Reflections from Ramadan

Morning everyone.

With the Muslims from around the world having completed a  month of fasting which has been observed by Muslims around the world for one month every year for the last 1400 or so years, I feel that it is important for everyone who participated to reflect on what they sought to achieve through this action, why they wanted to achieve whatever the objectives were, what actions were taken during the fasting month to meet the objectives and most importantly what actions and lessons can be exercised and learnt to take forward for the next 11 months before the fasting starts again.

The thing that I personally wanted to achieve was a closer relationship with the Quran. As Muslims, we believe that the Quran is the final revelation of God Almighty and contains within it the answer to all of human beings important questions. The sad thing however is that too many of us are unwilling to read it.

The sadder reality is that as a people, Muslims are negligent in reading period! We live in a world of mass distraction and quick access and entertainment. How ironic it is that in the first revelation we are commanded to read and we often want to ignore the first command and debate others.

Anyhow, I wanted to have a better relationship with the Quran in that I wanted to be in the habit of reading from it in Arabic, listening to it in Arabic, reading some translation and listening to fragments of lectures available online improving my knowledge and application of the book.

The reason for this objective is that I shouldn't be shy when I am asked about how I treated the book that was revealed as a source of guidance for me when I am to be judged after I die.

In Ramadan, I started reading the book in the original Arabic text for at least a few minutes a day. I really enjoyed the experience. I also discovered that the YouTube app allows you to filter your search for short, long or any duration forthe length of videos. This has eased my ability to watch short punchy messages from the Quran being explained by lecturers and teachers.

After Ramadan, I have found a shift in my focus from what time the morning prayer expires to what time it starts. This is because in Ramadan, we start our fast at the time of the morning prayer so we were typically awake to pray as soon as it became time to do so.

This has created more time in the mornings, but I do get tired quicker in the evenings. I think there is still a learning curve of trying to maximise my productivity in the mornings, but I am thoroughly enjoyingthe journey.

As I often do, I will share with you with a quote. This is from imam Ali  (as).

He said that many people get nothing from fasting except the experience of hunger and thirst.

I would hate to be included in this group as it would represent a huge waste of the opportunity to make some lasting change!

A lot more could be said about the subject of fasting but I will end it by urging you all to reflect on your own experiences of Ramadan.

Peace