Embracing Winter For Enhanced Worship And Charity

Maximizing Winter: The WINTERS Acronym

Alhamdulillah, with the grace of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, we have reached the days of winter. We've reached days of cold, of snow, of ice, of chilliness. And for a lot of us, the chill of winter — and winter in general, the season — feels like a time where everything is just a little bit less efficient.

It's harder to get where we need to, things close down faster and more often, there are snowstorms that happen. So for a lot of us, winter feels like a time where we're not as optimized as we usually feel like. We're not as efficient as we want to be.

But when we look at the Qur'an and Sunnah, we find that winter is actually a time where we can efficiently benefit ourselves in ways that we can't even do in other seasons. And even though we might feel like it's hard to get to the masjid in the winter — the roads are closed, the cars get stuck — even so, winter is a time that Rasulullah ﷺ and Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala have still given us the tools and the keys to unlock and to be as efficient as we can in our worship.

In this short khutbah, we're going to go through some of those steps, some of those ways that we can be efficient in winter. And we're going to use the acronym WINTERS — each letter standing for something we can do.

W — Worship in the Long Nights

Winter is characterized by extremely short days and extremely long nights. In the summer, it's the complete opposite — extremely long days and very short nights. So when the night is extremely short, it's a lot harder to get up at 2 a.m. or 3 a.m. for tahajjud and pray.

But in the winter, when Isha is around 4 o'clock, 5 o'clock, 6 o'clock, then tahajjud can be prayed even at 8 o'clock, 9 o'clock. If you want, it can be prayed at 7 o'clock, 10 o'clock. These are times when we're usually still energized. And in the winter, this is one of the best times to take advantage of tahajjud, where we can pray our tahajjud at times where we would usually be praying our Isha otherwise.

So worshipping in the long nights is a very easy part of winter, and it's a very accessible part of winter. One of the first commands Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala gave to Rasulullah ﷺ was to pray in the long nights:

Oh you who is covered up — stand in the night, even if it's just for a little bit. Even for half of it. Or take away some of it.

Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala also commands:

And in the night, pray tahajjud as an additional offering for you. Perhaps your Lord will raise you to a praised station.

In a hadith, Rasulullah ﷺ says:

(Jami' al-Tirmidhi, Hadith 3549)

You should pray the night salah, because that was the tradition of the pious people before you.

So when we get up in the nights to pray tahajjud, it's not just ourselves praying in a vacuum. It might feel that way because we're praying alone and no one is watching us, which is part of the benefit of tahajjud. But when we get up and we pray tahajjud in the night, we're part of a long-standing generation — and generations — of people praying tahajjud, of pious people praying tahajjud in the night. From the time of Rasulullah ﷺ to the time even before him. From Isa ﷺ's religion to Sulaiman ﷺ's religion to Dawood ﷺ's religion to Musa ﷺ's religion. We're part of a chain of saints, each of them who prayed tahajjud, and we hope to be from that chain as well.

I — Increasing in Charity

Allah says in the Qur'an:

Allah praises the men and the women who give charity. And winter is really a time when we can appreciate giving charity more than any other time, because winter is a very regional season. A lot of people don't feel winter. So when we feel winter here in the Midwest, then we know that there are a lot of people — homeless people, poor people, destitute people — who don't have the same kind of warm houses, warm food, and warm drinks that we have in our homes.

So giving charity to them, increasing in charity to them, is an extremely important and beneficial thing we can do in the winter. Whether it's a single dollar bill, whether it's donating to organizations, whether it's giving here to people in need in the locality, or globally — in places like Gaza, in places like Sudan, in places like China — wherever you give, winter is a time to remember that there are people in need. And we can help those people.

Rasulullah ﷺ said:

(Jami' al-Tirmidhi, Hadith 2616)

Sadaqa will expiate your sins in the same way that water extinguishes fire.

And if you want to go with the winter theme — the way snow can extinguish fire. And when water eradicates fire, there's nothing left of the fire at all. Similarly, when a person gives sadaqa, there will be nothing left of their sins at all, except ash. So giving sadaqa in winter, increasing your charity in winter — this is a time when we can maximize our charitable output.

