ISAK Jummah Prayer - Reclaiming the Heart in a Digital Age. Mufti Azeemuddin Ahmed

Reclaiming the Heart in a Digital Age: Preparing for Ramadan

As-salamu alaykum brothers, inshallah today we're anticipating a very full room, so please take any opportunity you can to fill in the small gaps, to come forward as much as you can and continue to do that throughout the khutbah, so that the khateeb doesn't have to remind you. So please fill in all the gaps, come as far forward as you can so that people don't have to pray in the foyer inshallah. As-salamu alaykum, jazakallahu khair.

Alhamdulillah, Alhamdulillah, Allah Azzawajal has brought us at the threshold and at the doorstep of the blessed month of Ramadan.

And we ask Allah Azzawajal that He allows us to complete this final week of Sha'ban with aafiyah, with ease, and allow us to welcome the blessed month of Ramadan in a state that we are prepared and ready and we are excited to meet the first, second, and last ten days of Ramadan bi-idhnillahi ta'ala. We ask Allah Azzawajal that He grants us our psychological, spiritual, emotional, and physical health at its highest forms to be able to make the most use of Ramadan. Allahumma ameen.

Are You Ready for Ramadan?

Honorable, beloved friends, dear brothers and sisters, every one of us naturally at the store and amongst our friends and family, we're constantly reminding one another: are you ready for Ramadan? Yesterday, I was before coming here with my spouse to do groceries before the month starts, and naturally the cashier — one of them happened to be a Muslim and the other person non-Muslim — but the discussion was: Ramadan is coming. Yes, most definitely.

Part of the preparation of Ramadan is most definitely making some runs to the grocery store beforehand — so that we can eat a lot in the month of Ramadan? No. So that we do not waste our time in the blessed month of Ramadan going through the aisles of grocery stores and department stores. So that every single moment of that 24 hours of every single day and night of Ramadan is used in the most productive possible manner. That every single moment we are hoping to make the highest return on the investment that we're giving.

And for that, naturally, we have to prepare. So today I want to highlight a few things. And we have a very beautiful big program tonight — the final family night tonight, inshallah, here at ISAK before Ramadan begins. This is your final Friday night program. The youth program at 6:30 and the family night at 7:30 inshallah, with myself and your local scholars of this community as well. So of course, we're going to get into more finer details and Q&A inshallah tonight. But for this Jumu'ah audience, a few reminders.

Welcoming Ramadan with the Respect It Deserves

The blessed month requires us to welcome it properly. And that welcoming comes based on how well we prepare. If you respect someone — your elders are coming to your home, someone who's your proposal for marriage is coming to your home — look at the preparation that happens in advance. How much deep cleaning happens, and every single dish is brought out and the menu is well thought, because you have a lot of respect for this person or this family that is coming to your home. You put in a lot of thought.

On the other hand, if someone who's cleaning your driveway and shoveling the driveway — it's a cold day outside and you want to say, "Come on in and have some hot tea or hot chocolate, mashallah" — you didn't expect it. You don't have to do that. You're just being kind. You just bring him in and give him a cup of tea. That's that. You don't have to put much thought into it based on who that person is.

Here you have the blessed month of Ramadan. If it genuinely means that this is a gift and a guest of Allah that's coming my way, I have to show it. And I have to show it in the way I prepare for it.

And that preparation at the very least begins in du'a — and beyond that as well — two months in advance, from the hadith of the Prophet ﷺ. You've been hearing the khateebs and the imams mentioning:

"Oh Allah, put barakah in Rajab and Sha'ban, and allow us to reach the blessed month of Ramadan."

We're not sure if we're going to make it. Yesterday at the Cleveland airport, subhanAllah, I met a brother working at the airport there. Again, small chat — Muslim brother, alhamdulillah, I said salam to him. And he said, "Your Ramadan is coming." I said, "Yeah." And then subhanAllah, this brother at the airport says, "But who knows if we're going to make it or not — because there are people who died in the last week too." And I said, "You're so right."

