Ramadan: The Month Of The Quran And Its Immense Blessings

Opening Supplication

My dear respected brothers and sisters, assalamu alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh. All praises for Allah, who has allowed us to reach this beautiful month of Ramadan. This month that we make du'a throughout the year, that we reach it again and again and again.

In the past two months, we've been making the du'a that we find that our pious predecessors used to make, that O Allah, allow us to reach Ramadan:

And Alhamdulillah, Allah has allowed us to reach this month. And already one week has passed.

The Virtue of Ramadan

One week of this blessed month has passed. This month in which we find from the sunnah of the Prophet ﷺ that he used to exert his energy into worshipping Allah. Of course he would do so throughout the year — there's no question about that. But in the month of Ramadan, there would be an extra effort put in to making sure that no minute was wasted. By the sahaba radiyallahu anhum, you could see this from their lives. You could see this from the tabi'un. You could see this all the way until present day — from our righteous mashayikh, our scholars, our elders, the way that they take advantage of every single minute that they have during this blessed month.

This month of Ramadan that Allah has blessed over all other months. Allah has created everything that we see and everything that we do not see. And at times, two things may seem similar, but they are not. For example, Allah has created all of the months. There are 12 months. Allah, as a matter of fact, tells us this in the Qur'an:

That there are 12 months. And when a person looks at these months, they might say that they seem the same — they all either have 29 days or 30 days when you're looking at it from the Hijri calendar, or 30 days or 31 days when you're looking at it from the Gregorian calendar. They all kind of look the same. But Allah does not treat all of these months the same. There are certain months that far exceed others in terms of virtue. And the month that is the most virtuous, of course, is the month of Ramadan.

Likewise, we see days and we see nights. And a person might think to themselves that days and nights are the same. But there is one night that far exceeds every other night of the entire year. And that night is Laylatul Qadr — the night in which the Qur'an was revealed.

Ramadan: The Month of the Qur'an

Allah tells us in the Qur'an — in the only place in the entire Qur'an that the word Ramadan is mentioned, in Surah al-Baqarah — what makes the month of Ramadan so special:

The month of Ramadan in which the Qur'an was revealed — as a means of guidance, and with clear proofs from guidance, and as a means of Furqan, a criterion between what is good and what is bad.

A person who may not have heard this verse before, if you ask them what makes Ramadan so special, they might answer that what makes Ramadan so special is fasting, because fasting is something you do every single day in Ramadan — you feel the hunger, you feel the thirst. But Allah tells us in this verse that the thing that actually makes Ramadan so special is that it is the month in which the Qur'an was revealed. The month of Ramadan is the month of the Qur'an. That is why many ulama refer to the month of Ramadan as شَهْرُ الْقُرْآن — because this is the month that we should be reciting the Qur'an abundantly.

Consistency vs. Intensification in Ramadan

There is a general understanding that we learn from the sunnah of the Prophet ﷺ, that the best actions are those that are done consistently. As the Prophet ﷺ said:

The most beloved of actions to Allah are the ones that are done consistently, even if they may be few. It's better, generally speaking, to recite maybe ten minutes of Qur'an every single day than to randomly one day throughout the entire year recite the Qur'an for three hours. It's better to do something consistently as opposed to exerting all of your energy and effort into doing it one time and never doing it again.

But when it comes to the month of Ramadan, what we find from our pious predecessors is that they would recite the Qur'an as much as they could. Ramadan is not the time to do things in a few, a little bit, in small numbers. Rather, Ramadan is the time to put the pedal to the metal and try to do as much as you can. Any single minute that you have to recite Qur'an, take advantage of it. Any minute, any second that you have to make some du'a to Allah, some form of dhikr, salawat, sadaqa — take advantage of that second, because that second is never going to come back. We all have a limited amount of time on this earth, and as it constantly goes down, we're never going to get that time back. We have to take advantage of whatever time we have.

The Story of Imam Shu'bah and 18,000 Completions of the Qur'an

Abu Bakr ibn Ayyash, rahimahullah, who is famously known as Imam Shu'bah — he is one of the scholars of the qira'at, the different riwayat that we have. He was a student of Imam Asim. Imam Asim, rahimahullah, had two famous students: Hafs and Shu'bah. Hafs 'an Asim — this riwayah, this mode of recitation, is the one that probably 99% of people in America recite in. But Imam Asim had another famous student, Imam Shu'bah, who was also very well-known and very famous.

