Sunday, August 31, 2008

"This day have We perfected for you your religion and finalized Our blessing upon you, and We are pleased that Islam be your religion."

These words from the Quran are probably my favorite and remembering this message from Allah makes me feel very proud to be born a Muslim. God-willing everyone finds their goals fulfilled during this Holy month and I pray that we all attain closeness to Allah, peace of mind, humbled characters, completion of the Quraan at least once, and anything else we strive for individually.

I will pray my first Taraweeh of the month tonight (Taraweeh is the special prayer for Ramadan that can be offered by choice each evening, in which portions of the Quraan are recited). I must admit prepping for Ramadan this time was hard for me; I'm talking about just grasping the fact that Ramadan was approaching. Usually, there is a feeling I get before the start of the month and this time it just didn't occur to me until a few hours ago.

This is the first time in my life that Ramadan arrives at the end of the summer and that's probably the biggest reason I couldn't believe it until now (I'm used to days being shorter in Ramadan and the weather being chilly, so just the visual reminders were absent).

For those of you confused about why Ramadan doesn't occur the same time every year, in contrast to the Gregorian calendar, the Islamic year is dependent on the cycles of the moon. I would never do justice in trying to explain this, so here's a very good link at handy-dandy Wikipedia (I love that site...well most of it).

Well, I better get going and kick the month off to a good start (and hopefully maintain it that way through the end). I'm super excited Alhamdulilah! Oh, and I also get to start my new job on Tuesday, during this Ramadan, I think that's a blessing in disguise =D.

Have a blessed month, you and your families!

7 comments:

Farnnay said...

I really like that Ayah.Which Surah is it from?

Very nice, and I felt the same way about Ramadan starting in the summer too and not being ready and all. But I think I finally got excited and pumped when I realized that we're all doing it together this year. Well at least starting together :) Let's see how Eid turns out.

Artistic Logic said...

Its from Surah Al-Maidah =) I was going to put it in the title but then didn't, thanks for asking hehe

Artistic Logic said...

o and i was too scared to ask if we're all starting on the same day...mostly cause I get sad when we don't
but im glad we are =) (i hope we are)

Sana said...

Ramadan Mubarak!
Ramadan here is boring.
Pray that I make it productive anyways.

Artistic Logic said...

ahh falling up you're crazy, Ramadan is so much fun back home

supreem said...

yay! yay! ramadan!

Chuckle said...

there's this one nasheed (islamic song?) that one of my sister downloaded on our ipod (that we all try to share but dont). it's like those opera-type kinda gothic kinda 300ish (the movie). and i really like it. oh yeah and it's about ramadan.

i think.

well the title of it is ramadan. and they do say it a couple of times in the song. but i have no idea because they're singing in a language that i don't understand but wish i did.

sigh...

anyway you should ask her to listen to it.

ok now i can't help but feel like an idiot because i reallly wanna understand and speak that language.

maybe one day.

the end.