N — Nafl Fasting

Rasulullah ﷺ actually gives an explicit hadith for fasting in winter. He says:

(Jami' al-Tirmidhi, Hadith 797)

The cold treasure, the cool chilly treasure, is fasting in the winter.

From this hadith, we see Rasulullah ﷺ explicitly urging the believers to fast in winter. And why is that? It goes back to what was mentioned under W — worshipping in the long nights. The nights are extremely long, so by necessity, the days will be extremely short. The same amount of reward you get for fasting 17 or 18 hours in the summer, you'll get rewarded for just 7 hours or 6 hours in the winter. And in fact, you'll get double reward — because you're not just fasting for the sake of fasting, which is its own reward; you're fasting following the urge and the command of Rasulullah ﷺ to fast in the winter. So fasting in the winter can even potentially get you double reward compared to fasting in the summer, spring, or fall.

Rasulullah ﷺ explicitly urges us to take advantage of the winter time, to take advantage of the time shift when fasting is extremely easy. You can wake up extremely late for your suhoor, and then you'll break your fast extremely early for iftar. That's not something you'll get in the spring, summer, or autumn. It maximizes and manifests itself most optimally in the winter.

So for us, we should take advantage of that optimal nature and thus fast in the winter — whether it's just the ayyam al-biḍ, whether it's Mondays and Thursdays, whether it's just fasting at least once to fulfill the prophetic recommendation. Nafl fasting is a very, very beneficial part of the winter.

T — Thankfulness

Winter is a time when we really appreciate warmth, when we appreciate wealth, when we appreciate health, when we appreciate home. But at the same time, we all recognize that there are people in the world who don't have those things — they don't have a lot of wealth, they don't have a home, they don't have a lot of health. So this is a time to be thankful for that. To be thankful for the blessings Allah has bestowed upon us, for the blessings Allah has given to us, for the blessings Allah has chosen us for. And to be thankful to Him.

Musa ﷺ told his people that Allah said:

If you are thankful, then I will most certainly increase you.

So if we want to be increased in our resources — in our health, our wealth, our homes — then the time of winter is an extremely beneficial, optimal time to practice shukr and thankfulness.

And in a hadith, Rasulullah ﷺ says:

(Jami' al-Tirmidhi, Hadith 1954)

A person who has not thanked the people has not thanked Allah.

So we also double back to charity. A form of showing thankfulness to Allah is showing thankfulness to people — giving them charity, giving them sadaqah, helping them out in any way you can. Going to food drives, going to a soup kitchen to help the poor people. Whatever you can do to help the poor people is a sign of your thankfulness to Allah. And Allah appreciates your thankfulness and increases you as a result. It becomes an amazing feedback loop — the more you thank Him, the more He grants you. And the more He grants you, if you uphold your end of the bargain of thanking Him, then the more He increases you. And the more you give to others and thank others, the more He increases you, over and over and over again.

So winter is a time when we can be a part of that amazing feedback loop. It's a time when we can be a part of Allah exponentially increasing us in our blessings, when we are thankful for those blessings.

E — Engaging in Reflection

As mentioned, winter is a very regional season — it doesn't happen in a lot of places. So when we see beautiful signs of Allah's creation, like snow falling from the sky, blanketing the earth, and we see signs of cold and frigidity in these seasons that we don't see anywhere else — that is an extremely optimal time to remember Allah.

They mention that every single snowflake is completely different. No two snowflakes are ever similar — you would have to have almost a trillion snowflakes for two of them to be exactly alike. That is the infinitesimal beauty and perfection of Allah's creation, that He sends down millions upon billions of snowflakes over the earth, and yet no two of them are exactly the same. Something so miniscule, so ethereal, so exquisite, that the moment it lands on your finger, it melts. And yet Allah uses it to create avalanches, to create entire blockages on the highways, to create entire roadways filled with snow that two-ton cars and three-ton trucks cannot pass — from a single snowflake that melts on your finger. Who else can do that but al-Malik al-Jabbar, the Great King, who is able to influence and manifest His creation in whichever way He desires.

