We are going to be talking today about Ramadan and Ramadan, the most blessed month is right around the corner. We are very, very close to this month. We have just about a couple days left. So we are going to be focusing this class, inshallah, on how to thrive in this blessed month of Ramadan. So let's start with just understanding a little bit about why Ramadan is important. Why does this month even matter for us? And there are so many hadith, there are so many hadith that the Prophet SAW indicated on why this month is just such an amazing month, such an important month. So let's start with one hadith that's related on the authority of Sayyidina Abu Hurairah, Rabi Lahoran, where he said that the first night of Ramadan, when the first night of Ramadan, which could be for some people, it could be Monday night, could be Tuesday night, depends on when the moon is sighted. That the first night of Ramadan, the sheyatheen, the devils, they are shackled, they are put in locks in the first night of Ramadan.  And he said the doors of heaven are open and not a single one is kept shut, meaning all of the doors. Now heaven is super, super, super, super big, only Allah knows how vast heaven truly is. All of the doors to heaven are open and not a single one is kept shut. And a caller calls out in the first night of Ramadan. A caller calls out saying, O seeker of goodness, come forward. And O seeker of iniquity, stay back. And in these moments, Allah now begins to save people from the hellfire. So what does this mean? Sorry for this, I'm just going to close this window one second here. So Allah is calling out encouraging people in this blessed month, encouraging them to get ready for all the blessings. Now I want to really imagine this, right? And again, we're talking here about Ramadan prep. We're going to be talking for the next 30, 45 minutes about how to best prepare for Ramadan. We're going to talk about how to have a good game plan and all these other things. And then we're going to talk about do some light review on the rules of Ramadan, the rules of fasting. And then we will have some time for a question and answer, inshallah. So let's think about this, right? That the first day of Ramadan is the day that we all should be very, very, very much looking forward to. And we should be ready because imagine if somebody was distributing like a lot of money.  And I'll give everybody who comes with you a million dollars. Everybody who we know, Muslims, non-Muslim people who have never even been to the musk would start coming to the musk ship. And they would go and they would gather a million dollars, right? Someone just hanging out bags of money. I mean, who's not going to, who's not going to try to get access to that. And it's unlimited. The money is just unlimited. It keeps coming. Every single night, the money, the amount of the money that's being distributed increases. That's, that's a worldly, very brief metaphor. But think about Ramadan. When Ramadan comes, God is bestowing gifts upon gifts upon gifts upon gifts for all of us. So many gifts. And the first night, a lot of gifts are distributed. So we have to be ready for the first night of Ramadan. And we have to be ready for the, every single night of Ramadan. So many gifts are being distributed. We try to first and foremost have a big intention that we are going to try and make this the best Ramadan we've ever had. And then let's have an intention that we are going to be present in this month of Ramadan. It's, it's not, you know, it's not easy. 30 days of fasting is a lot of fasting. Many of us, we haven't fasted in a whole year. Or many of us, maybe this is our first Ramadan. I think somebody just asked a question actually saying, if you've not fasted for many years, do you have to make it up? So I'll get, I'll get to that question. Generally, if you were for no reason, but you were Muslim, if you were Muslim, yes, you will have to make up the fast from previous years. Unless you were old and you've gone to a state where you cannot fast, then you have to feed the number of, you have to feed people for every day that you missed. But if you are able, you do have to make up those fasts. And gradually I would recommend doing them for any previousness fast. And we'll talk about that as we get towards, as we continue the discussion. So everybody would be super stoked if somebody's hanging out bags of money. Let's be stoked that God is going to be giving out significant amounts of gifts for everyone who's just fasting and present and asking Him. That's all you got to do. You just have to ask God in this month and He just gives and gives and gives.  That's the first thing. The second thing is, this is the month of forgiveness, the month of forgiveness. So we have a hadith that the Prophet ﷺ said, and the authority of Jabir ibn Abdullah and he related. That the Prophet ﷺ said that in the month of Ramadan, this community, community of the Prophet ﷺ has been granted five blessings that no community before this community was given. And first, the Prophet ﷺ said that on the first night of Ramadan, God gazes. And we're talking here figuratively, right? Allah, sometimes the hadith come in metaphors to us so we can understand. It doesn't mean that someone is attributing these qualities to Allah. He said Allah gazes at the Muslims. And whoever Allah gazes at will never be destroyed. So what does this mean for us? Let's break this down before I get into the whole hadith here. That on the first night of Ramadan, again, it could be Monday night, it could be Tuesday night. We're talking about the night. The night precedes the day. So the first day of fasting, at least where I'm at in California, the first day of fasting can either be Tuesday or it can be Wednesday, depending on when the moon is sighted. That means the night though is Monday after Maghrib. People will go out and look for the moon. If the moon is sighted, that first Monday night is the first night of Ramadan. Tarawee begins. And this special mercy that we're talking about, this special gaze, is potentially something we can reach out for. So what does that mean we should be doing on the first night? We should be entering into a state. We should be in a state where we are seeking Allah's forgiveness. Where we are asking Allah to make this month blessed for us. Where we're asking Allah to make this month full of pay for us. Be present in the plate. Imagine you were going to a job interview and the first time like the CEO came in and saw you, you're going to want to look nice. You're going to want to be present. You're going to want to do all of that 10, 15, 20 times more. Do that when the first night of Ramadan comes in. Put on your nice clothes. Put on some nice scent. Have a nice shower. Be present. You are about to enter the month of all months. Be excited. Be present. The shayatheen are going. The angels are coming. They're going to be looking for doers of good. So somebody who's in a good state, right? InshaAllah and make an intention to make a doaa right now that ya Allah gays at me. There's one of the famous doaa's that one of the great righteous made. Allah yalla bi nathara. Oh Allah, we seek another. We seek an amazing gaze from Allah. So that is something for us to try and do on the first night. Then let's talk about the second month. Prophet Muhammad said that five things that Allah gave in this month of Ramadan that he didn't give a previous community. The second is that the smell of their mouth as the day becomes later and later is more fragrant to Allah, more beautiful to Allah than the smell of musk. Alright. Now all of us have had those moments. We're fasting and like we know our breath does not smell so good. And we are like, oh I can only get mint. I can just brush my teeth, whatever I can do. And we don't really end up doing that because obviously it's going to break our fast.  What is musk? It's like a term used in a lot of hadith. But like basically think about it like cologne or perfume. It's like really, really, really good smelling cologne. Right. That's what musk basically is. The third thing is that angels in Ramadan are making repentance for you each day and night. They're already doing that for you. Why?   Now how many angels are there? I don't know. But there's a lot. Angels all over are making repentance for the community of the prophets of Allah. In Ramadan specifically. There's actually many, many, many hadith that the angels are doing this for the seekers of knowledge, for the scholars throughout the year. But in the month of Ramadan they're doing this for all of us. They're doing this for all of us, inshallah. The fourth is Allah commands heaven. He commands paradise. And he says, prepare yourself for the believers. They have come close to becoming relieved of the fatigue of this dunya. And they have come close to moving into this abode. Right. So again, he's telling paradise to prepare us. Prepare for the coming of the believers, inshallah. And lastly, fifth is that the believers are forgiven in entirety according to this hadith from the last night. So somebody asked the prophets of Islam. They said, is this the night of power? Is that what you're referring to? Right. Well, the man, the prophet said, no, this is not the night of power. He says, do you not see how it is when workers work? When they're completed their work, they're given their wages. So you would like, go and you have a long job for a couple of days.  Here's your paycheck. Right. Now think about it. This Allah gives, forgives a lot of people in Ramadan. He forgives a lot of people throughout the last 10 nights Ramadan. He forgives a ton of people on lay with the other. And then the prophet, some here is saying that just because you completed the Ibadah, you completed the fast, Allah's forgiving a lot of people. So that's something to look forward to that just for doing the fast. It's a lot of work, right? It's a lot of energy we put in to try to fast. Allah forgives people because we reach the end. So this is an amazing hadith. This is something for us to kind of, again, be excited about these five blessings that no community was given. Allah gazes at the believers. Number one, number two, the smell of their mouths as the day progresses is more fragrant to Allah than the smell of perfume or cologne. Angels are making repentance for you day and night. Allah tells paradise to prepare itself for you. And fifth, you and I, inshallah, all of us are forgiven at the end because somebody says Allah is most merciful. Indeed he is. And so because of Allah's mercy, inshallah, we will be forgiven at the end. So it's really, really, really good. And it's a month where dua is accepted, right? So that's the third main point I want to mention. That it comes in a hadith narrated in the collection of Mama Tirmadeed that there are three types of people whose dua's are not refused. One of that category is the just ruler. The second is the fasting person when they break their fast. Somebody who's being oppressed, the prayer of the oppressed, right? So we're focusing here on the fasting category. So when you and I are fasting and when we are breaking our fast, that is a time for dua. It's a time for dua. Don't let anything come between you and your Lord at the time of breaking your fast. What does that mean? When you are about to break your fast. And I'll talk about this closer to the end. Five minutes, spray of five minutes between the iftar prep and the preparing the samosas and the pagoras and the food and all the stuff that everybody wants to eat. Five minutes, put it all away. Go into a place, just you and Allah and mix and seer dua. Turn to Him. Ask Him to forgive you. Ask Him to change you. Ask Him to make you come out of Ramadan in a completely different person.  