This Ramadan I will be doing a LIVE Tafseer every morning after Fajr at 6 am (GMT +2). You can access the full series on my YouTube Channel. Above is the first episode in the series, focusing on verse 2 of Surah Al-Baqarah.
Ramadan 1440 AH is just four weeks away. The internet is filling up with blog posts, videos, courses and social media posts on how to get the best out of Ramadan.
But something isn’t right. No matter how many Ramadans go by, and how many of these videos you watch and articles you read, things just don’t change.
You feel like the some person you were before Ramadan began. And it is really bugging you out.
This may be the reason why you are unable to make your Ramadan Resolutions work.
I get it. You want to be the best Muslim possible. You want to be perfect and sinless. We all do. But it isn’t humanly possible. Sooner or later, you will slip up and err.
So when you set your Ramadan goal as ‘never commit a sin ever again’, you are setting yourself up for disappointment. The truth is that as a human being, you will make mistakes, you will err, and you will fall short at times. If you expect perfection from yourself, you will never be able to achieve that goal in this life.
Instead try this: set a realistic goal like giving up one specific sin or adding one specific good deed to your life. This is specific and measurable enough that you can stick to it for life.
We often overestimate what we can accomplish in the month of Ramadan. And we underestimate how much we can accomplish in our lifetime.
Sometimes, you can get so excited about Ramadan and goal setting that you try to cram too much into it. You plan to read 10 books, study the Tafseer of the entire Quran, pray Taraweeh every night, recite the entire Quran 10 times, donate $10000 in charity, and spend two hours every night in Qiyam Al-Layl.
After three days, you will be burned out and give up.
Instead, set moderate practical goals. Understand your limits and set your goals accordingly. Do not overburden yourself. It is better to focus on two or three practical goals, than ten impossible goals.
So pace yourself and make sure you schedule some downtime during Ramadan as well.
Personal growth is a life-long process. Ramadan may give us a super-charge but it cannot be the only time of the year we spend trying to be better people. That needs to be a life long commitment.
If you set goals for Ramadan, and forget to follow up on them after Ramadan, you will not experience long-term change. Long-term change comes from working on yourself all year round.
If you set a goal to recite 1 Juz of Quran every night of Ramadan, then also commit to 10 minutes of Quran daily for the rest of the year. This is manageable and will help you maintain your spiritual level throughout the year.
We tend to fail at our Ramadan goals because we set goals that are too high, too many, and restricted to Ramadan. If we instead aim at realistic goals, restrict the number of goals, and keep working on them all year round, then we will experience more meaningful growth during Ramadan.
To learn more about preparing for Ramadan, sign up for our free course here.
Inner peace – its almost a cliche how much people want this and talk about this. Yet we often avoid doing the simple things that can help us achieve it. Inner peace isn’t some strange fantasy that only the pious experience. Sure, they experience much more often and deeper than we do. But there are many tiny things we can do daily to experience inner peace on a daily basis.
However, before we discuss these, I need to clarify something. Experiencing inner peace doesn’t mean you never feel sad or pain again. No! Rather, inner peace is like every other feeling something that comes and goes in waves. These tips will just help you increase how often you experience it on a daily basis.
The first step is to start your day early. This may seem very obvious. Two of the main Islamic sources of inner peace are early in the morning (Tahajjud and Fajr), so obviously the early morning is linked to inner peace.
But it is not only the prayer that brings peace. It is the quiet, the light humming of the morning birds, the beauty of the sunrise. It is also the feeling that you can wake up, relax and then start work without rushing or stressing out. All of this leads to a beautiful glorious blast of inner peace before your day even begins.
Even if it is just for an hour or thirty minutes. Grab a cup of coffee (or tea, or hot chocolate), take a break from the busy stressful world, and do something meaningful to you. For it, it means making time daily to write. I find it relaxing, motivating and fulfilling all at the same time. You need to find something that brings the same feelings to you, and make time daily for it.
It could be anything from extra acts of worship to reading a book, to drawing some art. Find what you enjoy doing alone and make time for it daily. That time spent doing what you love may be the most peaceful you will feel all day.
I am lucky that my home is surrounded by a forest, and I live two blocks away from a beautiful park. So I always have nature to look at when I want to feel at peace. If you haven’t made time for nature in a while, you may be surprised at how much peace it fills you with.
No matter how busy your day is, pull away during your lunch break, after work or early in the morning and just talk a slow, relaxing walk in nature. Breathe the fresh air, feel the wind, hear the birds and experience the inner peace that comes with all of that. You will need it to tackle the rest of your day.
Our inner peace is fundamentally linked to one thing: our relationship with our Creator. The stronger this relationship, the more often we experience inner peace. The very foundation of this relationship is to pray five times a day. Make it a habit and stick with it for life.
In the beginning it will be hard. But over time, you will learn to appreciate it, seek sanctuary in it, treasure it and enjoy it. The Islamic method of prayer (Salah) is one of the most powerful ways to experience inner peace, if done properly and with sincere intentions. Get it right and it becomes your daily treasure.
Finally, make sure you begin each day from a place of gratitude. I have a daily habit of starting each day by writing down three things I am grateful for, and thanking God for each of these things. It doesn’t matter how bad a day I had, I still make sure I begin the next day by finding three things to be grateful for. This way each day begins in a state of peace and gratitude that supercharges the rest of the day.
Make it a habit to find things to be grateful for daily. It can be big stuff like your life, family and job or little things like a beautiful tree near your home or a nice gift your friend sent you. The point is that most of us always can find something to be grateful for. And that should be our focus, not the things we want to complain about. There will always be good and bad in our lives, but if we stay grateful for the good, we will have more energy for overcoming the bad.