And wallahi, as I was coming here — I just came back from India last month — and one of the senior scholars of New Delhi that I had met, I just received the news in the car: he had just passed away an hour ago. How many of us are going to actually make it till next week, we don't know. There are definitely people going to pass away across the globe, within our communities, between now and Ramadan. So number one, we genuinely have to be praying that we make it.

Physical Preparation for Ramadan

Number two is that preparation has to happen today. We already started preparing, I know. But beyond that — beyond the superficial — what are the things? Let's talk about physically.

Physically, a person knows the first day of Ramadan, usually when we start our fast, what happens? Many of us have our daily runs for our coffee and tea. When we don't get it, or we have it early in the morning — 8, 9, 10 o'clock — subhanAllah, we're crashing. And the days of headaches and grogginess and just not feeling it. The huge shake-up that happens in Ramadan — we want to make sure that shake-up happens now. So that when the first day comes, alhamdulillah, we're ready. No one, even in a pick-up ball game, plays without stretching. Otherwise you're going to hurt yourself. How can we expect to go right into Ramadan without any preparation at all?

And that is why the nafl fasts, and the fast of Mondays and Thursdays, come in. Even in the month of Sha'ban, the Prophet ﷺ would fast so much more than any other month. That is your preparation for the blessed month — that you're already getting yourself adjusted to staying away from food and drink and marital relations for an extended part of the day.

Another part of that preparation needs to be: instead of having our coffee and tea immediately as soon as we wake up this week, delaying it till 10 or 11 o'clock. Making sure our body is getting accustomed to not having all that caffeine that we usually do — decreasing the amounts, delaying when we take it.

Additionally, from a nutritional perspective, really ensuring that we're drinking lots and lots of water. We're hydrating ourselves throughout the day this week — much, much more than we usually do. Not the sugary drinks, not the other things, but just genuine water.

Planning Suhoor and Iftar

Then when it comes to our suhoor and iftar, planning it out from now — that inshallah, this is not going to be a month in which, instead of eating a 2,000-calorie diet, I'm going to eat a 2,500-calorie diet. But it's not going to be that during 12 hours of the day I'm going to eat — it's going to be between Maghrib and suhoor. And what happens: our Muslim community yearly, we see what we call the "Ramadan pounds" that people gain. And they say, "Sheikh, Eid is here and I got to hit the gym again, I got to lose my Ramadan pounds."

Honestly, I feel — may Allah forgive me if I'm saying something wrong — the scale doesn't lie to you. If the bathroom scale says that you've gained 10 pounds in Ramadan, I ask yourself, and I ask myself: what would the scale on the Day of Judgment say to us? How is it possible that a month of Ramadan goes and a Muslim gains weight? For normal people there might be some medical issues, metabolism issues — I'm not speaking about that. But for a general person, the basic rule is that your calorie intake goes lower and your energy expenditure goes up — alhamdulillah, there should definitely be a loss in your body mass. If that's not happening, something is happening: we've just adjusted the times to eat.

What happens in the month of Ramadan is those sugary drinks, and those excessive high-carb, high-sugar, massive medjool dates that a person eats — along with that, tons of fried items — things that we never ate 11 months of the year, but we somehow end up eating 29 or 30 days in a row in the month of Ramadan. And it ends up ruining our health, which was supposed to be the complete opposite. We're supposed to starve our nafs to make sure that our soul becomes stronger. We're supposed to feel the pain that the children of Sudan and Gaza are going through every single day for the past many years. But instead of that, we are suffering stomach ache due to indigestion and overeating. In Taraweeh, you hear the belching and the burping and the smell that comes in because of overeating. I'm being very frank — heart-to-heart talk over here.

Feeding the Nafs vs. Feeding the Soul

If we really want to make Ramadan special, it has to start with the food. There has to be an immediate recognition that the more I eat, and the more colorful things I eat, and the more tasty things I eat, and the more variety I eat — all I am doing is feeding the nafs. I'm not just feeding my stomach, I'm feeding the nafs. I'm not eating from my stomach; I'm eating from my eyes, from my shahwa, from lust — the lust of food, which is very real. It's very real, right? There's a reason why they add so many food colorings. Yesterday I looked at salmon in the store and it said "coloring added." There's a whole science behind that. Because people are eating from their eyes. Everything that's attractive and colorful — from the strawberries to the apples with those waxes sprayed on them — because it makes a person stop and say, "I want this." Do you actually need it? Are you actually hungry? No. What is it? It's a shahwa. It's a lust that makes this food item very attractive to us. What does that sugar do? It creates an addiction where our young and our old, subhanAllah, continuously crave — they have the sugar cravings.

