These Habits Will Change Your Ramadan Forever

Build, Don't Buy: Raising a Ramadan Family

This Ramadan has to be a game changer for every family that is hearing this. There are so many ways that we can cultivate a family environment in Ramadan. And the first of those is that the family unit has to be a complementary, a cooperating unit.

So build that Ramadan environment at home — that weekly, daily Qur'an circle, that story time with the kids. Build it, don't buy it, don't outsource it. Some things can never be outsourced.

The State of the Family Today

Everywhere we look today, the family unit is broken. We have a divorce rate of one in four couples experiencing divorce. We have single mothers looking after children up and down the country. We have Muslim families themselves living together, but still fragmented — husband and wife like housemates living in different rooms of the house. Everywhere we look, it doesn't look very good, the state of the family today.

Ramadan is an opportunity to change that. Ramadan is an opportunity to revive the bonds within the family, and revive that community experience on a large scale and on a smaller scale within the family.

As a Muslim community, as parents, as families, what is the approach that we take when it comes to tarbiyah — the nurturing and the development of our families? The vast majority of us, we buy, we don't build. Parents today are glorified drivers, picking their children up and dropping them from madrasah, from football, from school, from chess class, from this class and the other class. So much so that the only quality time a parent gets with their child is perhaps in the car — during which the parent is shouting at the child to shut up in the backseat while they drive.

Psychologists say that on average today, the average parent gets 15 minutes of one-to-one time with their child. As we enter into Ramadan, we have to change this narrative.

The Example of Ibrahim and Ismail

To do that, we have to recall one of the greatest examples of fathers that we have had in the history of Islam. I want to take you many thousands of years ago to the father of all prophets, Ibrahim عليه السلام. Ibrahim عليه السلام, on the command of Allah, has left his child and his wife in the middle of the Arabian desert. And after many years, he returns to this desert with another instruction — to finally build the house of God himself, to build the Ka'bah.

Now he has two options. He can hire a bunch of contractors, pay them a daily wage, and somebody else can build the house for him. Or he can build it himself with his own hands. He looks at his son Ismail عليه السلام — small lad, small grubby hands. How much is he going to be able to contribute to the building of this massive house that's going to be the Ka'bah, the house of Allah for centuries to come? It's probably a smarter move to just ignore him and tell him to stay at home with mom, while Ibrahim عليه السلام does the heavy lifting himself.

But no. Ibrahim عليه السلام brings Ismail عليه السلام to the construction site. And brick by brick, they build the Ka'bah together. When Allah mentions this in the Qur'an, He delays the name of Ismail —

— because it was unexpected. It wasn't part of the plan. But Ismail عليه السلام, this small child, was brought into the construction project for one reason only.

When you build something in-house, when children watch their parents sweat for the sake of Allah, bleed for the sake of Allah, weep for the sake of Allah, tire for the sake of Allah, lose sleep for the sake of Allah — that child is never going to forget that sight for the rest of their life. It will be imprinted, embedded in the fabric of their memory for years to come.

Children do not remember stories, words on a textbook, blind ink on a white page. No. Children remember most the live example of their parents as they move, and as they sway, and as they bow in front of the Almighty. And this is what shaped Ismail عليه السلام. As Ibrahim عليه السلام builds the Ka'bah, so too his son one day builds the Muslim civilization.

If we become glorified delivery drivers, delivering our children from point to point with very little quality time with them, what are we building within them? We have outsourced so much of our tarbiyah — the nurturing of the future generation. We have outsourced their Quranic education. We have outsourced their skills. We have outsourced their secular learning. We have outsourced so much — what is left for us to give them? There is nothing left for us to give them.

Point One: Build the Ramadan Culture at Home

This Ramadan has to be a game changer for every family that is hearing this. There are so many ways that we can cultivate a family environment in Ramadan. And the first of those is that the family unit has to be a complementary, a cooperating unit. It should not be the case that a brother, a gentleman, a husband, or a father is getting all the peaceful worship, while his wife, the mother, is slaving away in the kitchen to produce 16 dishes for the iftar platter. It's got to be teamwork. The children have to be part of the journey.

