five minutes, right? Some of the scholars in Mamdawud, for example, usually recommends five minutes, I've heard him say, the three minutes at minimum is what is recommended past the sunset. And at the time of Iftar, right before Iftar, try to be in a state of Dua, right? Try to be in a state of Dua. This is a time when Dua is accepted, inshallah. So do not, this is not a time to, if someone is preparing food, if you can ideally just have whatever you've already prepared and go and sit down at least make Dua for two, three minutes and then get back up and finish preparing whatever else. But don't let this time pass and it's just kind of like conversations are going on and we're on our phone or whatever else it is. And then it's like, okay, great, it's time to break the fast. This is a very important time. If you just take advantage of the time before Suhur and the time before Iftar for Dua and prayer and a little bit of extra that will be sufficient for an excellent Ramadan, inshallah. Like these are secret times. Take advantage, the return on investment on these times is really, really high, right? So we really want to take advantage of these times for Istaghfar and for Dua, inshallah. So then we get into the things that invalidate the fast, the only thing that will completely, there's two types of invalidation of the fast and we're going through thick according to the Hanafi school. First is something that is you break the fast and it requires 60 days of continuous fasting, what's called kaffara, right? This would be if somebody intentionally eats, right? Intentionally drinks something, right? Or anything, right? Like intentionally, it could be raining and they're intentionally drinking the rainwater and whatnot, that would be the case. I don't think anybody does that. But or intentionally has relations. And so in this case, relations are applying to intentionally has sexual intercourse in the month during the daytime. That completely breaks the fast and requires makeup of the fast and 60 days kaffara and expiation. Then there's a type of fast that is a type of breaking, which could be done where you don't have to do the 60 days and instead you just have to make up that fast. So that would be anything entering your cavities, your different entry points into the body, right? Other than like eye drops for most of the other things, anything that enters that, you know, even, and this is like a small as like someone is like biting their nails and they're getting stuff inside of them, like that actually breaks the fast, but does not require 60 days of expiation. It's just you have to make up that fast, right? And so that would be anything entering. It would be accidentally swallowing water while making wudu or doing whistle invalidates the fast. So the accidental swallowing of the water would invalidate fast. This is, and we don't have to get into too much, but there's a big difference between forgetting and you know you're fasting and you do an accident. What I mean by that is you know, like you're in, you're making wudu and you're like, yeah, I know I'm fasting, but let me just really go deep and like get it. And then next thing you know, you swallow water, that's fast we broke it. That's really different than like you're, you wake up in the morning and you go to the fridge and you go to get water because it's your routine. And then you're like, oh, I forgot I was fasting today. That actually doesn't fit the fast, right? And it's completely done out of forgetfulness versus the first, in the first situation you know and you were aware of yourself as fasting and you do it. So wudu should be done, still do full wudu, but during whistle, definitely be careful about the gargling too deep in this case. So that would be the intentional or that would require a makeup day. The third is something that somebody, I think there's in the Hanafi school at least, eardrops and I believe inhalers as well are not okay, but that might be a different opinion in other schools. So it's worth checking on. And then if somebody has a, I'm just this, I'm getting into the thick, I apologize, but if you know where you have obviously men and women completely present here, but if someone has a wet dream, that does not break the fast if it's completely out of control. If somebody has it outside, right, ejaculation outside in while awake, that breaks the fast, right? If it's done with desire, it breaks the fast. So you have to make up that fast, but unlike when someone has full sexual relations, it does not require 60 days of kafara. It requires making up that day, right? It requires making up that day. So those are basically the four things that require that make the fast invalid, but they require making up.   