Want to learn more about gratitude? Read our list of 25 ways to show gratitude or our detailed explanation of the art of gratitude.
This is an introduction to a book I am currently writing about introverts and hope to publish later this year. I will shape the book according to the reactions to this article, so please feel free to comment.
“You don’t want to be an introvert when you grow up,” my teacher told me, while driving me home from classes. He was lecturing me on the fact that I was too quiet and did not talk much. It was the first time I heard the word ‘introvert’ and based on the context, it sounded like something really bad.
Growing up as an introvert in a culture that values extroversion was not easy. On one hand, teachers would praise me for paying attention, working hard and having really creative ideas. On the other hand, people assumed I was immature because I didn’t talk much, and would consistently lecture me on being more social.
I grew up very confused and hating the fact that I was naturally a quite thinker who enjoyed alone time. I thought I was strange and abnormal, and wished I could be more like everybody else. This really dampened my self-confidence and forced me to behave in unnatural ways in order to fit in.
It would only be in my late twenties that I would discover that ‘introvert’ was not a bad word at all. I began to study psychology and learned that one-third of humanity is introverted, including many successful people throughout history. (Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Nelson Mandela, Ghandi to name a few.)
This completely changed my perspective. I discovered that the word ‘introvert’ didn’t refer to anything bad. It simply defined one thing: how do you recharge and energize yourself.
You see, people are of three types. One third of people are extroverts i.e. they gain energy from being around people, and get drained when they are alone. One third of people are introverts i.e. they gain energy from alone time and get drained in social settings. And in between are the ambiverts, who thrive in both settings.
That’s all it is. A word that defines what energizes you. So why does society treat introversion as a bad thing? It simply a matter of people not understanding that humans have different natures, and that they can’t force everybody to be the same.
Once I discovered that being an introvert is not a bad thing, my confidence grew. I understood myself better, and I began to live a happier life.
One book that really made a difference in helping me understand this topic is ‘Quiet: The Power Of Introverts in a world that can’t stop talking‘ by Susan Cain. If you are struggling in understanding this topic, I highly recommend buying and reading this amazing book.
Over the next few years, I learned that the reason I often feel so drained is because I need alone time to recharge, and that I thrive best in situations that involve few people or being alone. I learned to embrace this and shape my careers accordingly.
This has led to me excelling as an author (which requires me being alone for many hours) and finding balance in my social life (by taking some alone time whenever I feel drained). Which led to me living a happier healthier life.
These days I enjoy my mornings alone with a cup of coffee typing away on my PC. I excel at various jobs and businesses that allow me to work from home on my own.
While at the same time, I meet up with a friend or two for coffee once a week to enjoy some quality conversation. (Hint: Introverts don’t hate socializing, they prefer smaller crowds and deeper conversations.)
All in all, studying this aspect of psychology has helped me tremendously, but also led to some regrets.
I often look back and wish I had learned all this earlier. I wish when I was a child someone had told me there is nothing wrong with being a quiet person. I wish people showed me how introverts like Ghandi, Mandela, and many others excelled in life because they were introverts.
This is why I decided I need to help younger people have a better experience than me. If I knew all of these things when I was younger, I would been happier, found my calling earlier, and would have been able to excel at a younger age.
For this reason, I want to make this the topic of my next book. I want to help a younger generation of Muslim introverts find balance in their lives. To help them deal with the unique challenges that introverted Muslims face, and to help them embrace the unique advantages that Muslim introverts have.
I’ll summarize this in list form for now, and explain it in more details in the book in shaa Allah, as well as suggest ways to overcome these obstacles:
Same as above, I’ll summarize this in list form for now, and explain it in more details in the book in shaa Allah:
This short article was just an introduction so that I can get my idea out there and observe the feedback. Based on that feedback, I will shape the content of my upcoming book.
So please let me know your thoughts on this topic. Is it one worth pursuing in details? Do you think I am focusing on something not important at all? Would you read a book on this topic and find it beneficial? Let me know in the comments below.
He sits all day on social media, agitated, aggravated, depressed. He needs to disconnect.
She scrolls through Facebook for hours, and begins to feel jealousy and malcontent deep inside. She needs to disconnect.
The family gathers around the table for a meal. Each with their head buried in their phones. Eating in silence, unaware of each other’s existence. They need to disconnect.
We consume too much information. We share too much information. And we entertain our brains to death. Society has a problem of too much, and so we need to disconnect.
I do not mean to throw away your phone, or deactivated your Facebook account. I do not mean to give up the internet and live in a cave in the mountains. All that I simply mean we need time every day to disconnect.
Your brain is overcrowded from reading information all day across various social media platforms. It needs time to digest, analyze and process what it has read. It needs time to disconnect.
Your heart is overflowing with emotions from all the distressing and enraging news you read all day long. It needs time to process, heal and settle. It needs time to disconnect.
Your soul is agitated by the lack of remembrance of God, the lack of reflection on your deeds, and the overconsumption of entertainment. It needs time to disconnect.
Take time every day for thinking and reflection. Disconnect your phone, your social media and your email. Be alone with your thoughts and learn to face them.
Yes, some of those thoughts may scare you. Some of those thoughts may make you worry about yourself. But you need to disconnect, be alone, face them and work through them. Your soul needs this, so make it a priority.
Social media has its place in our lives. We can use it to stay in touch with family across the globe, reconnect with old friends, and spread great ideas.
But as with anything else, we need balance. We need time with those physically around us, time alone with our thoughts, and we need time to remember God.
Sometimes we need to disconnect from social media in order to connect with those around us. So take the time to disconnect.