Things will be different. You will emerge Ramadan. I know people who came into Ramadan. They were clubbing. They were smoking. They were dealing drugs. They were drinking. They were partying. They were all the stuff you could imagine, right? As a college student. And one solid Ramadan. They left all of that. They had a few transformative moments in Ramadan. They emerged from the month, leaving every single thing. Never went back to it. Just completely different. This is the month of life changing. Maybe we're not caught up in all that stuff. If we are, no judgment is the time to change. If we're not, okay, Hamdullah is still time for us to change. We can still improve in this month. So this is the month of Do'ab being accepted. Use those times, though, before it starts wisely. Try to be present with your Lord. So that is the couple of major, major benefits of Ramadan that I wanted to mention. Now let's get into some of the goals for Ramadan. So somebody asked, how long will this be? Is there any recording? This will be just about an hour or so, and then there will be a recording that I can link to. It's being recorded. If you go to www.mcceastbay.org slash live, it's being recorded there, each other via YouTube. Okay, so let's talk about the goals of Ramadan. The goals of Ramadan are the following. The major goal, I think most people have heard this before, but the major goal is that we attain the state of taqwa. What does that mean? That Allah says in the Qur'an, that O you who believe fasting has been ordained for you as it was ordained for those who came before you in order that you might attain a state of God consciousness or mindfulness. What does that mean? That this is the month where you and I are supposed to attain the state of being conscious of God and being present of God and being aware of God. That is the goal in this blessed month of Ramadan. So how do we go about doing that? Well, the best way to think about it and the time we're in, right? All of us have been more of this pandemic. We've been trying to wear the mask, trying to social distance, and like, you know, you're very careful about everywhere you go. You're careful about people. You're careful about the situations you're in. Well, taqwa is like being hyper careful, like social distancing yourself from sins and trying to be very, very careful about what you say, what you look at, of course, what you eat, right? What you do, what you think about. That's taqwa. So think about it like there's a pandemic of sin and taqwa is that you are social distancing from it. You are putting a mask of thicker on all these metaphors. You can think, you know, I'll stop before I get too corny with all the metaphors, but point being that you and I want to try and be in a state of taqwa at the end of Ramadan. The goal of Ramadan is to help us achieve this state of taqwa. That is one of the major goals of this month. So now, doesn't mean we're going to emerge like completely, you know, clean and whatnot. We hope so, but taqwa is on a spectrum. A way to gauge your taqwa is how much, how often are you in a state of tranquility versus how often you are in a state of anxiety and tranquility and anxiety are the same spectrum. The more taqwa one gets, the more tranquil one gets. The less taqwa one has, the more regularly anxious somebody gets because this state of God consciousness is a state knowing that Allah is in complete control and one is trusting and relying and, you know, disposing their affair to Allah. So that is the mid one gauge, just one example, right? Somebody else mentioned sincerity, perfect example. Sincerity is one way to gauge how you are doing with regards to taqwa. The more sincere somebody is, the more taqwa one has. The more hypocritical somebody is, well, the less taqwa somebody has, right? Because if you are hypocrite, you mean you're not conscious of God and as a result it means that, you know, you don't really care about, well, God thinks you just care about people think and thus you don't have that state of taqwa. So that's one of the first goals of Ramadan. Another goal of Ramadan is to emerge from the month of being grateful because Allah says in Quran at the end of the verse, in order that you may be grateful. Think about it, there's so much to be grateful for. On a normal day, we can't eat, right? On a normal day, or sorry, sorry, on a normal day we can eat, we can drink, we can do all the stuff that we normally do. But on a day in Ramadan, we cannot eat, we cannot drink, we cannot engage in relations. There's so much stuff that we are limited from doing. Well, that should engender a state of gratitude in us because how many people are there in the world that they are not leaving food by choice.  You know at the end of the day that I am going to get to drink something. You know at the end of the day there's some dinner you're looking forward to. Now think about all the people around the world.  Who don't know whether or not they're going to be able to have food tomorrow or the next day. The goal, one of the goals of Ramadan is to engender a state of gratitude in us. So we say Alhamdulillah for some things we take for granted. Like water, food, we take a lot of this stuff for granted but there's so many people who are thirsty. There's so many people who don't have food. Ramadan is a month. One of the goals is to help us attain a state of gratitude and thankful to Allah. Thank you for all these blessings. Alhamdulillah. And hopefully this Ramadan for those of us who are able to see community members this Ramadan and we couldn't see them last Ramadan we should say Alhamdulillah that we're able to have community and if we are able to have tarawi in our masjid that things are clear and opening back up. Alhamdulillah there's so much to be grateful for. So make this one of the goals of Ramadan for yourself inshaAllah to try and emerge from the month in a state of gratitude. So okay we are going to inshaAllah continue. So now I'm going to talk a little bit about intentions and then we're going to talk about or before I actually get into intentions we're going to talk about the structure of someone's day in Ramadan given the circumstances we're in. Many of us who are not seeing community members there's a lot of stuff we can't do so we have to make with what we can do. First thing is no matter what state you're in if you are having to stay at home be in a state where you can't go see community members and engage in what not with these people engage with people as much as you're used to take advantage of the time put away the screens, put away the Netflix put away all that stuff and take advantage of the time fill your time with thicker make that a goal that is Ramadan fill your time with thicker for sure. Number two is to take advantage of the tarawi prayer take advantage of it. Tarawi does not have to be prayed in congregation it's preferred so if you can pray it in congregation Alhamdulillah but if you can't pray tarawi at home pray your isha in congregation with your family and then try and pray 20 rakat tarawi even if you just do every rakat alhamdulillah at least you're doing something the other thing I would recommend and this is for those of us who have makeup prayers I have a lot of makeup prayers for example that I have to do so if you have makeup prayers meaning significant amount of prayers you missed from the past in your jay days, in your jahiliah days when you weren't practicing or something as much use the time of tarawi to make up those prayers there's a difference of opinion in this but in the Shafi school and the Maliki school make up prayers take preference they are preferred over any sunnah or nathal prayer almost any sunnah or nathal prayer with the exception of sunnah before five years they are preferred over tarawi so if you're praying 20 rakat tarawi if you have let's say a heck of fudgers to make up because most of us we didn't use to pray fudger let's say when we were younger and we were oversleep and whatnot makeup prayers by the way prayers we all know start at the time after you get puberty so from the time of puberty to now whatever amount you've missed calculate it and use the time in Ramadan to make up those prayers so if you let's say missed a bunch of fudgers let's say you're praying 20 rakat that's 10 fudgers 10 different fudgers and you did over 30 days that's 300 fudgers that's almost one year of fudger somebody can get through by doing 2 rakat 2 rakat 2 rakat 2 rakat in lieu of tarawi which in the Shafi school and the Maliki school that is preferred in the Hanafi school it is not preferred you should do tarawi and do the other one but I would just encourage people do whatever is easiest for you the best thing of having four schools is you can take a ruksa at dispensation from whichever one in these type of situations that will be beneficial so that's something to to keep in mind and somebody asks if they have years of makeup prayers how do you how do you calculate so what I would do is calculate the number of years roughly that you made up so let's say you know that you were very spotty with your prayers 20 right and maybe at 20 you started praying so 15 and 20 I would do a very high level calculation to say okay I probably missed five prayers most of the day so I'm going to say 365 days in a year times five prayers so that's how many prayers for one year I have to make up so I have five years of literally every prayer to make up let's say that's an example or you might know that I prayed lower and isha always I always miss fudger you calculate that like you know come up with a document or something and track this this is super important I cannot emphasize how important it is to calculate missed prayers and to get on the grind of making them up and don't let any whisper shaitan or anything tell you no you can do it later do this right now one of the goals of shaitan is he tries to get you to do extra good deeds when you haven't even done the obligatory good deed that's actually a trick from shaitan you might have you do something extra but you haven't even done a lot of the basic stuff right so focus on the fundamentals this from adhan focus on make up prayers for sure if that's something that you have to do if you don't have make up prayers like that's really really really good make do after those of us who do that Allah gives us tofiq to make them up and highly encourage folks to pray tarawi and to pray at least a portion if you can just do even half of the amount of tarawi or for work if you have you're super busy with work just do like you know 10 raka or 4 raka whatever you can do but don't miss it tarawi is an emphasize sunnah of the Prophet sallallahu sallam and it's a very very very very blessed time so many blessings are being passed out for those people who stand in tarawi the Prophet sallallahu sallam said whoever stands in the nights of Ramadan with iman and hoping for reward they will emerge from this month completely clean completely clean and he related something similar to that I'm paraphrasing there so that's that's just one thing I wanted to mention now let's get into intentions make big intentions inshallah make an intention right now