I don't have fast today. It's gonna be too difficult for me. That is actively saying I'm not going to, I'm eating something when I'm supposed to not be eating that requires making up of the fast and 60 days straight fasting. It's a really, really serious. It's not a joke. And I actually know many families that have this mistaken notion that like, oh yeah, if you don't wake up, you don't have fast because you're not gonna have energy and so on. In Ramadan, the fasting is from the time fudger enters to the time mug grip comes in, regardless of if someone had a meal or not, right? But obviously the sunna is to eat a meal. And it's fine in most of the schools, like eye drops are fine. If someone's getting a shot and whatnot, it's fine. And those steps and things are fine. And then lastly, with regards to, or actually two more things, sickness and travel, with regards to sickness, it can't just be like a light sickness. It has to be, you have to actually be sick and have the opinion of a doctor that it would not be okay to fast. So if someone's feeling kind of a light headache and you know I could probably do it, you start the day fasting and then if you're not able to continue, you don't continue anymore because it's getting too unbearable. But you don't start the day with a light sickness, not fasting. But if a doctor, and ideally you get the opinion from someone who's Muslim who understands the seriousness of Ramadan, says hey, don't fast, then don't fast, right? Then it would actually be wrong too fast. And then if someone has health conditions, which it makes it dangerous for their body to fast, serious diabetes being one of them, and the doctor says do not fast, then you can't fast. He said Haram, you would be getting sin just for fasting because your health is more important and your life is more important than the worship in this case. So Islam is very, very flexible with these things. It just requires, you know, checking up and knowing these things. And then lastly with travel, in the Hanafi school at least, the travel, you have to have set out at the before fudger for you to not fast that day. And so the way to think about it is that you, if you have a flight, let's say at 2, 3 p.m., right? So in traveling, the ruling is you don't have to fast if you don't want to, right? It's up to you. If many people will choose to do it, others will like it's too difficult, not gonna do it. If your flight is like at 2, 3 p.m., you start the day fasting, right? And then at that point, you'll probably, you finish the fast, you'll finish the fast as well, right? But let's say your flight is, you know, two day flight, the when the next day kind of begins, you don't have to fast. And it might be too difficult because it's really difficult to get access to food and whatnot. But you start the day fasting. And there's various reasons to that. Who knows if you'll even, the flight will get delayed, if you'll even make it to that flight, whatever else it is, right? Do you start the day fasting? If someone has set out for their journey, meaning let's say you're in Oakland, you've left Oakland city limits, and it's like 5 a.m., Fudger has not entered, you do not have to start the day fasting, right? You can say, I'm on my journey, I'm traveling, flying somewhere or going, you know, 50-ish miles or longer away, and you don't have to fast if you choose not to. But that's, it just kind of depends. The advice thing is, try to fast if you can, but don't make it difficult on yourself, right? Do not make it difficult on ourselves on the left. So with that, we'll go ahead and basically wrap up. Want to see if there's any questions? Yes, yeah, yeah. So any fast that are missed for traveling, for sickness that are made up, or if somebody, even if someone is nursing and says, you know, it's not able to fast, they would make up the fast as well, yeah. Yes. So if you travel a little bit today, which sunset do you use to fast? Or are you left or right? The sunset at where you are, where you are at that time is one opinion, is the opinion I tend to follow. So let's say that you're going here to the East Coast, right, you start the day here, your prayers, ideally your prayers and everything else, your religious clock is now ticking based on the location you're at, right? So if it's like 5 p.m. here and you set, you go and then like pretty quickly now, right, mugger of enters, you have to pray, you have to break your fast and you have to pray mugger, right, at that point.  