We cannot outsource their religious learning. There should be a weekly, a daily circle with the family. With younger children, stories work really well. And with older children, a Quranic circle works really well.

For many parents in the audience, when we share this idea — sit with your family daily, weekly, have a competition in the household, have a goal to reflect on some Qur'an together — the first thing that comes to our mind is imposter syndrome. "I don't know, how am I going to teach my child? I feel like an imposter. That's why I'm paying the mawlana, that's why I'm paying the masjid, that's why I'm dragging them to the conference — because I don't have anything to give them."

You do have something to give them. The Prophet ﷺ said:

"Convey from me, even if it is one verse."

(Sahih al-Bukhari, Hadith 3461)

The one verse that a parent recites to their child is a verse the child will remember till the day they die. The one verse a child hears at the conference will be forgotten 30 minutes from now. You are much more powerful, much more impactful, much more effective than you think. So build that Ramadan environment at home — that weekly, daily Qur'an circle, that story time with the kids. Build it, don't buy it, don't outsource it. Some things can never be outsourced.

Point Two: Fix the Food Culture

When many of us think of Ramadan, we think of feasting. There are particular dishes in every culture that we never see in the year except in the month of Ramadan — Ramadan unique, exclusive. The pakora, the samosa, the kanji, whatever you want to call it. Special soups, special fried dishes that only turn up in Ramadan. Yes, it's understandable — we are hungry, so we want to have more textures, more flavors.

But when we think about the damage this culture does — and this is where human culture can really do damage to the purpose of the month of Ramadan — the purpose of the month is for us to go hungry, and instead the month is turned into a feasting ritual. The feast is supposed to be happening on Eid, not at iftar time. And the brunt of this culture is mostly felt by the ladies, by the mothers, by the wives, who have to slave over the stove for three, four, six, eight, ten hours a day to cook a variety of dishes.

This Ramadan, I'm going to challenge you. It's called the one dish challenge. On the table, there should just be one dish. One dish every day. No more — no condiments, no sauces, no special soups, no fried fritters. Try it for a month. Why? When you strip away all of the extra stuff from Ramadan, Ramadan becomes about the core — the fast. It becomes about the hunger. It becomes about the God consciousness. Food is just a means. It's a break, but we have to rush off to prayer. And if we fill our bellies, what example are we setting for the kids? What example are we setting for the ladies? What example are we setting for the men? We have created around Ramadan a foodie culture. That foodie culture has to go, brothers and sisters.

The Prophet ﷺ would wake up some days and ask Aisha, "Oh Aisha, is there any food at home?" She would say, "No." He would say, "I'm fasting today." How many gentlemen in this audience can do that? As it comes in Sunan al-Tirmidhi, months would go by and nothing would be cooked in his house. The fire would never be lit. What would he live on? On dates and water — الْأَسْوَدَيْن. Simplicity. Minimize. Cut it down.

Live a minimal Ramadan, rather than adding all of the bells and whistles to the food and to everything else — the festivities — such that Ramadan becomes a month of stress and cooking and feasting and we forget about the core: the Qur'an, the Salah, and the Du'a.

So: first point was build, don't buy — build the Ramadan culture at home, don't outsource it. Number two, fix the food culture — return to the minimal food culture of the Messenger ﷺ.

Point Three: Understand the Qur'an

And lastly, but not least, I want to emphasize one last point. When it comes to Ramadan and your children and as a household, one of the most important parts of living Ramadan as a family is engaging our children and ourselves in understanding the Qur'an.

Many of us grew up with this goal that in Ramadan we're going to recite the entire Qur'an. But what that does for children, for youngsters within our family and for everybody within the family, it creates a culture where the Qur'an is meant to be recited, not understood. I would say this Ramadan — add an additional goal. Have a goal to recite a portion of the Qur'an, but also have a goal to understand and reflect on certain chapters of the Qur'an. It could be five chapters. Five short chapters:

Every week we're going to understand, reflect, and discuss the meanings of one surah as a family. We know what the Qur'an was revealed for — Allah informs us in the Qur'an itself. The Qur'an was revealed in order for people to reflect on its meanings. That's the purpose of the Qur'an. The recitation, the memorization, the prayer — these are a means to an end. They are a pathway to the meaning of the Qur'an. They are not the end goal itself.