that all of us let's intend this together inshallah that we intend to fast the whole month in a way that's pleasing to Allah we intend to expose ourselves to Allah's sweet gifts and pleasant breezes in this month we intend to achieve a state of accepted repentance we intend to recite lots of Quran we intend to learn lots of Quran we intend to read lots of Quran we intend to change our lives for the better we intend to have good character and to call to and to be in a state where Allah is reforming us and bringing good character in us in an easy state we intend to become close to Allah we intend to spend as much time as we can in doing things of benefit in Ramadan and we intend to purify hearts those are examples if we intend and just intend those together inshallah Allah will give us the intention is the door the Prophet ﷺ said that actions are by their intention so you make firm intentions in Ramadan inshallah and you will get amazing amazing rewards somebody asked a question um do do do do can you pray tarawih alone yeah you can pray tarawih alone you do not have to pray tarawih in congregation you can pray it alone just do what you do salat al isha and then you you begin tarawih prayer and you make the intention for salat al tarawih as a sunnah prayer and just do it in two sets of two somebody asked what does age of puberty mean for a woman who did not get her menstrual cycle due to illness um that is a good question I do not know the answer to that question I'm very sorry I would imagine that one um estimates uh but I will look that up if you can follow up with me on that I can try to direct message you once one side of that question inshallah um so once we made this intention now one embarks on this path right one embarks on this path to try to change so the thing that I would recommend is whatever goals you have for yourself in the month of Ramadan try to have a uh list of here the things I want to change about myself right we all know what those things are make a list of things that you want to change about yourself so maybe I get angry too much maybe I have no patience maybe I curse a lot maybe I um I'm very very rude and maybe I uh yell at my parents I don't know whatever different things we have and come up with a list and then start to work on it on the first day of Ramadan make a list of what you want to change and then make a list of what you are going to replace that thing with so if you get angry I'm going to replace that with calmness I'm going to replace that with you know trying to be nicer if I'm rude I'm going to replace that with trying to be kind right so that's the first step is identify what we want to change about ourselves number two identify what we are going to do to bring that change change has three aspects knowledge implementation and relying on Allah you learn how to change that trait you implement what you learn and you of course rely on Allah to ask you for help this is one of the frameworks similar to the framework that Mama Ghazali Rahim Allah that he gave us so you have to learn if I get angry I got to go to anger management I got to learn what Allah tells me in the Quran or what the Prophet said in Hadith about anger then I have to implement that I got to give myself a couple weeks to try that but of course most importantly I have to rely on Allah that he will help me make at least one trait everybody should set a goal one trait that you want to get rid of in this month one bad trait that you have right maybe it's you know we curse a lot or something like that maybe we lie we backbite pick one trait and then pick one good trait that you want to add inshaAllah if we do that and we work on it we can really emerge from the month in a very very good state inshaAllah so I'm going to just pause here in case there are any specific questions that I'm going to resume so if anybody has questions about what we've covered so far please feel free to post them in the comments we'll get to them and then I'm going to get and next we're going to get into the levels of fasting because there are various levels of fasting that exist and we should try to aspire in this month of Ramadan to get beyond the first level so does anybody have a question let's see not seeing any questions yet see any questions here someone asked how to pray the hajjud prayer ok so the hajjud prayer is a prayer that is prayed anytime in the last anytime really after ishah but specifically in the last one third of the night so you're talking at the time like two hours or so before fajr you just make the intention for salat of the hajjud you pray two raka in sets of two in sets of two and you can do as many as you want probably some generally would do eight raka to hajud followed by three raka in the winter so that is the general intention you read same thing fatah and surah so that would be the way to do it for the hajud let's see somebody says do you have to sleep with the hajud there is a difference of opinion but generally speaking yes one would sleep for salat of the hajud and then one would one would get so for example for sahur you would get up and you would pray two raka then even if you just pray any time after ishah and you're just up that's still a really really good thing can you read surah a class three times in third if you don't know the du'a for the third raka if you don't know the du'a for the third raka read rabbanaat like one of those du'as inshaAllah that should be sufficient or any other du'a from the Quran if you don't know the du'a for the third raka okay cool let's see if there's any other questions okay cool so let's continue now let's get into the levels of fasting okay so this is a topic that's like I really like this topic because fasting has levels the first time I learned this I was like whoa mind blown I did not realize that there are so many different elements to fasting the first level all of us do this when we fast inshaAllah is used to restrain from eating and drinking and sexual acts that's the first level from right when fajr enters until right at the time of maghrib one cannot eat they cannot drink they cannot put anything up their nose or their ears or any other cavities like those types of things and one cannot engage in sexual relations and these are permissible relations right that's the first level of fasting very basic okay the second level of fasting and this is what we should try to aspire to in this month and so all that person gets if you just do the first level inshaAllah you'll get reward but you generally you get hunger you get thirst and if you don't eat anything else about your life you kind of miss the point of fasting because Allah didn't say that you fast in order that you may be hungry he said you should fast in order that you may attain taqwa so let's talk about the second level the second level is that you you do the fast of the eye the fast of the ear the fast of the tongue so you actually restrain yourself from doing certain bad actions what does that mean you restrain your limbs from whatever harm that they might regularly do so let's say our eyes well you restrain your eyes from looking at impermissible images from watching bad videos from watching pornography from watching all the different stuff it is that we see on our social media you restrain your eyes from that that's the level of fasting from the eye higher than that is you restrain the eye from looking down on people and even higher than that is that you restrain from looking at anything that would distract you so for example watching TV scrolling for no reason these types of things if you want to achieve the fast of the eye in addition to the other this is a special type of fasting you want to attain higher reward you restrain it from doing these things that will distract you from your goal which is Allah remember the goal is taqwa of who God consciousness taqwa of Allah that you are aware of Allah is at the level of the eye then there's a level of the tongue so at the level of the tongue it is to fast and restrain yourself from talking smack from backbiting from lying from yelling at people from getting angry from just generally frivolous talk from cursing whatever bad things it is that we do with our tongue we restrain ourselves so set a goal I say this word all the time in Ramadan I'm going to not say this I lie to my parents all the time I'm not going to lie in Ramadan whatever it is that you do now it's not that you're just not doing it in Ramadan remember science shows that it takes about 30 to 40 days to form a habit so if you leave that bad trait for 30 or 40 days you stop looking at bad things for 30 or 40 days you won't want to do it afterwards because you'll have been purified you'll be in your better state same thing if you stop gossiping after Ramadan is done you won't want to do that stuff anymore because you will have emerged again you will be in a state of purity so that is the goal to attain to the next level so you go from not just basic fasting now you are trying to do the fasting of the people who are trying to work on themselves the select people you are actively trying to get close to God right? the higher level than that for the tongue you don't really say extra things like just let me just talk about sports you try to use that extra time and dhikr or things like that again that's a high level but if you can do that undo that so that is at the tongue we talked about the eye now let's talk about the ear the ear is preventing yourself from listening or you try to not listen to things that are improper the people that are backbiting music with curse words generally like things that you wouldn't want to bad type of music that's going to mess your state up you want to avoid listening to those things a higher state than that is you don't actually have any inputs going into your ears that are not beneficial you're just only going to positive things listening to Quran and listening to these types of things again these are levels we know what the level is and we try our best I have no doubt that every single Muslim out there all of us can achieve these levels because it wouldn't exist if we couldn't achieve them but we have to believe in ourselves we have to believe that Allah will give us the ability to achieve this if we work hard and work hard at it so now you can apply this to any other aspect so your hand let's say you're really used to using your hand to pick up our own thing say somebody smokes using your hand to pick up a cigarette or to pick up a vape pan or something will you prevent your hand from engaging anything wrong in the month of Ramadan so you put all that stuff away no drugs, no alcohol we know that this is not allowed anyways we are caught up in this stuff, we leave it and we hope that we emerge from the month of Ramadan not wanting it anymore same thing with the feet your feet stay away from walking towards places that are haram if you walk to the club or these types of places again these are all closed down these days which is a good thing but if we are used to it we now use our feet to walk where to walk to the mosque or to walk to places of goodness or to walk to give food and distribute food to the needy these are the types of things we want to do so come up with a list of every part eye, ear, nose I guess not really nose, eyes, ears, tongue, hands, feet and come up with a list of the things you do right now again this conversation is about your Ramadan game plan so there should be some actionable