There are opinions that would say, you can choose to follow where you're leaving from or, but it also applies in other directions. So when you're coming back from New York and you're fasting, then it's going to be a little bit of a longer day. And so you can't pick and choose. I'll follow one this time and the other next time, yeah. Does that, does that make sense? Yeah. So the same would apply for the prayers when traveling, yeah. It's, yes, question. It's the ruling on vomiting, bearing in the book while I'm fasting, do you think you're going to be fast? Yep, yep, great question. So the question was the ruling on vomiting and I'm right here. So if you vomit a mouthful or more, you're fast to be broken. If it's a very, very slight amount, that comes up, you would be fine. But it does not require an expiation. So it doesn't require the 60 days, it's just that that fast is now broken and you make up the fast. One thing to note for, one thing to note, and so by the way, the criteria of a mouthful is that your mouth cannot hold the vomit without strain, just in case that you want to clarify what a mouthful is. The one thing to note about making up and when the fast is broken, making up. So if you break your fast, like let's say you vomit, God forbid, or something else happens, it doesn't mean that it's, Chutti, that it's the word Chutti. That it's, that you're free, right? What's the word? Does anybody here speak Urdu? What's the word for Chutti in English? Like, you're free from the obligation and it doesn't mean that.  So it's a little bit on the tougher side, but you can't just be like, oh, I, you know, 3 p.m. I'm just gonna go and eat a burger now and the fast is broken anyways. The month Ramadan is still in, fast is required to be made up. Yeah, yes.  Great question, great question. So it was like, you know, during the day, tired, any recommend time to take a nap? It's hard with, with most jobs, but it's possible on the weekends. The recommended time is, I'd post Doher is a good time to take a nap, or even before Doher. So like, let's say someone is awake from the morning time, you want to take a nap from like 12 to two, and then wake up before Doher. And wake up at Doher and pray. But usually that's hard. If you can sneak in a nap, you know, in like your lunch time, an hour or so, it's good. If you can't do that, someone could also, you know, sleep when they come home from work to get, to get some, some, some extra sleep in. But the recommended time would usually be that like afternoon, noon, noon, like site, right before noon or right afternoon time. And then otherwise, you know, finding pocket throughout to catch up. But it is actually a very good thing to do a little, to take some extra naps, like power nap or two throughout the day to have some himma at night. It's actually a very, very good thing.  That is not like your reward is being reduced. As long as you're not, we're not missing prayers and whatnot, right? And not oversleeping like 20 hours or something, right? But when, but if fasting and sleeping is considered a good, you know, it's considered fine. And it's actually really good to get, to get a nap in to try to have some extra himma. Cause it's really difficult to be going all day and then standing, you know, for 20 rakhaz or how many ever at night. Yes. Yep, great question. So the question is, if someone is on their cycle, they're menstruating, how do we still kind of keep the spiritual flow going of the month of Ramadhan? So a couple of tips here, and then sisters also other, please feel free to share tips that you all might have. One is to still keep the times of the prayer as like sacred times. So like to just sit and do the vicar instead. So you're allowed to do the vicar. You're allowed to make the ah, you sit on the prayer mat, right? There's a lot that someone can do to try to, to try to have a portion there, right? So if you can do four or five times a day of, okay, a specific vicar that you want to do at that time and then make the ah, that would be very, very good. The second is to use those times, like reading the books of knowledge and learning knowledge is very, very virtuous, right? So again, it could be done during the prayer times. It could be done anytime outside, but fasting is supposed to be a goal. The goal is to eventually purify ourselves, to purify our heart. There's other routes to purify the heart as well. Seeking knowledge is one of the most virtuous ones to do so. So let go and say, okay, I'm not able to fast today, but I'm gonna try to listen to 30, 40 minutes of a beneficial lecture or podcast or something. Or I'm gonna try to read the English Quran or the Tafsir or commentary or something like that. So those two, those three, dhikr, doa and seeking knowledge would be really, really advisable. And then also still taking advantage of the sacred time. So like let's say everybody else is about to have iftar, that time 10, 15 minutes before still take, it's still virtuous regardless of if someone is fasting or not, very, very virtuous time for doa, right? So still taking advantage of that. The nighttime, very virtuous time for extra ibadah, right? Ibadah can take the form of someone who's not able to pray Isha or Tarawee. Just, okay, say I'm gonna try to do 100 Isha far on a Taspi, or I'm gonna try to do 100 la ilaha illallah and set goals for yourself. Just have that set out kind of in advance of, okay, the week that I'm not able to fast, I'm gonna have these goals for myself, right? And then take it easy as well to rest, but I would try that out. Does anybody else have any other advice? Is that answer the question? Yeah, yes. Yeah. The