Imam Shu'bah, rahimahullah, when he was passing away — when he was on his deathbed — his sister was next to him and she was crying, obviously, because her brother was passing away. And of course, who wouldn't be sad? But he told his sister, to console her and to comfort her:

Don't cry. Look at this corner — in his room where he was living, there was an area where he used to recite the Qur'an. He said: look at this corner. I have completed — think, how many times? How many khatams did he mention? 10 khatams? 20 khatams? 50 khatams? We would be happy, subhanAllah, if we did one khatam. Or maybe imagine, on your deathbed, if you said you completed the Qur'an 100 times — subhanAllah, that's a lot. 500 times? 1,000 times? He said: I have completed the Qur'an in this corner 18,000 times. SubhanAllah. 18,000 times.

This, my dear respected brothers and sisters in Islam, is the practice that we find from the great scholars of the past. And by the way, this is just one corner of his home — the main area that he would recite. But that doesn't mean he never completed the Qur'an in the masjid, or outside of the home, or in different places. But just in this one corner, this area that perhaps he designated for recitation in his house, he completed 18,000 khatams of the Qur'an.

This is something that we should remind ourselves of — these stories of the great scholars of the past. How they would recite the Qur'an and connect with the Qur'an. Because then inshallah, it will motivate us as well. And we might think that these people lived in the past and don't exist anymore. But that's not true. We see this around us. There are still people today — and I've actually met individuals like this — who finish one khatam of the Qur'an every single day in the month of Ramadan. There are still people like this alive. If we are not able to do so — and obviously it's not necessarily a realistic goal for most of us — we should at least use this as motivation to recite as much of the Qur'an as we can. Take out time to connect to the Book of Allah during this beautiful month.

The Prophet's ﷺ Generosity in Ramadan

But, my dear respected brothers and sisters, the month of Ramadan is not just for the Qur'an only. Yes, the Qur'an is the thing that we should be engaging with the most in the month of Ramadan. But we find that the Prophet ﷺ engaged a lot more in different forms of ibadah as well, more specifically when it came to the month of Ramadan.

As the sahaba radiyallahu anhum described the Prophet ﷺ, they said that he was the most generous. Of all human beings, of course he was the most generous. And when the month of Ramadan came, he was even more generous. And they described him as being like a free-blowing wind. You know, a free-blowing wind doesn't discriminate who it benefits. When a wind blows, it doesn't say, "Okay, I'm going to benefit you, I'm not going to benefit you." Rather, the wind benefits everyone. In the same manner, the Prophet ﷺ — his generosity was such that it would benefit the people without restraint. The Prophet ﷺ was extremely, extremely generous in this beautiful month. And he encouraged the sahaba radiyallahu anhum to also be extremely generous during this beautiful month.

The Best Form of Sadaqa

We see that the sahaba radiyallahu anhum would give and give. And as a matter of fact, the Prophet ﷺ taught us that the best form of sadaqa is that sadaqa that actually hurts a little bit when you give it. Because if I have a thousand dollars and I give one dollar, that's not really going to hurt much — inshallah Allah will still accept it if it's done with sincerity, but it's relatively easy. I still have $999 more. But if I were to give $100, or $200, or $300, then that starts to hurt a little bit. You're going to start double-checking, triple-checking your bank account to see if you're able to do so.

The best form of sadaqa is that sadaqa that is given with full yaqeen in Allah — that He is going to not just give you that amount back, but Allah will multiply that amount.

A Personal Story: $100 and the Unexpected Return

I will end with a story of an individual — this just happened last year, and he was informing me. He was involved in a particular sin that he was trying to leave, but he would repeatedly come back to that sin over and over again. For one period of time, he had actually left that sin for a long time, but then he ended up committing that sin again and he felt really bad. And he heard from the ulema that when you commit a sin — especially a sin that you're trying to give up — give some form of sadaqa, because in addition to the tawbah that you perform, inshallah by this sadaqa or good deed that you're performing, Allah will accept it and accept your tawbah.

So he thought to himself, "Okay, I'm going to give some sadaqa." He thought, "Okay, I'll give $20." Then he said, "No, $20 is not that much. Let me give $50." Then he said, "No, $50 is not that much either." He wasn't too well-to-do, by the way. So he said, "Okay, I'm going to give $100." Mind you, a sin is a sin. But he felt bad for committing that sin, so he wanted to give an amount that kind of hurt a little bit. So he gave $100 in the path of Allah.

SubhanAllah — that same evening, within a few hours, he gets a notification on his phone that there was a deposit made into his bank account. He opens his bank account, and he saw — and this was a random time throughout the year, not the normal time to receive a tax refund — that he had gotten $6,000 that same night as a refund from the IRS. And he was completely shocked, because he was not expecting to get anything. Anything. His accountant hadn't mentioned to him that he was going to get anything. And it was a very odd time of the year where you usually don't get this money back.

But subhanAllah, he immediately realized that this was from Allah — that he gave $100 in the path of Allah, and he got $6,000 back within a few hours. Now of course, someone could look at this and just say, "Oh, that's just an interesting coincidence." But the reality, my dear respected brothers and sisters, is that we have to have yaqeen — that when we do something and Allah gives it back, this is solely from Allah. This is a blessing and a gift from Allah.