items for all of us if we were in person we would like to give out some way for us to track all this but come up with a list and then come up with this is what I'm going to work on I say the effort too much I got to stop I listen to too much too much filthy music I got to stop I yell too much I got to stop that's when you pick and you work on your list right so these are things that we should try to work on if we want to elevate our state why is this important because one time it was in the month of Ramadan two women sent for the prophet they sent somebody to the prophet of Islam explaining they were having this difficulty something was going on the prophet of Islam sent them sent back to them a bucket and he said give them this bucket and tell them to you know to vomit basically and they vomited all of this meat all of this raw dead meat super dirty they were like what is this we've been fasting all day we didn't even eat any meat and he was told that he relates to them that that is the meat of all the people you were backbiting throughout the day you were fasting but you were actually eating the flesh of your brother or your sister which is what we know is the punishment for backbiting you were doing all of that by talking smack about them so you weren't you were fasting but you weren't really fasting right so that's something for us to keep mind you still get the outward the outward aspect of the fast but if the fast has reward that goes up to here every time we backbite smack talk yell at somebody argue get angry curse we just do until the ward is completely gone so we want to try to achieve a state this Ramadan we actually have a reward left over for us which is achieved by reducing the amount that we sin throughout the month inshallah and then there's a final level so that was level one was the basics level two is fasting from each of the limbs level three this is like a very high level try to do this for like at least even 20 minutes in Ramadan the fasting of the people who are closest to Allah their fast is that they they have moments where their thoughts don't even think of anything other than Allah so they fast from everything other than Allah and if they think about anything other than Allah for them spiritually again not from a law perspective not outwardly but spiritually for them they're like oh the reward of that fast is gone they're at a very high state you're talking here now at the level of the saints which again all of us can achieve that level make an intention that okay for half an hour or for one hour or for one day in the last 10 days I'm going to try to achieve this level of the fast this is called the fasting of the elite of the elite so there are many many spiritual secrets for us just making an intention that one day in our life we will try to achieve that right so that's just something for us to keep in mind as we as we go on this journey of this blessed month of Ramadan Alhamdulillah as let's just continue to move forward here alright somebody asked how would you overcome your nafs for that yeah it's a really really good question so this is where the spiritual training comes into place that anytime the nafs gets any bad thought you say immediately you do think or you say astaghfirullah or you say la ilaha illallah you make an intention every time you say la ilaha that there is nothing worthy so you make an intention that anything that is in your heart or in your nafs that is distracting you leaves and then you say illallah and only Allah the thought of Allah is left so these are forms of thicker that we have been told to do in order to help us achieve these states so I would recommend that anytime you are trying to focus and bad thoughts come say la ilaha illallah and you just focus yourself on Allah that would be one way to do it somebody says when does Ramadan start it depends on the moon setting but it will start on Monday night or Tuesday night depending on the country that somebody is in so someone says they are confused about that so the reason why it depends is because in our tradition we don't follow things that are like fixed calculated time do we follow the moon setting so when people go out and they look for the moon if they see the new moon that's the sunnah of the Prophet ﷺ if they don't see the moon then it's not Ramadan you finish the month of Shabbon and you go accordingly and if you are in the United States I would just recommend you seeing whether you are in New York or San Francisco wherever you are what places are doing I would recommend there is a site I would check for anybody globally there is a site called CrescentWatch.org I would check that site for the moon signing that is a very reliable site there are a lot of moon ciders who go out and look for the moon so CrescentWatch.org if you want to know when Ramadan is going to start okay so moving on the other thing to fast from all of us we are talking on media platforms so all of us all of us we are in some way another caught up in media and watching TV scrolling generally using our time on social media pick one platform that would be the recommendation pick one you can do all of them at least pick one I would recommend giving up Netflix or any streaming platform or the idea of TV in general use that time for something else don't use Ramadan for TV don't use it for movies imagine angels roaming around they are looking for people who are doing worship and like they are going to watch they are going to catch you and me watching like a game of thrones that's not what you want Ramadan to be you want Ramadan you want to be in a good state you don't want them to catch you watching random YouTube or TikTok videos again you want when you are in a state of fasting for you to be doing beneficial things doesn't media have to get off the platform completely but if you can fast from certain social media or if you can fast from certain media I would replace that time with three things one it's going to sound basic but go on a walk go on a walk outside if the weather permits and you are in a safe area just go walk think put away all the noise just reflect walking inshallah won't tire you out it should help you get through the fast that would be the first thing I would recommend you use that time for second thing I would recommend that time for is reading Quran I mean that would be the first thing ideally but let's just say one doesn't want to immediately get to that recite the Quran use that time okay if you watch a one hour show okay recite the Quran for 10 minutes of that one hour and go walk or something for like the other 40 minutes and the third thing is listen to something beneficial so find a good talk or podcast or something like ideally islamically related but even if it's not even if it's just something beneficial listen to that use the time wisely though and if you absolutely positively must watch TV like you just have to watch a documentary watch something beneficial don't watch something that has haram in it that has haram clothing in it that has bad words in it that has sex scenes in it try not to watch that stuff I mean it's it's already bad enough outside Ramadan in Ramadan it's gonna spiritually mess you up you're going to diminish the reward of the fast in the month of Ramadan so try to get rid or try to to get rid of these bad habits that we have right like we are the promise the Allah says in the Quran that you are the best people ever sent forth to humanity he's talking about you you are the best people you the Muslims are the best people ever sent forth to humanity right because you do good things you enjoy good and you forbid evil is what the verse continues to go on to say that category of Muslims we are supposed to be in that category let's not let ourselves sing that category is not let's not let ourselves get to a place where like all we do you know the traits of the toxic poles of western society that everything it is that they do revolves around TV and entertainment and consumerism let's try to elevate ourselves in Ramadan so we can achieve this station of being the best people so reduce the amount that you watch if you can't give it up you watch three hours of TV reduce it to an hour and a half then reduce it to one hour and then eventually half hour to 30 minutes whatever you can reduce it to but if you can't I would challenge all of us try to fast from media try to fast from television in this in this blessed month of Ramadan cool and I think we're almost getting there so we're just going to keep moving a little bit so the next thing is focus on the diseases of the heart in this month of Ramadan what does that mean pick like I said before one trait that you have and also pick one disease of the heart that you have what is a disease of the heart a disease of the heart you're really, really cheap you are you know super arrogant you're obsessed with yourself you're obsessed with your looks always checking how I look oh the filter on like obsessed with that right pick a disease of the heart and work on it whether it's narcissism whether it's arrogance whether it's bragging about yourself in front of other people whether it's wanting people to look at you and praise you whether it's wanting followers all the time these diseases and work on them this Ramadan saying that to myself first and foremost all this is to me this is all I'm saying this to myself I got a lot of stuff I got to work on and that's my wife she'll tell you read so there's a lot of things I need to work on let's pick a disease of the heart don't emerge from Ramadan like the same the like God says in the Quran that there will be people who like will come to the day of judgment and and or in the next life and there will be like in heaven some people and there will be other people who didn't make it and there will have been friends and there's like a dialogue that takes place between the two people there will be people who say like you the person who ends up in hell like you tried to like lead me astray you tried to mess mess me up but Allah Allah didn't allow me to get there right and the person who's in heaven the person who's in hell will say to them right they will say to them um why didn't you help me more right why didn't you guide me more and these types of dialogues take place throughout various ayahs in the Quran throughout the idea why do I mention that because the last thing you want for yourself at the end of your life is like dude I could have been a better person but I let 30, 40, 50 years 50 Ramadan's go by and I never changed I never reduced my anger I never got a good character I never reformed myself the point of this religion is to change and become a good person it's not just to do a bunch of like worship and never change become kind stop arguing be nice these are all golden principles that our religion tells us to follow and unfortunately too many of us as Muslims these days we're so caught up arguing with each other and hating each other throw all that out the window Shai'ab-een are gone in Ramadan throw all that out the window and focus on trying to achieve a state of purity and goodness and try to improve your character in this blessed month of Ramadan somebody says bro I started losing my faith and Tawqa and Allah after my though I didn't get accepted any tips that's a really really good question um so one of the things that Allah tests people who he loves with is he delays their though getting accepted that's very that happens all the time