first thing was if you have a goal that you've set to do a khatam, like is it okay to continue to do this in the khatam cycle? Great question. So the question was if someone has a goal that they've set to do their khatam, can they read their jos on their cycle in the Hanifi school? No, you cannot. You would have to take a break from it. Yeah, to recite outside of something, to read, to touch, or to recite outside of something that's like a daily weird, like a daily practice someone does. So let's say you have a daily practice of hola-wallah, khatam, khatam, khatam in the morning and the evening, like that would be considered fine. But to go outside of the daily practice and to try to enter to recite isn't okay on the cycle. I don't know the rulings of any of the other schools. I don't know. Omar, if you know when someone is on their cycle, if there's rulings of still being able to recite Quran. It was okay in the Maliki school. Yeah, yeah. It's worth asking around for any of the other Madhabs. Yeah, yes, you can read. Malikis can read. So if anybody wants to take the Maliki Ruksa, touch, talk. Yeah. If someone wants, they can't just have a burger or something like that, right?  Fast is broken. Still have to keep the fast and make up the fast, right? So it would be in those instances. Yeah.  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. If you're trying to eat fast. Right, right, I see what you're saying. I see what you're saying. So if you are, let's say you're on your cycle and then you're now at ends in the middle of the day, you have to start fasting at that point. But if on the inverse side, I believe you don't have to finish the fast. Actually, you don't have to finish the fast on the inverse side. So if you're not, if you're fasting and your cycle enters, you don't have to finish fast. That's like, because you're now in a state where the fast is completely not obligatory on you, right? You're not supposed to be fasting. So let's say it's like 2pm and someone's fasting and then your cycle enters, you don't have to fast at that point, right? At all. But if it's 2pm and you weren't fasting and your cycle finishes, then you have to start fasting and have to make up the day as well. Yeah. So like, ideally it's like, you know, post-mog day or something. But yeah, this, yeah, yes. Question. Is this one, like how about your cycle and then you walk through it and you put it in? It was a fast order that I did in the morning. Is that like, Yeah, if it ended before the hurt, let me check on that. Yeah.  And then the fast or the fasting, Yeah, that's a really good question. Let me look into that like, right after the class and then follow up with your ancha'Allah. Yeah, exactly. I don't know the answer. Does anybody know the answer to that off the top of their head? in terms of timing. Okay, got it. I mean, there's likely proof for it. I just need to, yeah, I'll let me look that up and then we'll follow up, yeah. Any other questions and then we'll, and sorry, yes. Go ahead. So does A, I've got a good question. Yep, yep, good question. I believe the kafara is done. I believe the kafara is done one time for those situations, but let me also follow up on that, inshallah. What's safer to do is to do the 60 days and then to also feed 60 people. So there's a different, so if someone is unable, let's say someone is like later in their life and they're unable to do 60 days straight, at least feed, or they're just like, hey, I'm not gonna do this, it's very difficult. At least feed the 60 people, that's the second option. You feed 60 meals. But the preference is to feed, to do the 60 days and then you would make up, do you have to make up those two and then do the 60 days continuously? But I'll follow up on if it's done twice or not, I'm not sure, yeah. So, yeah, I'm not sure how many days of that's in, but to make that, you should have your days in the meals. So how would you invest in it? How much do you end up, for regular fasting plus the expiation? Yeah, good question. The question was, so if we have to estimate the number of days to make up for fasting and then also for expiation, how do you determine it? So it's a good question. You wanna overestimate and then start with that, right? So like, if you have a sense, let's say that you know, hey, when I was this old, I probably missed like two weeks, right? You think it might be a little less, but just go with the two weeks, right? Because you know that you fasted the other two weeks. So you start there and then kind of keep, I would just, you keep, create a little log on a spreadsheet, say this is what year it was and what I think the estimate was and then you add a little bit, 10% or something to make sure you go over that. And then essentially the same for expiation, but you're not gonna be able to do like expiation for all those instances. In that case, you just feed a lot of people. Yeah, so. Why feed people 60? Yeah, so you can do