Osman Mia
Rasulullah s.a.w. said that Ramadan is the month of the nation. Meaning, among others, it is the month where devils are chained allowing us to worship our Lord without being hindered by the accursed ones. It is also a month where tribulations are eased and with the coronavirus crisis going on right now, many are wishing for some ease.
These are three of the things I am doing this Ramadan, which you can, too:
Terawih prayers are prayers done every night in Ramadan, usually in congregations at mosques. With the lockdown, terawih will have to be done at home. What better way of keeping the family together than to do the terawih prayers together.
For me and my family, we do a fast and simple version of the terawih, following the way Mawlana Sheikh Nazim used to do at Peckham mosque in London. For several years I spent the last few days of Ramadan in London. I remember the shivering winters, the Turkish kebabs and the great comrades from back then.
Here's an audio recording on Youtube of one of the terawih prayers at Peckham.
I am taking this opportunity to do prolonged fasting. In normal days, there's too much food to tempt you throughout the day. In Ramadan, food is only after breaking of fast and so the temptation is much less. Plus, the devils have been rounded up and chained and so our willpower is greater.
So it's dry fasting between first light of dawn and sunset, which is the Ramadan fasting, and water fasting between sunset and dawn. See this note on types of fasting.
I am only doing my prolonged fasting for a few days to meet some of my targets. One of them is to bring down my visceral fat rating from 11 to 8.
This kind of goes without saying, but many people end up eating more in Ramadan than other months. For me, once I've met my prolonged fasting targets, it's back to the easy fasting routine with dry fasting between first light of dawn and sunset.
© Osman Mia