so it comes in the Quran that so that's actually a good sign don't think that Allah has to answer your though right away and don't don't think that your though it has to be answered as a yes in order for you to get um uh in order for you to kind of get what it is you were seeking what's an example of this well let's start with the Hadith the Prophet of the Sun said that for though is accepted in three ways one you say ya Allah give me a water bottle and I get a water bottle yeah that's one number two you you uh a tribulation that was coming your way so something big tribulation was coming your way because of the power of your dua that tribulation is diverted boom the power of the dua pushes that tribulation away number three you get something better in its stead in the next life so you come in the next life and you see all this stuff and you're like that's the dua you made on April 10th that's the dua you made on April 3rd that's that dua that's that dua all this stuff you get and you're like oh wow I didn't realize I was getting all this stuff well you get it because you made dua and maybe God didn't answer it in this life so remember one of the most important aspects is Tawakal trusting in Allah is trusting that he knows which dua to give you now which dua to save for later right but it doesn't mean he forgot about it he is answering it but it is in a different way it's in a little bit of a different way and if you look at the story of the Prophet Zachariah alaihi salam then it is mentioned that he prayed to Allah for a child for decades decades before Allah answered his dua and then eventually Allah says in the Quran that we granted you Yahya glad tidings upon the birth of Yahya alaihi salam the Prophet John as mentioned in other traditions Prophet Yahya alaihi salam so that's the imagine it's a prophet and he didn't get it right away it's not like he said Ya Allah give me a child and then the next day you know they're pregnant and the child comes in nine months no there was a delay a very significant delay and it's a prophet so it's not like Allah didn't love him of course he did but it's something for us to keep in mind that many times when Allah loves us he wants to see how badly do you want it and how patient are you going to be and how much trust are you going to have so that's hopefully that helps for the the person so we were talking about habits at a high level let's just try to pick one spiritual habit to improve and one disease of the heart to work on okay okay now I'm going to pause just for a second see if there's any other questions let's see somebody said during this month do we still sin okay I'm not sure what that question means for the person who asked what are the plans for Tarawee I would recommend everybody if you're doing Tarawee outdoors or if you're everybody's vaccinated or if it's opening up and social distancing it's a good plan to go to Tarawee otherwise do it at home do what we talked about earlier at least a little bit and ideally you do 20 Rekha and if you can't do something on the weekdays because you're busy don't not do it on the weekends do it on the weekends Friday, Saturday, Sunday increase the amount of praying that you do work or something or school you have to wake up early you might not do all 20 but do something and get a portion of it okay so I don't see any other questions so I will keep on moving okay so and if you as folks have questions now it's a good time we're about to wrap this up shortly so just please like start to think of the questions and get them ready we'll do about a 20 or 30 minute Q&A each other okay I have five suggestions with good needs to do the first is spend your Ramadan and part of your Ramadan learning learning knowledge of this being so if you still need to learn like properly how to pray properly how to make Ulu properly how to do how to pace that God all these things look I know this stuff is boring it's dry like totally understand but just spend some time just Ramadan doing it because that takes priority it's called an individual obligation obligatory for all of us to know these things we will be asked why did you not know that how you messed up on this because you didn't know you have to spend time learning to learn all that in a matter of a weekend and watch videos on YouTube about it you can sit with a scholar but learn the basics and then spend time learning more things so pick some field of knowledge you want to learn about and deepen your relationship why am I saying that because knowledge has an insane amount of good rewards attached to it the one who you get so much adjur so much adjur so many good deeds by learning knowledge there's many indication of the Sahaba that they said that spending one hour for example I believe it's a statement of Abu Darda that he said spending one hour of seeking knowledge in the morning time gives more reward than praying one thousand extra rakah of prayer this is he's speaking now like I'm talking he might be speaking hyperbole but at the end of the day so pick some things but spend time at least five ten minutes a day learning something in Ramadan learning a new ayah learning hadith learning something spiritually beneficial knowledge should be something that benefits you don't waste your time learning knowledge about arguing with these people and this is innovation and all that stuff all the knowledge that makes you argue with Muslims is not real knowledge that's just that's from sheytan knowledge not make you argue knowledge should make you happy knowledge should give you a sense of trying to build community and when difference of opinion comes knowledge should teach you to do things calmly and properly not an argumentative state the first thing all of us spend time doing that number two spend some time giving charity in Ramadan so pick a charity you like and donate to it often donate to it often so try to do that in the month of Ramadan try to go out and give food and give charity if you can somebody says are your lives at the same time every day know we're going to be doing live every week Sunday 6pm in Ramadan as well we're going to be talking about a various things including Q&A and we'll be talking about repentance as the month continues inshallah and we might do some others throughout we have to figure that out inshallah so number two is give charity number three is easy good deeds recite Quran this is the month of the Quran Shahru Ramadan al-Ladhi wanzira that the month of Ramadan is the month in which the Quran was sent down that is the month of Ramadan and Allah says in the Quran inna anza nahu fee leilatul qadr that we sent this Quran down it was given to you on leilatul qadr this blessed night of power so Ramadan is the month of the Quran re-engage with the book of Allah in this month but God's book to you is written to you and it's a special love letter that God wrote for you to read don't go to the day of judgment and God asks you did you read my letter and you say no I didn't read it I did this and I watched this show and I read all these text books that my teachers made me read but I never read your letter don't do that you don't want to enter that thing this Ramadan make a commitment that I want to get close to Allah by reading his book two aspects to this one is reading the meaning of the book so whatever language you speak if it's English pick up a good translation and read the book understand what Allah is saying try to understand what Allah is saying number two is recite the Quran reciting is very very virtuous you should ideally have a routine of both try not to only read in English try to recite if you can read Arabic definitely recitation takes precedence the goal because there's a spiritual a spiritual secret to seeing the words to reciting the words and there's a certain healing that takes place when one recites the proof for this Allah says that barely in the ticker of Allah hearts find rest and it is mentioned in various narrations that one of the greatest tickers of Allah is reciting the Quran so in reciting the Quran your heart will find a certain type of rest and a certain type of cleanliness to it we'll come to it inshallah so it's learning knowledge giving charity building a relation with the Quran read a little bit in English recite in Arabic I would set a goal of trying to do one juz or safara or section whatever you call it one thirtieth of the Quran every day I would set that goal and try to just do it it takes 20 minutes maybe 40 minutes for some of us just try to do it and if you can't do it in Arabic okay try to listen to it then but make that a goal highly recommend if you can get through the whole Quran and Ramadan that would be really really good and then you should make it a goal to build that relationship afterwards set a goal and then try to stick to it the fourth thing after the and try to do again one khatam at least either by listening recitation takes precedence or listening and if you can't do either then you read the book in English that would not count as a formal khatam but you know it's still a very very good thing to do the third thing fourth thing to do is spend this time doing dhikr okay what does that mean I would recommend three different am I suggesting one juz per day yes one juz per day one juz per day would be the recommendation there's 30 juz get through them in 30 days or 29 days of the month roughly that you can do one day you do two that would be the recommendation so you can get through all of it or you listen to one day if you can't recite okay oh sorry somebody had asked when I mentioned knowledge any knowledge or Islamic knowledge the goal here would be spiritual Islamic knowledge that benefits you in the next life that's what I'm talking about I talk about knowledge knowledge that benefits you in your ahira it will have some benefit to you so learning the like intricacies of how to debate with other people wouldn't count learning let's say like biology and things these are really good things to learn but it's not what I'm talking about knowledge in this case is knowledge that is going to benefit you in the next life inshallah did somebody ask do you have any recommended Islamic speakers yes I would highly recommend listening to a couple I would recommend listening to Sheikh Hamza Yusuf somebody who has been very very inspirational for me in my life I'd recommend listening to Sheikh Yahya Rodis also somebody who has been very inspirational to me recommend listening to Imam Zaid Shakir I'd recommend listening to Imam Omar Suleiman there's a couple like that hopefully that helps with the question so those are the four knowledge, charity, Quran Dikr and the last one is helping people service so you should try to have a portion of your Ramadan where you are assisting either your parents family community in some way shape or form inshallah cool so I'm going to just see if any other questions came in and then we're going to get into the ideal Ramadan schedule and then we will I think we will someone said it's 3 a.m. here yes I apologize it's a time zone difference how about we read but we don't understand the translation if you don't okay so if you don't understand it still recite it and then read afterwards that would be the recommendation don't leave reciting the Quran because reciting the Quran is really really powerful I would highly recommend doing that and then having a separate time where you read the translation separately okay ideal schedule in Ramadan