like, for example, you could literally feed 60 meals to people around. You just have to make sure you count that. Or you could go online and you can find like, there's like actually kafara payments you can make online. So you can go to like Islamic relief and you can say kafara for this. And then I believe that you, there's one option you can pick, you know, 60 people, 60 meals in Pakistan or Yemen or wherever else it is. And then overseas and you can feed them. And so in that case, you would want to do that for the various Ramadan's in which it took place. Yeah. I have a long question. Go ahead, yeah. Cool. I actually found that a little bit like, I have the same sort of question in Salah. So it's a dangerous idea that each time I'm asking you, is it for each year for Ramadan like this? Yep, yep, so for Salah, for anybody who has to make up Salah, what you do is you calculate the date at which Salah became obligatory on you, right? So the date of puberty. And then you estimate how many years, if someone is like, I didn't pray for six years straight, you know I just didn't happen, right?  Let's just say that's the case. Then you overestimate say I have to pick up, pray all five of those. I know somebody who said they always prayed Isha and Maghrib, but they were really loose with the other ones. So they know at least they have to pray Fajr, Doher and Asir for six years. But Maghrib and Isha, they're like 100% sure that they prayed all of them because they prayed them as a family or something like that. So you would basically do that and you would overestimate as well in this case. So if you're like unsure, oh, I was 15 and I didn't pray till I was 21, then you would overestimate slightly.  And you might, of course, everybody prayed a few prayers in between there, hopefully.  Anything that you do, but anything you do below, that's where the problem comes in, yeah. So prayers have to be made up as prayers. So you have to make them up like as Niyah of a Fajr, the Niyah of a Doher, the Niyah of an Asir, the Niyah of a Maghrib, the Niyah of an Isha, but you don't have to do it in order. You can just do a Fajr here, Doher here, Maghrib here, and you just keep a track. I would just put it on a spreadsheet, keep a log and just work through it, right? And what we said earlier about praying and following is really... So the prep, yeah, in our time, I would highly advise, it's in the Shafi school and the Maliki school at least, that makeup prayers take precedence over Taraweeh, over any Sunnah prayers. In the Hanafi school, they say do both, which is really difficult to do, right? So the advice I would have is to prioritize the makeups. If you know you have a lot of Fajr, take the Shafi ruling on making a Niyah for a Fajr behind the Imam when they're praying Taraweeh. These are like very flexible things that most people will be like, maybe you don't want to do that. I'm just saying the more flexible options because I know in our time that people need flexibility, right? To just kind of get in this rhythm of making things up. But these are not like the super strict opinions in all these areas. And then what you would do is you would also have a time where you would make up prayers separately. So like, let's say that you're saying, okay, you did all your Fajr's, at that point you can't do like an Isha with the Taraweeh, that wouldn't work.  Just get it in. But try to get to 20 rakahs of makeups in that case, right? And then instead of any tahajud, you do a makeup prayer at that time. Instead of any extra, most of the extra sunnahs, you do a makeup prayer at that time. You just make up, make up, make up until you get in, get in the rhythm of doing it. And then ideally it might take three, four years, but you'll have made all them up, inshallah. Yeah. Yeah, it's fine. Yeah. You mentioned Taraweeh. Yeah, what I mentioned, so it's an emphasized sunnah, so sunnah moakada means that it's highly emphasized to do. So it's, what I meant by not optional is it's not the type of thing that like is very common in our culture today, where it's like, we'll be, you know, oh, should I go to Taraweeh or should I not? And someone's like, ah, it's just optional, don't do it. That's not, you don't want to look at it like that. It's emphasized sunnah, meaning one or two days of someone not doing it, it's fine, but consistently leaving Taraweeh just out of laziness is considered sinful, right? Like just out of, because it is, we know the messenger, alaihi salatu as-salam, did this in the month of Ramadan, and that you do not have to do it in the Masjid, right? The preference would be pray isha in the Masjid, that is essential for men to do, and in Mandir Ramadan, outside of Ramadan as well, ideally. No, no, no, no, sorry, like, it's a really good spiritually to do, yeah, not essential, so not mandatory. Also an emphasized sunnah, to try to pray isha in the Masjid. But Taraweeh, if you are not able to pray in the Masjid, pray at