My beloved friends, this is the 101 of Ramadan. The 101 of Ramadan is we have to put a stop on all this unhealthy eating. We have to put a stop on extra eating. And we have to — if we cannot eat less — at the very least eat what we eat the rest of the year. But it should never happen that we're eating more than the rest of the year. So you have to plan for it. Failing to plan is planning to fail.

So plan for it right now, today, on this weekend. How am I going to eat? What are we going to eat for suhoor and iftar? With AI around, there are some easy benefits of it. You just throw it in there: "I want a 2,000-calorie diet, high in protein, high in fiber, high in fats, low in carbs. And I want to lose 10 pounds in the month of Ramadan. This is my height, this is my weight." You throw it in — within 2 seconds, it'll give you an entire 30-day plan of what to eat. And also put in there: "I want a prep time of 7 minutes with a limited 6 ingredients." That you can do shopping for, copy-paste, and throw it on one of your delivery services and have it delivered to your house. I tried this yesterday — that's what I'm telling you. That's how quick it is. Very clear, simple. Now you've got your suhoor, you've got your iftar. You don't have to sit there and bother your spouse. You know exactly what you need to eat. It's very straightforward. And you're not sitting there at 5 a.m. rubbing your eyes, opening your fridge, wondering, "Oh, what do I eat now?" And then grabbing unhealthy things that are high in sugar and high in carbs. And then you have that crash even before the third of the day is gone and you say, "Ya Allah, what is this Ramadan?"

No, my friends. Ramadan is truly about complete transformation — including physical transformation. You are what you eat. If we physically watch what we're eating — halal, tayyib, and good foods that are rich in protein and rich in nutrition, organic, things of that sort that are tayyib, not just halal but tayyib — you will feel different. And part of the most important part of that nutrition is simply ensuring that we're not eating more than we need to.

The Prophetic Guidance on Eating

As Nabi ﷺ has said, the worst wia'a — the worst vessel to fill up, the most hated in the eyes of Allah dish to fill up — is what? The stomach. And then Nabi ﷺ said, it is sufficient for the son of Adam:

(Sunan al-Tirmidhi, Hadith 2380; also recorded in Sunan Ibn Majah, Hadith 3349)

"A few morsels to keep his back straight — that is sufficient for the son of Adam." And they said, if you really want to eat, then the highest extent is one-third for food, one-third for water, and one-third empty for your air, for your breathing, subhanAllah. That is not normal. Nabi ﷺ has shared that as the ghaya, as the highest level of eating.

That's why the ulama say: when you sit down to eat iftar or suhoor, or for that matter any meal — may Allah grant us tawfiq, say ameen — eat from your stomach. Eat as long as you're hungry. And as soon as the hunger subsides and you desire to eat more — walk out, stand up. "I just want to have one more." Are you hungry? No. Then stop. This is how we challenge our nafs.

Ask ourselves: for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, how often are we continuing to eat after we're full? How many times are we sitting for a meal when we're not even hungry? Because everyone else is doing it — what we call social eating. Everyone else is. Are you actually hungry? No, you just had a late breakfast. Do you need to have lunch? Not really, but we're eating it because it's the in thing to do, that's a fun thing to do, that's what everyone is doing. This is all feeding the nafs. Each person has to control his own internal compass and say, "Do I need to eat right now? If I don't, that's it. I don't need to." That requires self-discipline. That requires whipping the nafs. And that is the essence of Ramadan.

The Essence of Ramadan: Controlling the Nafs

That's exactly what Ramadan is about. When everyone around you at work and school is eating — at 8 a.m. coffee, 10 a.m. bagels, 12 o'clock burger, 3 o'clock salad — and you're going through all these meetings and at school, and you're not looking around and saying, "I wish I had that." You're just doing your own thing. What happened? That's called discipline. That's called self-restraint. That's called controlling the nafs.