this is like your ideal day try to have a weekend day at least where you do something like this obviously people are waking up for so who are inshallah first thing is don't miss the word don't don't miss it don't miss sari whatever one calls pre-dawn meal don't miss it so where is the time where barakah comes how's the son said that there's a barakah in the time and the barakah in the food that one eats at that time so I would not miss it number two is at that time eat finish eating before fajr comes in 10-15 minutes before fajr comes in and then go pray to rakah at tahajud and ask Allah for forgiveness ask Allah to make the day easy for you ask Allah to put barakah in your day these are all really really good things for us to do for us to have an ideal Ramadan again remember you are trying to attain a state of taqwa in this month the more you worship the more you do extra extra acts of worship the more you will attain this state inshallah second thing is pray fajr ideally in congregation again we're talking about a good schedule and a way to spend time here pray fajr ideally in congregation at the very least your whole family should pray fajr together if you are fasting with your family if you're alone pray it alone if you have people with you pray fajr together the reward of the congregation is 27 times more than the reward of somebody praying alone in Ramadan good deeds are multiplied from 70 up to 1000 times more in the month of Ramadan so you can see how much multiplication you can get if you pray every prayer in congregation in the month of Ramadan so pray with behind your family member or something like that or lead the prayer but ideally do it congregation is two people you just need two two people pray is congregation so a man and his wife is congregation a brother and his sister is congregation a father and child is congregation or in some of the schools you have like two women can lead each other one woman can lead the other and some of the schools as well so that is the fajr time pray in congregation then recite Quran at fajr a little bit at least ideally have a time after fajr where you recite Quran and you stay awake even if you just do this on the weekends you stay awake until ishraq time until sunrise sunrise where I am at is like at 6 forward and then about 12 15 minutes after sunrise you pray to rakat what is called the ishraq prayer or the salat al-duha the reward for this for the somebody who sits and recites Quran or who does dhikr after praying fajr up until sunrise the reward is that they get the reward of a complete Hajj at Umrah so now in Ramadan a complete Hajj at Umrah this is the hadith of the Prophet s.a.w now in Ramadan if you get 70 times the reward well you get 70 Hajj in Umrah every day that you do this in Ramadan subhanAllah and then you do it every single day I don't know if somebody can do the math there but that's like almost 3,000 Hajj in Umrah so one gets the reward for doing because they literally prayed fajr did dhikr from the time for fajr until sunrise waited 10-15 minutes and prayed the sunrise prayer even if you go back to sleep or sunrise and wake up anytime you wake up before dawn and you pray the sunrise prayer you are generally good or you pray the salat al-duha you are generally good so that's a spiritual secret it's a good way to spend your time so ideally you wake up you eat sahur you pray fajr or you pray tahajjud then you pray fajr then you stay awake recite Quran or read or learn something beneficial do some dhikr and inshallah afterwards pray the turaqat that we just mentioned you will get the reward of Hajj and Umrah inshallah then have a goal throughout the day of your Quran goal of learning of of course work and school so let's say you have like random work that you're doing for your job listen to a talk while you're working put your earphones in your air pods whatever it is and listen to something beneficial if you're just doing like mindless work that you need to be super focused in if you need to be focused right the next thing is after usur so of course from the time of like morning up until usur most of us are busy after usur listen to something or read something beneficial usur is the time according to many scholars where spiritual risk is distributed so this is a good time for us to engage spiritually so from usur until maghrib of Ramadan so let's say you pray usur at like here for us usur comes in right about 5pm maghrib at like 7.40 so like if I pray usur at like 5.30 I should spend at least 20-30 minutes in the time after usur to learn something new read a translation recite put on do something spiritually beneficial you will feel a very very high spiritual benefit from doing that inshallah then the most important thing here is right before the tarawih right before the tarawih not the tarawih sorry right before it starts spend those 10 minutes reciting or making du'a spend those 10 minutes making du'a highly recommend spending that time making du'a because it's very very very important to make du'a at that time it is a time that du'a is answered so that's your general thing if this is ideal this is not good but let's make an intention let's try to do this one day or two days have the ideal schedule and we will put these good deeds into our life then throughout the rest of the year wake up pray the hajj eat saboor pray fudger in congregation with our family or at a mosque do dhikr up until ishraq pray the ishraq prayer get the reward of hajj and umrah multiplied by 70 times then do good things throughout the day try to stay away from bad stay away from bad images stay away from bad food stay away obviously from food stay away from bad thoughts stay away from bad words stay away from bad music then after usher we pray all our regular prayers after usher to listen to something beneficial and then the time before maghrib we make a lot of du'a we do this in this verse that throughout we're going on some walks talking to your family preparing for ishraq do normal things of course but try and do this I guarantee you if you do this you will emerge in the month so clean so different so changed but it's just about us putting in the effort inshallah somebody asks can we still do this sunnah fast tomorrow if we start Ramadan at Tuesday no tomorrow is not a good day to fast if you start Ramadan on Tuesday it is best to to wait until Ramadan begins and then start fasting it is not preferred to fast on the day right before Ramadan could potentially be so I would not fast tomorrow even if you do a regular Monday Thursday fast Allah Allah okay so that's the that's the advice for the let's see if any other questions came in I would recommend alright I would recommend some scholars good is reward for congregation same for women or it is better to read alone so you can read you can read in congregation at the house you can of course go to the masjid but it is the emphasis on going to the masjid is generally for men for women it is recommended to you know you read it at home reading with your your family at home is recommended but inshallah the reward for the congregation can still definitely be there pray after sunrise or before no you pray 15 minutes after sunrise any time 15 minutes after sunrise up until 15 minutes before go her time so from in my time it's literally 7 a.m. till 1 p.m. I can pray this prayer inshallah as long as I did what I was suggesting I'll get a reward even if you don't do what I was talking about there's still a heck of reward for praying this prayer there's probably some usually never left this prayer it's called Salat al-Durha it's a very very important prayer in this month inshallah someone said what are you supposed to do to get the reward of Umrah the reward is that you pray fudger you sit or you know do something you're standing and walking but you're reciting tikka you're doing tikka the whole time you're reciting for ah you're listening something beneficial or you're doing tikka al-staghfirullah alhamdulillah the du'a's of the morning that type of thing up until sunrise and then 15 minutes after sunrise you pray to raka'a of Salat al-Durha d-u-h-a and you inshallah you get that reward of Hajj and Umrah not just Umrah so it's pretty pretty amazing somebody asked for recommended books I'll start with the Quran and start with the translation of the Quran and then I would start I would add on a book there's two books I recommend one is called the Agenda to Change Our Condition amazing book another book is called Purification of the Heart three books I recommend Agenda to Change Our Condition Purification of the Heart and the Book of Assistance if you do those three inshallah Agenda to Change Our Condition Book of Assistance Purification of the Heart that would be a very, very good journey for beginning the process of purification and reform how long do we wait until we pray for du'a you wait 15 minutes until sunrise at least and once you're after 15 minutes you're clear to pray inshallah that would be the time some say 12 but you'd be safe 12 to 15 you can't pray when the sun is actually rising that's the or when it's actually setting you can't do prayer then okay cool so we are getting close to the time here so I'm just going to talk about common slip ups and then we're going to talk a little bit about fit and if you have questions please post them see any other questions come somebody says what if I have so many fast to retake for many years don't worry Allah will help you inshallah you make an intention we all have stuff we have to make up in the past don't get overwhelmed just start slowly doing it you fast three days a month to begin with fasting once a week then you start fasting a little bit more often and you just all you have you make an intention and you are committed to making up your prayers or your fasts and you die halfway between them inshallah the reward and the Allah will give you the reward for that inshallah because you were doing it we're on a mission you had a schedule and you were doing it what we want to avoid is that we never do it and we get to like 70 years old and we're like rushing to make up our prayers and fast and obviously at that time we don't have the same energy as we did when we were young that's what we want to try to avoid inshallah so just make that intention to the person who asks if you have a lot of fast to make up and just start doing it slowly so much benefit to fasting if you can fast three days a month four days a month once a week twice a week if you do twice a week every single month you will make up most of your fasts fairly soon Monday's and Thursday's the soon enough fast so that's one way to do it but most of the morning is don't overwhelm yourself and don't get stressed okay so just quickly common slip ups in Ramadan and then we're going to get to some of the thick and the rules the common slip ups sometimes happen we might miss prayers don't try not to do that try not to sleep late and then miss sahur and that's miss fudger if you're doing that there's a problem the priority is fudger and then after that is sahur so you have to pray fudger and Ramadan there is no I'm going to eat at 12 o'clock and then wake up at 9 o'clock so I can be fresh for work and I'm going to miss fudger and make up fudger when I wake up Ramadan we can't do stuff like that that's just that's not a wise move at all it's of course still better than not praying the prayer at all to do the makeup but that's a common thing that I do see happen often