Ramadan leaves us faster than we expect. Here are ways to hold on to the blessings of this blessed month.
I remember being very small, prancing around the family in beautiful 'Eed clothes, acting my best in front of our new video camera. In the background of that childhood video, there was an old, old “deflated balloon.” That was how my mother teased Nanah at the end of Ramadan. Nanah was not just a grandmother. She was inspiration, wisdom and tranquility put together in the grandest, yet most humble of ways. Nanah had the Quran in her heart. She memorized the Gracious Book in its entirety. So imagine what Ramadan, the month of Quran, did to her.
I could not then have understood what my mother’s teasing words meant. Perhaps, I still can't comprehend what Ramadan itself did to Nanah. All I can decipher now is what the departure of Ramadan did to Nanah. All through that month, she was her happiest, her most energetic. Whether it was cooking for the family, telling us stories, teaching us to read Arabic, revising her Quran uncountable times, sitting in I'tikaaf, or waking up for the nighttime Tahajjud prayer, Nanah never tired of any of these good deeds.
Until 'Eed came.
On that festive day—though she never said anything sad, for one must celebrate it—you could see that it was, indeed, like someone from whom something vital had escaped, a balloon whose air had gone stale or been lost.
Happy with Ramadan's remembrance and obedience fulfilled, her heart yet sagged with the blessed month's passing. Only one year later, my own heart drooped with the loss of my nanah. She too left the world, also in the month of Ramadan.
That year we all felt deflated.
How true that Ramadan always goes by faster than it comes! No sooner do we start its fasting and night-time prayer than Ramadan begins to near its end. Perhaps, this too is Allah's way of teaching us the fleeting nature of time, and how, if we are unable to make the very most of each moment, we might very soon be regretful that we have no moments left at all—no second chance, no future life, no further benefit of the blessed month. No, nothing at all.
This year, I plan on keeping hold of as much of this short-lived portal as I can. Here's how.
Use concrete measures
One of the best ways to gauge if Ramadan was truly beneficial, accepted, and fruitful is to see what difference it makes in our lives when it is over. We know that Allah does not need our hunger or thirst. These are not the goals of fasting. Abstinence is but a means to the greater end of Taqwa, of becoming God-fearing. If false talk and base deeds mixed with our worship before Ramadan and resume unabated thereafter, then our fasts only troubled us with bodily deprivations and momentary weakness.
Ramadan needs to find us setting long-term goals that permanently alter practical behaviors which, in turn, yield lasting positive changes in our character. We need to do things in Ramadan that become, in some measure, constant deeds of goodness with us. We are not, for instance, expected to institute long evening Taraweeh prayers during the rest of the months of the year. But our focused experience through a month of Taraweeh ought to train us to consistently perform the much shorter five daily obligatory prayers in congregation as much as we can, as well as to establish a briefer version of night-time prayer vigils in the practice of Tahajjud until the following Ramadan and thus for the rest of our lives.
Perhaps most obviously, we can make a lifelong habit of fasting. We desisted for a whole month of daytime food, drink and the like, and we should not stop there. The Sunnah of Prophet highly recommends ongoing ways of fasting: Two fasts a week (Mondays and Thursdays); three fasts each lunar month (in their well-named “white,” that is, middle, (days); as well as fasting six not necessarily consecutive days of Shawwal, the month following Ramadan; along with special days, such as those of Hajj, especially `Arafaat (if we are not making Hajj) and `Ashooraa', or the 10th of Muharram, the first month of the Islamic lunar year. If we do this, we stay in touch with fasting, rather than let it dip below our spiritual horizon with the last sunset of Ramadan.
What an amazing power observing the Sunnah confers on us. It is the surest and shortest way, no doubt, to draw ourselves nearer to our Lord. With that in mind, keep up the charitable giving of Sadaqah after Ramadan. Many of us pay most of our Zakah and Sadaqah in Ramadan. But this is a habit that needs to become permanent throughout the year, in terms of charity. The practice of giving Zakat al-Fitr, a gift to let all people participate in the joys of giving and the festivity of 'Eed is an affirmation of the spirit of open-handedness inculcated in Ramadan. For in it, we are reminded to have concern for the destitute in a time of celebration.