And so that is the essence of Ramadan — to become people who are principled and who have a very strong grasp over their lower self. Whoever can control himself literally controls the room, controls the company, controls everywhere. This is the most important issue in our community, in the world — ensuring that we do not become عَبْدَ الْهَوَى, the worshipper of our own self, the worshipper of our ego, the worshipper of our ambitions, the worshipper of our own lustful desires.

Allah Azzawajal calls this in the Qur'an:

"Have you seen the one who has taken his own desires as his god?" When a person says, "Why are you eating?" "Because I feel like it." "Why are you eating this?" "Because I feel like it." That's got to go. No more is it going to be about what I feel like. I am not going to do things because I feel like it. I'm going to do things because of what I'm expected to do — what Allah wants me to do, what is needed from me. Not what I want to do. That "want" has to be thrown out. If a person can achieve this, alhamdulillah, he'll be able to do many amazing great things in life.

And this is what you see in the qualities of the Sahabah. Why the Prophet ﷺ said:

(Sunan al-Tirmidhi, Hadith 1621; also recorded in Musnad Ahmad, Hadith 23958)

"The true mujahid, the true warrior, is the one who fights his own self in order to please Allah." The one who fights his own nafs, his desires, in order to please Allah. That is what true mujahidah is. That is what true sacrifice is.

Ramadan is building 30 days of that regiment where we tell our nafs: "Game over. Your reign is over. Your kingdom and running the affairs of my body and my mind are over." From nafsul ammara bisu', I'm going to force you to become, inshallah, nafsul mutma'inna. From nafsul ammara — the nafs that pushes us towards sin — you're going to become a nafs that is absolutely content with what Allah is giving, and has been refined. This is the crux of Ramadan, my beloved brothers.

Ramadan is not a month of festivities. Ramadan is not a month of overeating. Ramadan is not a month of sharing food with people who already have too much food in their multiple fridges and freezers. Ramadan is to feel hunger — to have chapped lips maybe, to feel your mouth dry, and feel, subhanAllah, weak during the day. When you're feeling weak, what's actually feeling weak? Your nafs is feeling weak. And then you think about every day and you say: "I have voluntarily fasted, but there are millions of people who are involuntarily fasting every single day across the globe."

Both Muslim and non-Muslim — across even in this very country. There are kids, I guarantee you, within this city, this largest city of Cleveland, who go to bed hungry every night. Ask the social workers and those who are on the streets and they'll tell you the number of children, every single night in America, who go to bed hungry. And what we're talking about overseas, subhanAllah, there's no end to that.

Ramadan is a shahrul muwasat — it's a month in which we feel the pain of others. If your son comes and says, "Baba, I'm so hungry," that's the perfect time to speak to him. "Baba, understand. Let's look at the images. Here, give a minute. Let's look at what's happening in the world. Look at this child — he literally froze to death. Look at this other child — he died in the arms of his mother. His mother couldn't even give him milk or anything. Not one or two children — hundreds of children are dying. Habibi, you've got one hour left." You could break your fast, of course. But you're doing it to understand how grateful you should be to Allah — that you look at a fridge, a freezer, and a pantry filled with a hundred items for a hundred days, and look at all these children who've got nothing. You have to feel their pain. And you have to be thankful to Allah for what He has given you.

Ramadan is a time when we get a chance to genuinely have heart-to-heart talks with our children, and ourselves, and our spouses. It should not be a month that leads to extravagance — long, drawn-out iftar parties, long, drawn-out suhoor parties nowadays — in which the whole purpose of Ramadan, in which we're supposed to feel hunger, is abolished.