The As-Samad Test

How many of us can say confidently that we can explain the verse اللَّهُ الصَّمَدُ — Allahus-Samad? This is called the Samad test. Go home and ask everybody in the family: what is the meaning of اللَّهُ الصَّمَدُ? This is one of the shortest chapters of the Qur'an. All of us have memorized it. It is one third of the Qur'an in the weight of its meanings. Just tell me — what does that one word mean?

And if we realize we don't know the meaning of الصَّمَدُ, we have exposed our own ignorance. We have exposed our own priorities. For many of us, our relationship with the Qur'an is superficial — it is recitation, but we're not bothered about the meaning. It is memorization, but we're not bothered about its principles and its teachings.

The Warning From Those Before Us

This is the very culture that led those before us — the Jews and Christians — down the rabbit hole of completely disconnecting with their scripture. Allah says in the Qur'an:

There are people from the Jews and Christians — all they know of their scripture is empty recitation. It's an empty ritual. It's empty hopes. They don't know the meaning of what is inside that scripture.

When Allah describes such people, He says:

People who were given the Torah — revelation from God — but they did not take responsibility to understand it. They are like donkeys carrying books. Imagine. What happens to a donkey if you put an encyclopedia on the back of a donkey? Number one, a donkey cannot understand what's inside the encyclopedia. And number two, it feels the book on its back is a burden, a chore, a weight, an annoyance.

For many of us in our families, we have created that culture — that the Qur'an is a chore. It's an annoyance. It's something you don't have to understand, but you have to do it because Baba and Mama said you have to do it. Do we laugh? Are we surprised when our children drag their heels to their Qur'an lesson? When all their relationship with the Qur'an is one of pure recitation and they have never been told the meaning of a single verse?

This has to change this Ramadan. Reflect on the meanings of the Qur'an as a family. Don't only suffice with the recitation. This is not minimizing the reward for recitation and the impact and the power of recitation — but it is a means, it is not the end. Don't forget the purpose, don't forget the objective. The Qur'an was revealed to make us think, to provoke our minds, to provoke our hearts.

Even if the goal is minimal — reflect on one surah this Ramadan, two surahs, three, four, five — but don't neglect the meanings of the Qur'an. Lest our children grow up and say, "Oh, the Qur'an — that book, I don't really know what it means, but as a kid I had to read it. As a child, I had to read the Arabic. I have no clue what it actually means."

This actually happened to me once — no less than with an Arab. I was at lunch at work, having lunch with my colleagues, and a non-Muslim colleague asks me, "Hey, you know the Qur'an — is that a book like everybody reads and understands, or is it only for like the clergy?" And a colleague of mine who was an Arab turns to this non-Muslim and says, "Yeah, the Qur'an is only for scholars. Us simple people don't understand it."

Ya Allah. What will we say in front of Allah? What will we say when we meet the Messenger of Allah? And the Messenger of Allah ﷺ complains to Allah in the Qur'an:

"Oh Allah, my people have abandoned this Qur'an." They haven't abandoned its recitation, they haven't abandoned its memorization — but they forgot the very reason that it was revealed.

Summary

Number one: Build the relationship with your children. Build the Ramadan habits with your family — don't outsource it. Do things with your children, don't just pick and drop them to things. Block out that quality time with them as families. And not just if you have children — as husband and wife, as housemates, as colleagues, as neighbors, as brothers and sisters — do things communally, don't do things on your own. Build it internally, don't outsource it.

Number two: Fix the food culture. Have a minimal iftar. It's called the one dish challenge. Can you live up to that challenge? One dish a day — no more, no less.

Number three: The meanings of the Qur'an. Create a culture of reflection, thought, and contemplation of the Qur'an at home. Make it a story, make it fun. Don't just stop at the recitation and the memorization.