Monday, September 8, 2008

Ramadhan Challenge

Recently, I had the opportunity to join the Friday prayers at the IIUM mosque for the second time in my (almost) three years here. I don't know about other mosques in other universities (or anywhere else in Malaysia), but I love the fact that there are many females who join the Friday prayers here. Most of them are international students of course, but there are also a couple of Malay girls who go. And another thing that makes IIUM unique is the fact that the sermon (khutbah) is either in Arabic or English. It so happened that on that particular Friday, the sermon was in Arabic. I tried my utmost best to understand the sermon based on my rather pitiful Arabic vocabulary, and there were a couple of things which I understood.

Fortunately, the khatib repeated the sermon in English, and it turned out that he was talking about how Ramadhan is a month of good deeds, good behaviour, etc. But the challenge is: Can maintain carrying out the good deeds and good behaviour even when Ramadhan is over?? Since Ramadhan is a month of training, lets hope that we will apply and continue to practice all these good stuff even after Ramadhan.

On another note, we are now entering the last ten days of Ramadhan. How time flies! I think it's a big challenge today to accomplish our daily tasks, yet still try to perform tarawih prayers and other types of ibadah. But we should be grateful that we have it easier than the Prophet and his Companions who fought in the Battle of Badr while fasting. Or to take a more modern example, at least we have sufficient food (regardless whether the food is tasty or not...heh heh) for iftar and sahur compared to our other unfortunate Muslim brothers and sisters in Iraq and so on.

So lets try our best to increase our ibadah activities...and may Allah bless us all.

5 comments:

Mr Bubu said...

Salam sis.
Since you've "exclusively" asked me to drop a comment, I felt I should after knowing that this will be the first comment of this particular post. Hehe.

I remembered that exact khutbah (gratefully :P). Of course I'd be ideal to have the idea of continuing the spirit of Ramadhan to any other months of the Hijra' year, but an opposing view (which supports what has happened) is that the idea remained as an idea.

We cannot deny that when Ramadhan passes, so does the spirit of it (i.e. awareness of doing good and doing more ibadah). The idea to why this happens might be that it is "exclusive".

Ramadhan being exclusive has its pros n cons. One is that it opposes that idea of continuing the spirit of Ramadhan beyond the month of Ramadhan. On the other hand, if (naudzubillah for this thinking) it is done all the time, there won't be any exclusivity of Ramadhan and its spirit themselves. This, will render Ramadhan to be just another month that is not THAT special anymore (according to social context).

Of course, those who are the steadfast believers know that is not true. Ramadhan will still be special even if the spirit of Ramadhan carries through our everyday lives. But hey, not everyone view it that way.

I might drag this matter into another lengthy debate, but to conclude, I'd say that the idea of prolonging the spirit of Ramadhan outside of the month itself is good, ideally. And it's good to remind people about it. But what I'm implying is that what is happening is the otherwise. We pray that it will be better i'Allah. Amin :)

فاطمة said...

slmt hari raya aidilfitri jg :)
maaf zahir batin :) lama tak jpe ..rindula ;D

فاطمة said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
pulasan007 said...

it has been like what...21 and a half years since u last updated the blog.huhu

Little Bookworm said...

Bubu - thanx so much for your exclusive "post". ahax. to be honest, i agree with your opinion...which i know contradicts what i said in my post, but i just felt like i had to say (what i said in my post)...if you get what i mean. anyway, do continue to drop ur comments! ;-)

Kak Fatimah - saya dah nak cuti dah...11hb balik umah. tak sabar ni!! nanti kita jumpa ye insya Allah ;-)

Miqdad - hah! i almost had a heart attack tgk ko comment kt blog aku! haha. satisfied with my new post? tak pe, aku balik umah nnt aku update byk2 smpai ko tak larat nk baca. hehe. have "fun" in o&g!!

“A good book is the best of friends, the same today and forever.”
- Martin Tupper