Answer
In the Name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful.
All praise and thanks are due to Allah, and peace and blessings be upon His Messenger.
In this fatwa:
To benefit from Ramadan, we may do well to prepare for it by opening our hearts and minds to embrace it. Find below some useful tips.
Responding to your question, Sheikh Ahmad Kutty, a senior lecturer and an Islamic scholar at the Islamic Institute of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, states:
Ramadan is the most auspicious event that occurs every year. It should help us take stock of our lives, renew our faith, and empower us to fulfill our divine mandate on earth. Therefore, to benefit from Ramadan, we may do well to prepare for it by opening our hearts and minds to embrace it.
Let me offer a few tips on how to get ready for Ramadan:
- Welcome Ramadan with ardent fervor and zeal and expect to come out of it with your mind, body, and soul fully transformed.
- We should empower ourselves by learning as much as we can about the precise rules of fasting, as well as the benefits associated with it.
- Perform all acts of worship while being fully conscious of their inner dimensions and meanings. More often than not, we allow ourselves to go through these rituals as mere mechanical chores, so we gain virtually no spiritual or moral benefit from them.
- To gain maximum benefit from fasting, realize the genuine spirit of fasting. We can only do so by abstaining, not only from food, drink, and sex, but also by strictly restraining our minds, hearts, eyes, ears, hands, tongues, and other parts of our bodies.
- Being mindful of the above will help us practice fasting of the body, mind, and soul. As Imam Al-Ghazali said, the vast majority of people fast in name only, for, although they may stay away from food, drink, and sexual indulgences, their minds, eyes, ears, tongues, and other faculties feast on haram (unlawful matters).
- We must embrace the genuine spirit of fasting as stressed in the hadiths, so we ought to be charitable and compassionate as best as we can, both during Ramadan and after.
- We should strengthen our relationship with the Quran, for Ramadan is the month of the Quran.
- We should engage in Dhikr and condition ourselves to make it second nature to us.
- Last, but not least, we should build our communities through acts of charity and compassion and extend helping hands to those in need as much as we can.
Let us pray we come out of Ramadan with renewed faith, enhanced commitment, and a stronger connection with Allah.
Almighty Allah knows best.