Hunger as a Spiritual Tool

The Prophet ﷺ said:

(Sahih al-Bukhari, Hadith 2038; Sahih Muslim, Hadith 2175)

"Indeed, Shaitan flows through the veins of the son of Adam the way blood flows through them." That's exactly the reach of Shaitan — from all over, top to bottom, from your forehead to your toes, Shaitan is flowing. "Ya Rasulullah, what should we do? How do we stop Shaitan in his tracks?" The Prophet ﷺ said: al-ju' — hunger. Hunger is a way to stop that Shaitan in his tracks. Hunger is such a powerful spiritual tool. I'm not talking about involuntary — voluntarily staying hungry to push down that nafs.

That's why the Prophet ﷺ said:

(Sahih al-Bukhari, Hadith 5065; Sahih Muslim, Hadith 1400)

"O young people, whoever among you has the capacity to get married, he should get married — because it will help you lower your gaze and protect your chastity. And whoever does not have that capacity immediately — then he needs to start fasting." Continuous fasting — not one off, one day. People say, "Brother, I fasted one day and I feel an increase in lust." That's not how it works. You need to break that nafs. You have to apply fasting to it — steamroll it. Steamroll it through continuous fasting. Not one day or two days. Weeks on end, you'll see. After a whole month or one and a half months of just continuous fasting, subhanAllah, that nafs honestly will become so much weaker. You've just beaten it up so badly. It's like hitting the gym and just beating it up — so now the desire for lustful things will decrease. This is the prophetic medication to controlling lust. فَعَلَيْهِ بِالصَّوْمِ — the Prophet ﷺ said.

So in the month of Ramadan, at least in these 30 days, we've got to feel that pain of hunger. We've got to feel the pangs of hunger. We have to really decrease what we eat, and how much we eat, and how much time we spend in preparing food.

Honoring Our Spouses and the Time Before Iftar

I respectfully tell my fellow husbands: do not put the burden on your spouses to say, "No, I have to have this many items, and hence I need you to spend two hours in the kitchen before iftar." There is a right that they have over you as well — that you and I need to provide the women of our households time for their own ibadah. If they're expected to be doing long drawn-out parties every single day, where is their a'mal? Where is their dhikr? Where is their tilawat of the Qur'an? Where is their du'a?

The lady of the house — she is the center of the house. Her spirituality reflects in every child of the home. Her level of relationship with Allah is reflected in every child in the home. The stronger she's going to be, the stronger every member of the household is going to be. The weaker she's going to be, the weaker everyone else in the house is going to be. That's our job as men of the home — to support our spouses, to say, "You know what, I'm not going to put this burden on you. I'm going to lessen that burden. We're going to eat healthy, we're going to eat less, and we can order or whatever the case may be. But this month is a month for all of us to make the most of it." It is not fair for our women to be sitting in front of stoves and in the kitchen, cutting through different things and spices and whatnot for hours before iftar.

The time before iftar — especially between Asr and Maghrib — beloved brothers and sisters, husbands and wives, should be a time when the kitchen is off limits. Whatever preparation happened, happened earlier. Now is the time of du'a.

The Two Moments of Joy for the Fasting Person

The Prophet ﷺ said:

(Sahih al-Bukhari, Hadith 1904; Sahih Muslim, Hadith 1151)

"There are two moments of happiness for a fasting person — a happiness when he breaks his fast, and a happiness when he meets his Lord." The happiness of breaking your fast is not, "Oh, I get to eat!" That's for people who are just dying to eat. This is not what Rasulullah ﷺ is necessarily speaking about. It's the fact that the time of iftar is a time when I know my du'as are accepted. Allah is looking at me — that the whole day you deprived yourself, now you ask. This is the time to get your paycheck. Ask.

Now, if at the time to get our paycheck we are busy running around the kitchen — imagine what a loss on our part. So what we do as a family: at least 20 minutes before Maghrib, let's sit down together away from where the table is. If we can come and break our fast as a family at the masjid, please do so — that's the very best thing to do. If we cannot do that, then at the very least find a room — living room, dining room, family room — away from where the food is kept. And let us engage in those 20 minutes before Maghrib in dhikr, and most importantly du'a.

How do we do it? Lead it as a dad. Ask your spouse to lead the du'a the next day. Then ask your children to lead it. Take turns. But create an environment of collectively asking du'a — because most of us, especially the younger ones and even the adults, do not know how to speak to Allah. They just don't know. They know how to talk to each other, they know how to chat up somebody. But talk to Allah? That's something we just don't know how to do. How are you going to learn it? You're going to learn it by listening to someone do it.