Being able to reflect on that — the way Allah can change the weather from sweltering to absolutely frigid — that is something that is beautiful. And Allah praises those who can reflect on His creation:

Those who remember Allah while standing, while sitting, while sleeping on their sides — and they reflect and think about the creation of the heavens and the earth. My Lord, You could have never created this in vain. How glorious are You, so protect us from the fire.

So Allah explicitly praises those who can reflect on His creation, those who look to the heavens and reflect, those who look to the earth and reflect. And winter is a beautiful, beautiful time to be able to do that.

In another ayah, Allah says:

Say, look to what is in the heavens and the earth. But signs and warnings could never help the people who don't believe.

So Allah qualifies not being able to reflect on the heavens and the earth with a sign of some level of disbelief in a person. So if we want to manifest our belief to the highest level, we reflect on what is in the heavens and the earth. And rain and snowfall are one of those beautiful things that come from the heavens to the earth — there's not a lot of things like that. So by reflecting on the snow, we are able to reflect on both the heavens and the earth at the same time. We reflect on snow as it's falling, and we reflect on snow as it's a blanket over the earth.

Ibn Abbas رضي الله عنهما says:

Contemplate on everything — contemplate on everything Allah has created.

And especially the things we don't always see. Snow is something we don't always see. So when we see snow and we see winter, that's a time to increase our reflection on Allah.

R — Repairing Relationships

With winter break coming, and a lot of us not having as much work, this is a time when we can reach out to people who we may not have reached out to in a while — whether we had a fallout with them, or we just haven't talked to them in a long while. Even just sending a simple text like:

"I was wondering how you're doing." Just something like that goes a long way in being able to maximize the ibadah, the worship, we can do in this season.

In a hadith, Rasulullah ﷺ said:

(Al-Mu'jam al-Awsat lil-Tabarani, Hadith 5765)

The most virtuous of all charities is rectifying between people who are in dispute.

And if you think about it, this singular letter R — repairing relationships — will actually fulfill three of the WINTERS acronym. It fulfills R for repairing a relationship; it fulfills I for increasing in charity, because Rasulullah ﷺ himself called fixing relationships sadaqa — afdal al-sadaqa, the best of sadaqa; and it fulfills T for thankfulness, because a lot of relatives have had an impact on our lives, and reaching out to them shows a level of thankfulness that they are a part of our lives. So that fulfills thankfulness, charity, and repairing relationships — and Rasulullah ﷺ called it the greatest, most virtuous of charities.

S — Scholarship

Winter is a time when we can gain a lot of knowledge, when we can go to the scholars and learn from them in ways that we can't in other times — because we have a lot more free time. Whether it's just this Thanksgiving weekend, whether it's winter break, we have a lot of time to reach out to scholars, to read a new book, to listen to a new series, to learn something new.

Being able to go to the scholars and learn from them is a very, very important part of the free time we have during winter. And especially at Darus Salaam, where we have the winter intensive coming up about the four madhahib arba'ah, and the evolution of fiqh and whatnot — this is an opportune time to gain knowledge about your deen, about your religion, and to be able to learn what it means to follow Rasulullah ﷺ.

Summary: The WINTERS Acronym

This deen teaches us to take advantage of whatever season we might be in — whether it's spring, summer, fall, or winter. And in winter, we have an acronym to help us maximize our output, our ibadah:

• W — Worship in the long nights
• I — Increasing in charity
• N — Nafl fasting (Rasulullah ﷺ explicitly said that the cold and chilly treasure is fasting in the winter)
• T — Thankfulness (thanking Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala for our health, our homes, our wealth)
• E — Engaging in reflection (winter is a time when we see signs of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala like never before)
• R — Repairing relationships (even if it's difficult, we'd rather go through a small difficulty in this world and get the reward for it in the akhirah)
• S — Scholarship (this is a time to learn the deen of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala)

We ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to grant us the tawfiq and the providence to be able to maximize all of our time, especially this winter, and to make every season better than the last one, until our final season is our best one.