Announcement: Masjid Uthman Fundraiser

Now, my dear respected brothers and sisters in Islam, Alhamdulillah, Darussalam has graciously invited the team from Masjid Uthman to come and deliver the khutbah today. As many of you know, Alhamdulillah, I serve at Masjid Uthman. Mawlana Haroon also serves at Masjid Uthman. And Alhamdulillah, Darussalam has graciously invited us to talk a little bit about the programs that we have, and to set up a booth for individuals to donate on the way out.

As many of you know — and I know many of you actually pray at Masjid Uthman regularly, and some of you I see there on a daily basis, mashallah — Masjid Uthman serves nearly 1,000 children throughout its various programs. Between our two campuses, our main masjid as well as the academy building, we have almost 65,000 square feet. Our main masjid, Alhamdulillah, many of you have seen it — it's been open for over a year now since Ramadan of last year. We have over 150 students in the Hifz Academy, mashallah. And we recently purchased our academy building, which is about five minutes away from the masjid — a huge three-story building where our girls' Hifz school happens, our Sirat school, our after-school programs, our evening programs, and our weekend programs. So between these two facilities we have 65,000 square feet of space, mashallah.

This Ramadan, we are in need of some funds because we have currently about $382,000 left to pay from our construction costs. We need to wipe that off inshallah, get that done with, and then inshallah we can start focusing on the next stage — including parking, which as many of you can see is something we very much need. So inshallah, we request the brothers and sisters to give whatever they can for the sake of Allah. Inshallah, Allah will reward you in multitudes and multiply the sadaqa that you give over and over again.

Inshallah, on the way out you can donate. I also request the brothers to please stay back for about 10 minutes after the salah — Mawlana Haroon will come up and speak a little bit more about the project. There is also a booth on the way out. Jazakumullah khairan.

Announcements

If I could ask everyone to please pass the donation boxes from the left to the right. Sadaqa wards off calamities and draws Allah's mercy.

A couple of announcements:

• The community iftar will be this Saturday, February 28th. Registration closes tonight — please RSVP at masjidds.org/RSVP.
• The Pray, Play, and Learn program during Taraweeh for kids four years old and onwards will continue.
• The Sisters Recitation Circle is an online Qur'an recitation with Adema Niqat Muqeem, running from Ramadan 1st to the 20th.
• Finding Your Ramadan Rhythm is an exclusive program for sisters followed by iftar and dinner — with separate talks for adults, high schoolers, and kids, from 3:45 p.m.
• If you would like to register for i'tikaf, please do so at masjidds.org/RSVP.
• Please support our neighboring masjid and academy, Masjid Uthman, by visiting them in the lobby and outside, inshallah.

Mawlana Haroon: Appeal for Pledges

SubhanAllah — as Allah gives us tawfiq and facilitates good deeds for us in the month of Ramadan, we have to partake in that facilitation through human agency. And we have to inshallah invest in that. As Mufti Zeshan mentioned, we have quite a bit of debt. Altogether it's close to $750,000. And Allah will take care of it inshallah. The question is: are we going to become a part of that inshallah? And invest in our akhira through that medium.

So inshallah, if there are any brothers or sisters who can make intention to support the masjid — just pledge $5,000 inshallah. If you calculate it and bring it down on a monthly level, it's less than $500 a month. So if you do that inshallah, just to support the masjid, it will be a great means of sadaqa jariyyah for you inshallah. You can also pledge $2,500, $2,000, $1,000, or less — any pledge that you want to make to the masjid, you can visit the table outside.

SubhanAllah — as the Prophet ﷺ taught us, whatever you spend in the path of Allah is what you saved, what you invested in your real long-term 401k in Jannah. The 401k of this dunya is going to stay here when we leave this world. But the 401k of the akhira will come with you inshallah.

SubhanAllah, Allah's mercy is on this community. The manifestation of that mercy is in the form of the masajid, and the madaris, and the ilm and ulema that is in Chicago. The sharaf of Chicago comes from the masajid that you see on the horizon of Chicago now inshallah — not from other things, but from the masajid and the ulema and the ilm. And we have to partake in the manifestation of that mercy inshallah.

SubhanAllah, you know the first financier of the Prophet ﷺ was a sister — Khadijah radiyallahu anha. She didn't just help spiritually and emotionally as a support, but she also helped financially. So sisters also, subhanAllah, can partake in this.

MashallAllah, we have brothers and sisters making pledges. May Allah accept from all of you. May Allah give you and your families the best of dunya and akhira. May Allah continue to bless your families with more tawfiq, more amal, and more ilm. May Allah give you the water from the Hawd al-Kawthar with the blessed hands of Rasulullah ﷺ. Ameen.