home, right, like in COVID, everybody's praying at home, it's fine, pray on your own, pray in Jama'at, but just pray. If you can't do the long Taraweeh, the full Quran, that is not required at all, right? So if you just want to get in the 20 Rekha and do the short surahs, there's many parts of the Muslim world, they do that in the Masjid. They don't do the full Quran in the Masjid. You just got to get in, do some portion of night prayer, ideally, right? But the rulings will vary on whether it's emphasized or not, and whether it's required. Definitely not required, but it's good to do it, yeah. So I would recommend makeup prayers, prioritize, do them at home, have a portion to at least attend Isha and a few Rekha in the Masjid and then go and do a bunch of makeups. If you feel like you're not going to be able to do it at home, just go in the corner of the Masjid and do that, you know, if you can, yeah. Okay, we're well over time. Yes, last question. Sorry, is this too much? Yeah. But like, let's say you just make prayers, maybe just a couple, right? Yeah, yeah, that's fine, yeah. So that would you, so what you have to do there is you have to make the intention of every prayer. You are not intending Salat Taraweeh, you are not intending Salat Taraweeh. And as long as you are aware of that and you consciously make that intention in the Shafi school, it is, it is permissible to do, yeah. But again, it's like the type of thing that, yeah, I mean, it's fine, yeah, it's fine. It's just, it's not like the strictest opinion, yeah. Yes? No, this is a question that you have to pick up and then you also need to like add or minus. Great idea, yeah. So, yeah, so there's like prayer tracking apps and spreadsheets and whatnot that exist that have already been created since, you know, someone knew that a lot of us missed our prayers. So they created the app. There's also put on memorization apps. Like there's a ton of good apps out there to help facilitate some of these things. So I would advise looking into them. Yeah, thank you for mentioning that on the left. Okay, so if anybody has other, okay, we'll do one last question. And then we'll go ahead and brother Omar forgive me. I know we can't finish it. So sorry. Yeah, go ahead. No, I was just giving a shout out to the app. Salah Fala is one of you. It's a very good and pretty extractor and it's hard to get you to go through the test. Salah Fala. Salah Fala, okay. But Alhamdulillah, Alhamdulillah. Okay, Alhamdulillah. So we'll go ahead and shout out if anybody has other questions and I'll check on that, that we will follow up afterwards. So in, okay, so in Ramadan, we are pausing the Wednesday class. Okay, so we were not able to figure out a way to do it with iftar, new carpet. Amir says no, no, iftar and new carpet and doing it outside. If it, let's say the weather wasn't good, it would have been difficult to manage iftar outside. So we will not be doing a class in Ramadan. However, there will be other classes the Masjid is offering in the month of Ramadan that will not be like coinciding with iftar. So it might be a class of like five o'clock or six. And then every night, inshallah, after eight raka, there will be a reminder, five, 10 minute reminder by somebody, inshallah, probably rotate out a few people. So that will, that will be the case, inshallah. And then the Masjid will be doing, obviously Isha and then 20 raka. And the details for that will go out by like Friday night on the Masjid email list. And Isha will probably be at 9 p.m. to start with. And then obviously as it goes later, we'll increase it by 10 to 15 minutes, inshallah. Cool, so if any of you guys know anybody who usually was coming to class, please just let them know that in Ramadan it's paused. But after the month of Ramadan, we'll continue inshallah, finish out the book, that we're in the topic that we're doing on practical spirituality, so we'll finish off the book. We have probably eight chapters left, so about seven to eight more weeks inshallah, we'll finish off the book, inshallah. Yes. What is the title of the book? The title of the book that we've been going through is called The Book of Assistance. The Book of Assistance, yeah. It's a really, really good book. Yes. Imam al-Haddad, H-A-D-D-A-D. Imam al-Haddad is the author of the book, yeah. Okay, alhamdulillah. Sorry for keeping everybody late. I'm going to go ahead and with the du'as. Okay. Ya Allah Ya Rahman Ya Fatah Ya Mubin Ya Rahman Rahimin Ya Allah We ask Allah that you make this Ramadan full of blessings for us Ya Allah, put barakah in this Ramadan for us, make it full of forgiveness for us and our families and our community members and our loved ones and make it full of newer and make it full of nearness to you Ya Allah, we it will have the ability to follow the sunnah of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam Ya Rabbi al-Alamini, Allah we ask you for all good and we intend everything