So you could say: "Okay, khalas. Bismillah ar-Rahman ar-Rahim. I send salutations upon the Prophet ﷺ." Then say, "Alright, we're going to do a one-minute du'a for parents. Everyone is making du'a for parents. Parents are making du'a for their parents. The kids are making du'a for their parents." Alright, now: "One minute du'a for siblings." You actually prompt them. Give the prompt, then everyone does it. "Next, we're going to make du'a for physical health. Next, du'a to Allah to weaken our nafs. Du'a to Allah to strengthen our spirituality. Alright, one minute. Du'a for the people of Gaza and Sudan. Du'a for the people of Sham and Kashmir. Du'a for the Uyghurs." And so on. Name it. Whatever it is. Du'a for our Muslim community, for the sick in the community. So now they have something to do. They know they need structure. When we give our children and our family structure, they will be able to follow through.

Practical Steps: Goals, Checklists, and Spiritual Buddies

This month, the preparation needs to be starting in these last few days that we have — by preparing our meals from now, making our ingredients list from now, ensuring that we have this discussion collectively at home of how we're going to have suhoor and how we're going to have iftar, talking about our daily schedule at home: Monday through Friday schedule and Saturday–Sunday schedule. What are our collective goals?

I have a Ramadan checklist outside — there aren't that many, but grab it on the way out. It gives you just a sample. I came up with about 20 different items and you can choose what you want from there. Fajr in the masjid. Isha in the masjid. Daily tasbih — Tasbih Fatimi means SubhanAllah 33 times, Alhamdulillah 33 times, Allahu Akbar 34 times. Recitation of Surah al-Sajdah and Surah al-Mulk before we go to bed. There are certain adhkar and a'mal there. You mark it. It's a checklist. Make a photocopy of it when you go home — make 6, 7, or 8 of them — and every single member of your household has got their own checklist. Every single week, let's check in on how we're all doing. Every day, create a spiritual buddy. Then see how we're doing and reward those who've done well — alhamdulillah, with a gift. "MashAllah son, you've done so well! You've beat the race. Here's $50, $100." This is the best $100 you could spend. Honestly. Gifting one of the members of the household, alhamdulillah, for being on top of their game and beating everyone else in their goals.

Along with those goals, part of the checklist — I wrote there 15 to 20 minutes of du'a. Adjust that. I say start from tonight. What's the longest du'a we can make? 5 minutes? 7 minutes? Start from today. Till the first 10 days of Ramadan. When the first 10 days of Ramadan come, let's increase that to 10 minutes. When the second 10 days of Ramadan come, let's increase that to 20 minutes. And when the last 10 days of Ramadan come, inshallah we're going to have a 30-minute block of du'a — just me and Allah, just me and Allah speaking.

Du'a is the absolute essence of ibadah. That's it. If you have du'a — if you can speak to Allah — my beloved friends, you don't need anybody else.

Allah is the best of helpers. Allah is the best of caretakers. What we have not done is we haven't spoken to Him enough. We haven't shared our problems with Him. We've shared our problems with everybody else. And hence we see we've caught ourselves in a rut.

Your Ramadan Action Plan

This is the preparation that needs to be done this week — which includes choosing how much Qur'an we're going to recite by Eid al-Fitr. Setting a goal. If it's not written, it doesn't exist. Write it. How much Qur'an will I have, inshallah, completed by Eid al-Fitr? Is it one complete reading? Two? Three?

Number two: which time of the day am I going to find slots to fulfill this goal?

Number three: how much du'a am I going to make every single day? Set the time for it.

Number four: have a spiritual buddy — your spotting partner, your accountability partner, your spouse, your son, daughter, brother, sister, whoever — that you're going to connect with every day to make sure you've gotten up for suhoor, you're there for Fajr, you're there for Taraweeh, you're giving your daily sadaqah. These are the goals that we need to come up with, and you need to have a spiritual buddy with whom you share them.