is that people will miss the prayer just so they can get more sleep trying not to do that if praying tarawih is preventing you from waking up for fudger skip tarawih if you can't wake up for sahur or fudger because of tarawih there's something wrong reduce the amount of tarawih you're doing or skip it so that you can wake up for fudger because fudger is critical second common pitfall is we only fast from food and water and we don't fast from gossip and all these other things that's we talked about that already so try to stay away from that try to achieve a higher state of fasting third common pitfall is the fast is about to open and we're like watching TV we're on our phones we're still preparing a thar try to do all of that stuff later or earlier when fasting when the fast opens you should be in a state where you're presenting yourself before Allah making du'a to Him for yourself for your community for your family for the umma even if you don't want to make du'a for yourself make du'a for everybody else we all need du'a make du'a for the umma of Sayyidina Rasulullah everybody needs du'a we should all be making du'a at that time for each other ideally inshallah I intend to keep everybody in our prayers inshallah in this month of Ramadan and another common pitfall is instead of going to tarawih we say oh I'm going to use this time to do something else I might read I might read listen to a talk I might read the English translation the Quran while those things are all really good because tarawih is an emphasize sunnah unless you are learning something of libatory like you're learning how to pray or fast or make du'a at that time tarawih takes priority even if you don't feel as much benefit because it's an emphasize sunnah there's a spiritual reward coming that you might not know unless it's in the Quran perhaps you don't like a thing and it is much good for you and perhaps you love a thing and it is much bad for you wa allahu ya'ilu mu'ma I'm sorry about that and Allah knows and you and I don't know right I just want to say something about someone says something about vaccine fasting cool we'll keep moving inshallah if anybody has a question about vaccine feel free to post it how do we get ourselves to need less sleep okay that's a I'm going to answer this one in a second someone says downloading PDF books off illegal websites haram I don't know depends on the website if the website end up itself is illegal maybe but the book is okay doing you know getting a PDF I think it should be fine but I don't know for sure how do we get ourselves to need less sleep to need less sleep you reduce sleep slowly five minutes you reduce you'll see you wake up at 8 a.m. every day you set alarm one day for 755 then 750 then eventually 730 you slowly reduce an increment and you will actually start to need less sleep you also increase your thicker you exercise you drink more water and you make more doha to need less sleep you do those things inshallah you will be good I know people will make a lot of thicker and they sleep very very small amounts every day they're good okay so somebody asked about sleep okay so I can't function without nine hours of sleep that's totally okay it's the thing though to rely on is remember Allah creates sleep and He creates food and He creates all these things so don't rely on the sleep rely on Allah so if you can you don't miss a obligatory action you don't miss fajr you don't miss sahur in order to get more sleep you do a jihad Ramadan is the month of working on yourself of struggle so you do a jihad against yourself to not sleep to wake up to eat to pray and then you go back to sleep you will see if you do that for a couple of days Allah will make that day more productive than any day where you slept through fajr and you slept through sahur for things someone says can I still go to dentist if I have teeth pain in Ramadan does it break the fast don't let them clean your mouth put the water thing in your mouth move things that will allow blood to come in the mouth but if you need if you have pain and then you need to check you have pain one of the principles of our religion is the preservation of life so it does take precedence over many other things so if you are in pain you need to go to a doctor whatever it is you go to the doctor and you do whatever it is that they tell you but if it's like minor pain your head hurts you don't like go to the doctor necessarily for that but that's something for us to keep in mind can we read from musaf for qadah for as-salat no you cannot read from the musaf for qadah as-salat you cannot read from the musaf during any farad prayer so that means the musaf means the actual book of the Qur'an you cannot read from that for any farad prayer you have to read from the sorry you have to read everything from from memory for the farad prayer and some of the schools for non-farad prayer you can hold the musaf I believe okay cool so now we're going to get into the thick as well real quick Ramadan is established as we mentioned so this is just a real quick review of the rules of Ramadan I'm going to try to speak through this but if you have questions please chime in Ramadan is established by sighting the moon that's the first thing so you don't establish it by a calendar or anything like that according to all the rules of the religion it is established by sighting the moon you don't fight with people though if they don't do that moon sighting non-moon fighting as people say the second thing is sahur sahur is about a couple minutes before fajir comes in do not be drinking and eating oh it's this time fajir is about to be in 30 seconds and you're still drinking and it's in and you're still drinking no no no I'll do that because the calculation could be slightly off you should be safe 5 to 7 minutes before fajir comes in you should stop eating stop drinking completely the third thing the third rule here if sahur is about 3 to 5 minutes after the sunset thing on your phone says it's sunset why am I saying that the sun has fully set there's a difference between how these iphones and weather apps calculate sunset and how we believe sunset for our sunset it's when the sun has completely set below the horizon so you should give yourself 3 to 5 minutes after even sometimes these apps muslim prone others they don't always time it to the sunset of the sunset below the horizon so all of the teachers recommend scholars recommend that you give yourself a couple minutes after then you break your fast so let's say at 7.30 let's say according to the phone sunset is 7.30 I would open my fast at 7.33 7.35 that's what we should do okay what invalidates the fast okay so this is very very very important to invalidate the fast there are two aspects of this when you break the fast on purpose you have to do what's called expiation expiation means it's called hafara in arabic you have to expiate the fast this is really intense 60 days of continual fasting for breaking the fast 60 days is what you owe for breaking the fast on purpose so let's say I'm just like screw it I'm going to eat something oh man I'm really tired I need to drink coffee I'm going to do it I really can't control myself and I'm going to engage in you know sexual activity it invalidates the fast and you were oh make up continuous fasting no breaks in between that's called hafara that's what happens when you and I break a fast on purpose what does that mean breaking our fast on purpose means literally breaking it it means waking up and being like I don't feel like fasting today I'm not going to do it that counts it means waking up you miss a word and you're like oh man I can't fast if I didn't eat so I'm not going to fast today that counts as well Ramadan is that you have to fast that's an important thing do I owe 60 days for fast from 7 or 8 years ago when I broke my fast because someone said my breath stink so you would owe 60 days I would recommend at the very least you feed 60 people you do owe that legally in the law of Islam if you broke your fast on purpose I would recommend feeding 60 people and then at one point in life if you have the Himmachala to do this 60 day expiation but now that you know yes now when you and I know for sure owe the 60 days because we have the knowledge right for the past stuff we owe it but we can also feed people so you either owe 60 days in a row you owe feeding 60 people however if you are able bodied 60 days in a row fasting is what is what we're supposed to technically do so if you eat something if you even drink like let's say you're sweating and you're like like I don't know anybody would do this but like maybe a better example is if it's raining outside I'm so thirsty that would break the fast on purpose right that's an example so that breaks the fast and you owe 60 days in a row next is somebody said is vaccination okay yeah it's totally fine to get a vaccine during Ramadan if you're getting COVID vaccine highly recommend getting it of course there's side effects but yeah okay there's the bad vaccines you're not break the fast okay keep moving here so that the only situations in which you owe 60 days and you invalidate the fast are when you eat something on purpose you have sexual intercourse on purpose obviously it's on purpose and you intentionally drink water or sweat or something like that right are we obligated to fast well on your period no no so when you're in your period you do not fast you actually cannot fast when you're in your period so no fasting on your period the way that works is as soon as your period enters you stop for that day and you have to make up that day when your period ends even if you didn't wake up fasting you continue fasting for that day and then you have to also I believe make up that day for that according to but I know Allah knows best then there's something that invalidates the fast for that day and requires you to make up one day not 60 days in a row so there's the first category which is 60 days purposefully eating drinking or relations second category is you did it something happened that broke the fast for that day but it doesn't require 60 days that's anything that enters your cavities that means your ears your mouth your nose or your lower private cavities anything so that could be for example I personally I need to work on this I struggle with biting my nails if I bite my nails and I start to swallow something I broke my fast for that day and I have to make up 60 days because it has no nutritional value and it was accidental I don't owe a make up 60 days I just owe one day to make up let's say that somebody is rinsing out their mouth and they swallow the water you have to be careful when rinsing at the mouth you can't swallow the water so if anything goes past here even if it's accident you swallow it that day is cancelled out you have to make up that day later but in that case because you didn't do it on purpose if somebody achieves a state of sexual pleasure let's say for a male not intercourse but ejaculation that requires you to make up the fast for that day intercourse requires you to make up fast for 60 days for that day plus 60 days in a row and ear drops would be similar you have to make it up for that day nose drops would be similar unless it's a life we're talking about different there are different rulings most of the scholars say eye drops are permissible and vaccines and whatnot are totally fine taking a shower these types of things are of course okay if somebody is sick if