the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam intended Ya Allah to do in this month of Ramadan. We ask that you pour your sweet breezes upon us Ya Rabbi al-Alamini, Allah allow us to draw nearer and nearer to you in this month, Ya Allah allow us to recite abundant imams of Quran and to pray extra and to do a bunch of dua'a and to make up prayers that we have missed Ya Allah to be present in our fast Ya Allah and may allow us to achieve the fast of the elect and to achieve the fast of the elect of the elect and to achieve the fast Ya Rabbi al-Alamini, Ya Allah by means of which we stay away from all haram Ya Allah and that we only focus on you in this month of Ramadan Ya Rabbi al-Alamini. We ask you for everything good the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam asked for and we ask for your protection from everything evil that he asked protection from us, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, barakah al-asidina Muhammadin, ala alihi wa sahbihi sallam, alhamdulillahi rabbil alamin Alhamdulillahi, okay, we'll go ahead and pray insha'Allah.


Hello everyone, this is financial author Amit down of Edan journal today. I'll talk about mutual funds basics After listening this video You should have a good idea of what are mutual funds and whether this is the right product for you Let's begin with what are mutual funds? Mutual fund is a collection of investment products such as stocks bonds T-Bills and can be other products Mutual fund companies collect money from investors and hire professionals to manage Your money these professionals are called fund managers when you buy a mutual fund or funds you're Buying a portion of the fund or funds altogether now why mutual funds are Suitable for first-time investors you need years of experience lots of money investment knowledge and Need to know various tools to pick individual stocks However a mutual fund does all that for you While keeping risks at minimum It's no wonder mutual funds assets have been skyrocketing in the decades I'll talk about both advantages and disadvantages of mutual funds Let's begin with advantages of mutual funds The most important advantage of mutual fund is low minimums If you'd like to start investing in other products such as stocks bonds or anything else you'd require a Hefty minimum amount, but with mutual funds you can start investing with as low as $1,000 or $500 or even low and There's another option or feature available for mutual funds that let's you allow Start to start investing and keep investing every month for as low as $25 per month or $50 per month This feature is called pack pre-authorized payment or SIP systematic investment plan or AIP Automatic investment plan different financial institutions have different name for this But this is just a small amount of money. You're putting in Every month which comes account comes out of your bank account directly The next thing our next advantage mutual fund offers is professional management Choosing an individual stock or bond can be an enormous task for new investors all the research and decision-making can be daunting and Every investors do not have the tools and resources to make a prudent decision When you buy mutual funds You are also buying the expertise and service of a group of professionals who manage those funds Each group consists of a fund manager and a few analysts This group is responsible for doing All the research for deciding when to buy what to buy what not to buy and when to sell Basically, everything is done by the fund manager and his team. You don't have to spend days Months and nights analyzing stocks and monitoring them remember this professionals cost you money and The money you're paying for mutual fund actually cover the cost of these professionals The old saying do not put all your eggs in one basket still applies Whether you're holding stocks bonds diversification is very important for investors a Mutual fund is a lot more diversified than a stock or a bond because a typical fund holds 20 or 50 or even hundreds of stocks and Sometimes they can even hold Assets throughout different classes not just one class such as stock or bonds a mutual funds can hold Some stocks some bonds some fixed-term securities and other products for an average investor Diversification can be a headache if you want to pick your own stocks bonds or other Investment products and diversify by yourself however When you're buying mutual funds, you don't have to worry about all the work and all the management Because a mutual fund is diversified by the team of professionals who are managing the mutual fund regulation Mutual funds are regulated by federal or provincial authorities or In the country where you reside there a central authority which regulates the funds So in that term mutual funds offer better protection than stocks or bonds because if you buy individual stocks or bonds on your own They can vanish overnight or a company go bankrupt overnight and