Last but not least, my beloved friends, I encourage everybody today to take a moment — if we had time I would say do it right now, but this is Jumu'ah khutbah and I can't do that right now. I would say on your way out, when you sit in the car before you drive off, please do this: open up your phone or take a pen and a piece of paper and write the goals I just talked about. Qur'an goals, du'a goals, and then spiritual buddy. What time we're going to fulfill this.

And the last thing: let's think about 5 bad habits or sins that we're going to work on getting rid of, and 5 good habits that we're going to make an effort to cultivate within ourselves. Those 5 habits have to be written. You've got to see it. Nobody has to see it besides you — but you've got to see it written. "These are 5 bad habits. I'm 60 years old, I haven't fixed this yet — I've got to fix it now. I'm not sure when I'm leaving this world. I've got to fix it before I leave." Write those down. 5 bad habits. 5 good habits.

And then after every single salah, make du'a: "Ya Allah, allow me to get rid of these 5 bad habits and allow me to inculcate these 5 good habits." And inshallah, I guarantee you — if you're sincerely making du'a, and you're making effort, and it's written in front of you — you will achieve this goal.

At the time of iftar, at the time of suhoor, message one or two people: "Dear brother, can you please make du'a — it's suhoor time, it's iftar time — please make du'a. I have some goals; may Allah allow me to fulfill them." You don't need to share what those goals are. But every single day, message a few people and ask them to make du'a for you. And inshallah, Allah will grant you and me success in our goals.

Closing Du'a

May Allah allow this Ramadan to be the very best. Say ameen. May Allah allow us to take away from this Ramadan way beyond our expectations. May Allah allow us to be gifted with the power of sincere du'a. May Allah allow us to have full control over our nafs. May Allah allow us — spiritually, economically, financially, emotionally, mentally, and physically, in every sense — allow us and our loved ones to grow. Allahumma ameen. May Allah allow our du'a to reach the Ummah, and allow us to feel their pain, and allow the Ummah to benefit from our prayers. Allahumma ameen.

Alhamdulillah wa kafa, wa salatu wa salamu 'ala Rasulillah. Allah said:

"Verily Allah and His angels send blessings upon the Prophet. O you who believe, send blessings upon him and salute him with a worthy salutation."

O Allah, send peace and blessings upon our Master Muhammad, Your servant and Your Messenger. And pray for the believing men, the believing women, the Muslim men, and the Muslim women. And bless our Master Muhammad and his wives and his progeny. Have mercy on his Ummah — the Ummah — through Abu Bakr, may Allah be pleased with him. And strengthen them in safety through Umar, may Allah be pleased with him. And protect them from shame through Uthman, may Allah be pleased with him.

Announcements

Let us all move forward inshallah. Ensure there are no gaps in between. Fill up the rows. Keep moving forward. Please fill up this space on the hayya 'alas-salah side. Please come forward inshallah. Fill up the rows. Stand shoulder to shoulder and make sure heels are in the line, as was announced earlier today.

The youth program is at 6:30 today. The schools are off, so the youth — you don't have the excuse of being tired from school. Please come through. The youth program is from 6:30 to 7:30 inshallah. Dads and moms, bring your sons and daughters, inshallah. And then after Salat al-Isha, inshallah, we have a community night with the various scholars from the community — Sheikh Musa, Sheikh Zubair, and Mufti Azeemuddin — as well as your imam. And there is dinner, of course, following that as well inshallah.

Additionally, on the way out, we have a Ramadan checklist. Please pick that up. And there are some children's books and du'a books as well — because I spoke so much about du'a, I brought some specific books of du'as of the Prophet ﷺ. Please do stop by and take a look at that.

Just a reminder inshallah: Ramadan will begin this coming Wednesday, inshallah. And Taraweeh will start on Tuesday night, the night before — five minutes after Salat al-Isha. Also, we have a Ramadan Bazaar tomorrow, starting at 3:00 p.m. and ending at 9:00 p.m. Everyone is welcome, inshallah.

May Allah accept all of our efforts. Jazakumullahu khayran wa kulli 'amin wa antum bi khayr.