you are very sick you do not have to fast but if you are lightly sick you can't just get out of it by bit oh I'm feeling well today you have to be sick enough to where a doctor would say hey don't fast today remember fasting is a mandatory act it's not optional it's very important things that we should do things we should stay away from and the things that we have to try to kind of push through while we are fasting if somebody is traveling during Ramadan you have the option to stay away from the fast or to fast according to what I learned in the Hanifi school the travel has to begin before fudger comes in so if you have an intention to travel at 2 p.m. that day you would fast and you would finish the fast but if you are already out of travel and then and then the next day you are going to say 3 or 4 days of traveling you don't have to fast you have to make those days up later so those are like the basics it's really not too complicated there's a couple other things I like I'm not mentioning for example if somebody throws up more than a mouthful that fast is broken that type of thing cigarettes do break the fast all these type of things but at a very very high level hopefully this covers it so if you move to any questions that people have and then we will wrap up so let's see if any questions okay so what if fasting what's the obligatory on you when you broke the fast purposely oh you're fine it's not obligatory on you you're totally good like if you fast it as a kid you know and you broke it don't worry about it yeah you're fine fasting only becomes obligatory on you when you have puberty and after so it's not obligatory it doesn't really matter that was all just practice trying to get you to practice how do you recommend we feed people are there specific places it's a good question if you know people who are like homeless in your area if you can feed them that's a good thing like just make a bunch of sandwiches or pizza or something and go and distribute it otherwise I would go to like a charity like Islamic Relief is a charity for example or there's a bunch of other Islamic Relief type charities I would go to a charity donate donate on the charity inshallah yeah or feeding people so somebody asks about 60 days okay so any other questions about like the rules of Ramadan somebody says what if I get a fever after COVID that scene can I get pain meds if you're fasting during the day you cannot take pain meds during the day if your fever gets absorbed out of control you would break your fast and you would take pain meds but if it's like a light you know fever then you would not take your pain meds while you're fasting of course at night time you take your pain meds but you could not invalidate the fast for things unless they become a point of you know fairly serious I wasn't a kid I was 11 or 12 but I hit yeah yeah yeah you're fine if you many people have puberty at 13 14 15 if you did not have puberty you do not have to make up any fast from that time what you do if you're suffering from depression and worship is hard for you during Ramadan that is a really really good question la la la la okay so if you're suffering from depression and it's becoming difficult for you to worship during Ramadan a couple of things first is like don't give up know that Ramadan is a month of hope that the doors of hell are closed so all the things that Shaytan tries to bring down upon us that might make us depressed inshallah those things are going to go away the second thing is make a lot of though I'm Ramadan even if you're not doing a kind of worship you just have to do it just do the basics and make doaa that Allah gives you himma to help you get through it and third is to realize that depression and these types of things come many times they actually purify us and they clean our sense that they're not always bad things Allah says in the Quran that we will have nights and days that they're different seasons and sometimes you have a season of depression and difficulty and low motivation it's so that God can teach you hey appreciate me in the good times so that when you see how when the tough how tough the tough times are so don't worry or then don't don't get stressed if you are depressed or if you are worried or sorry if you are depressed or if you are in a state where you are not able to worship just reduce the amount of worship that you do just do the basics if you can't do anymore and also the one thing you might as somebody is like really really having a tough time it's very very important talk to people that are near you seek help go to therapy talk to your loved ones like people are here we're all here for you like we as Muslims we're here for each other we love each other we're a community so anybody who is depressed we should be able to reach out to each other right anybody who ever wants to mess with me do you have any questions or difficulty anything I'll do my best to help I'll point you in whatever direction I can point you in we should all be here for each other I know that we will get away from this world that's full of depression and worry this world is not supposed to be for happiness the Prophet said this world is a prison for the believer there's a lot of stress but we will eventually get out of this world inshallah someone said can you say the three readings once more the book of assistance by Imam al-Haddad purification of the heart translated by Hamza Yousef Sheikh Hamza Yousef and the third book is Agenda to Change Our Condition by Imam Zaid Shaker and Sheikh Hamza Yousef alright someone said what if I do get severe pain after covid vaccine can't take pain meds so if you take pain meds your fast is broken for sure so you can't take meds if you don't absolutely absolutely have to and if you do your fast is broken and if it's absolutely out of necessity you would make up that fast later the 60 days would not come upon you but I would try not to you know hopefully the covid vaccine will go smoothly if you can push through to the point of after if you take the medicine that will be better if you absolutely swallowed water if it's recommended or fast or do you go on your your day and eat if you accidentally do anything you have to make up the fast for that day and you have to complete that fast so it's kind of one of those like you can't just like they go accidentally take some water while they move time to go eat some fries no you have to make up the fast you have to make up that fast later and you have to finish that fast for the day you cannot continue on with eating so just ask about we'll just do three more questions and we'll end so if a person has to take medication at lunch time what can they do okay so it would be good to direct message me specifically about this if you like if there's some really really dire medication somebody has to take that's a question for us to ask a proper scholar I don't know the answer to that question generally speaking what I've understood is that anything that you take but if it's like the doctor told you absolutely have to do it then in that case there might be a different ruling I don't know the answer to that I'm sorry for that okay let's see if there's any other questions some of this salamu alaikum salam okay cool so I think we are just about I think we're just about done here let's see anything else let's see if anybody has any other questions we'll take just a quick question inshallah and then we will wrap up it's about to be maghrib time here thank you all so much for taking the time so you know last thing I'll just end with this look the most important thing we just did a lot I'm sorry that was a lot of stuff be excited this is an amazing month set your goals make big intentions get on the path to change your life pick a couple of habits to work on the part that you want to improve pick a couple of traits that you want to work on learn this religion learn the aspects of Ramadan and make a lot of dua this month anytime you're free just sit and make dua ask Allah for help ask Allah to assist you ask Allah to forgive you this is such an amazing special month it's full of blessings just try to take advantage of the month try to take advantage of the blessings that are being poured remember that if somebody was passing out millions of dollars every night you and I would go and get those every night so Allah is passing out more than that that are going to help us in this life and the next go and make that intention spread the benefit to your friends and to your family tell them about the importance of this month tell them about the intentions that they should make try and get everybody it is in your family too take this month with the next level of seriousness fast with the eyes fast with the mouth fast with the ears fast with the hands all of these things if we can do that inshallah this will be a very very very special month for us and we will be doing so we are going to be doing a class every single Sunday at 6pm that will be just about half hour 6pm Pacific standard time it will be broadcast and it will be inshallah focused on repentance how to repent in Ramadan what does it mean to change our life and ask Allah for forgiveness in this month and what are the steps we need to take to get all of our major and minor sins forgiven and how do we actually repent in a very very sincere way inshallah so with that we will close out with a short du'a thank you all so much I'm seeing any other questions I don't see anything else I'll make a du'a anybody else has any questions can you please write the website because it's recorded yes inshallah I'll post that in a second anybody has any other questions feel free to post them while we make du'a Peace be upon you peace be upon you peace be upon you peace be upon you our Lord may our Lord bless you may our Lord may our Lord bless you Ya Allah, that you allow us to reach this mat, Ya Allah, that you allow this mat to be full of happiness and khair and ease and full of barakah and blessings for every single Muslims. Ya Allah, for all of our loved ones. Ya Allah, for everybody it is that was that was present in that was not present. Ya Allah for everybody, it is not trying to change our life. Ya Allah, give us the ability to change our life this month. Give us the ability to turn to You. Give us ability to repent to You, give us the ability to become better people.   Ya Allah, we ask that you pardon all of our sins in this month that you make this month full of blessings, allows to recite a lot of Quran, allows to read the Quran, allows to deepen our relationship with the Quran, allows to deepen our relationship with the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, Ya Allah, the Messenger who brought the Quran and allows to deepen our relationship with you Ya Allah, the Lord of the Quran.  And we ask you that you allow us to fast the way that the Prophet ﷺ fasted and the way that the righteous after him fasted. We ask you for everything good that the Prophet ﷺ asked for. We ask you protection for everything evil that he asked for. Thank you everybody so much. Allah accept. Please keep all of us in your prayers. Please keep this umma in your prayers. Please keep the Muslims in Syria and in Palestine and in Myanmar and the Uighur Muslims in China and all the Muslims throughout the world who are struggling in your du'a. Du'a is very very powerful. Du'a is the weapon and the believer. Du'a is our way to seek assistance. So inshallah please keep everybody in du'a.