you lose all your money However with the mutual funds you have some degree of protection because these funds are highly regulated Ensuring how funds are managed and how investors are informed I'll just mention a few here For example fund companies need approval from unit holders to make any significant change Also any change in the funds investment objectives has to be approved by unit holders Fund companies have to disclose the funds holdings on a regular basis fund companies need to publish procedures for the purchase and sell off funds a Mutual fund company does not physically hold its assets a third party called the custodian Holds securities on behalf of the fund company If the fund company is in trouble your money is protected Fund managers cannot just walk away or walk out with your money The custodian can be either a bank or a trust company Liquidity another feature our advantage mutual fund offers is liquidity What it means that mutual funds are are very easy to sell and buy Your money is not tied up for any specific terms or years Keep in mind that except for money market funds you will incur an early redemption fee if you redeem your fund within the first 60 days or There can be even early Redemption charges or DSC or deferred sales charges based on the country you reside and how mutual fund funds work in that country However, unlike some stocks or bonds that once you buy There's no more market available to sell or buy or transact Mutual funds are highly liquid It lets you allow to buy and sell anytime you want There might be some penalty sometimes and some other times there may not be any penalty transaction transaction cost When you're buying individual stocks or bonds each time you're buying or selling you have to pay transaction cost or trading fees to discount brokerage or your investment firm When you buy a mutual fund or you sell a mutual fund, there's no additional transaction cost and That makes it easier for average investors to buy and sell mutual funds without incurring any additional charges Now let's talk about disadvantages of mutual funds fees and expenses When you buy mutual funds you pay fees to compensate companies for doing all the work These fees are called management expense ratios or MER Depending on what you buy or what type of load you buy front-end back-end low load You might pay commission and redemption fees. I have discussed more on this on my site Adon journal and my book invest now So if you'd like to know more on this just follow it on www.adonjournal.com The next disadvantage no insurance When you put money in your bank account usually to a certain amount is protected by the The national insurance corporation are protected by the government in your country depending on where you live The amount in Canada is hundred thousand dollars. However When you buy mutual funds, there's no insurance protecting your investments. Your investments can go up or down Just like regular stocks or bonds So that's a disadvantage In terms of keeping money in the bank account which are protected you can increase the banks go bankrupt Lose of control another disadvantage fund managers Not mutual fund holders make the decisions on a funds portfolio Only by mutual funds you give your authority and You abide by the fund company's decisions So you have no saying in what to buy when to buy what to trade it all depends Or all these decisions are made by the fund managers trading limitations Stocks can be traded as many times as you want throughout the throughout the day in North America the markets are open From 9 30 to 4 o'clock Monday through Friday Because mutual funds are priced only once or once a day Which is after the market closes Regardless of how many times you buy or sell in a day You'll get only one price for the day. So basically You can purchase with the same unit value or same price for mutual funds once a day Another disadvantage is cash holdings Mutual funds need to hold a large amounts of cash to pay for redemptions meaning when Someone wants to take out sell them funds and take out the money Had this cash been invested It would have made money on this cash in other words investors lose growth potential on the cash portion There are other advantages and disadvantages of mutual funds After doing your research and going through all the advantages and disadvantages Decide if mutual funds are for you Everything comes with its positives or negatives So you have to decide that you know whether you'd like to go to mutual funds or you'd like to go with other Investment options www.edanjournal.com has a lot of information for free on various different products and services and You can read and there are other Educated Educational programs and websites you can go through before making any decisions and always you can talk to a qualified and professional Free based financial advisor to guide you through for investing and For a better future That's all for today. Thank you