Making Sadaqah a habit after Ramadan also helps us earn good deeds and enables us to, quite literally, buy forgiveness from Allah— before the Day comes when no ransom shall be accepted to free ourselves from Allah's Judgment. Ramadan should have taught us not to be stingy and to trust in Allah more than the illusion of our material wealth. If such faith has not entered our heart in Ramadan and Satan re-enters the scene the moment his Ramadan shackles are unfettered—whispering anew fear of poverty in our minds and hearts, unraveling our newly attested belief that we have the All-Rich and Most Generous One on our side then truly we have little understood Ramadan's intensive tutorial in benevolence.
Another important benchmark of Ramadan's intensive faith-immersion experience is the Prayer.
If on 'Eed day when we do not need to fill the stomach with Suhoor, we suddenly lack incentive to wake up for Fajr prayer, then we have seriously lost a great battle. Satan successfully ties the knot on our ears as we ignore the Athaan (call to prayer), refuse to get up and make ablution, and fail to stand in submission before Allah before the rise of dawn—whether it be the first dawn after Ramadan or another day, for that matter.
Persisting consciously with each prayer, guarding it, establishing it, and making each one like it is the very last we shall ever make such that we give it our all—these are the essential lessons of Ramadan Qiyaam (night prayer) that we need to internalize in order to grow in faith.
Keep your balloon inflated
The Athkaar, mention, remembrance, and praising of Allah that we made so frequently and with such alacrity during Ramadan should become so ingrained as to be second nature. Remembering Allah with each act of eating, drinking, sleeping, sneezing and the like should be given conscious care. The idea is to hold on to every good practice we gained in Ramadan.
So that brings us to the most important habit of the heart we can acquire in this blessed month: Constant connection with the Word of Allah. Make a conscious effort to recite much on the night before 'Eed. That night there is no Taraaweeh prayer, but do not forget Allah's Book in the moment of celebration. Make the effort to continue a recitation and understanding of the Quran even though the next day is 'Eed. We are told that this last night is like payday, when we receive our due from Allah for all the work we did during the month. How is it if the worker disappears into disobedience the very night that he has to be paid?
Similarly on the day of 'Eed, we are expected to listen attentively to the special sermon. For this religion does not lose any moment of gathering to dispense good advice that reminds one with the glad tidings and forewarnings of Allah. On 'Eed day, then, remember to recite the Quran for the sake of Allah. Part of the celebration of Allah and His religion is that we celebrate His Word, not forgetting it at first convenience.
If your main personal goal this Ramadan was to control anger, envy, gossiping, or backbiting; to rid yourself of the vices of time wasting, being compulsively judgmental, or failing to show appreciation for family; or to take responsibility for governing a sharp tongue, then continue with these good practices throughout the year so that next Ramadan you have one less character defect to work on. Moreover, the belief that you were able to shore up, with the help of Allah, this Ramadan will actually help you to sustain a higher quality of faith until the next.
A caution is in order. On 'Eed, television channels provide a host ofentertainment programs, which—in the name of celebration are no less atrocious. Restraint from bad viewing (or listening) during Ramadan—for you and your family—should continue throughout the year. We need to do our souls the favor of nourishing them with the kind of spiritual diet they need, rather than all this carnal indulgence that so besets us.
Just as a righteous Hajj divinely accepted bequeaths newborn purity upon one, so too will the sincere fasting of Ramadan and exhaustive standing for prayer therein alter our lives and afterlives, if Allah receives them unto Himself, for, indeed, they constitute a intimate, exclusive worship of Allah that none can verify but Him.
So while Satan is at bay, make the most of this month of Quran by exerting your soul in earnest worship and engendering it with good traits and a return to Fitrah, its original wholesome nature. In this way, when all the considerable blessings of Ramadan have been fulfilled, we will not be left battling our polluted spirit all over again, but only the temptations of a feebly equipped Satan.
When this Ramadan expires, a sense of its passing may, indeed, take the wind from our spiritual sails. But while we may feel deflated we shall not be depleted—not while we store up the blessed provisions it has bequeathed to us in our hearts to sustain us through all the days until like a hallowed gust it returns to nurture, nourish, and regal us with its numinous delights.