Assalamualaikum and greetings to everyone
Syawal is coming in about less than 24 hours and we definitely busy with decorating our house, preparing raya dishes and of course, waiting for all relatives to come and have a huge gathering. despite of being in joyous mode for Aidilfitri, why not we take some time to think and measure our key performance index or KPI (i really like this term) for ramadhan.
Starting with the very first day of ramadhan, where we set our mind towards total devotion to Allah and try to make this fasting month better than last year. Ramadhan is the month for us to clean our sins and pray for goodness in this world and the afterlife. Therefore, as part of the preparation, we set a list of ibadah- to-do during ramadhan. The question is, did we do that? or did we just celebrate ramadhan like other months, feeling nothing but only hunger and thirst.........
Then, moving on to the middle of ramadhan. The saf (people line up during prayer) is getting less for solat terawih. Parents start to think of preparations for Aidilfitri. New clothes, new furnitures and lots of new stuffs to be think of. Based on a hadith, the middle of ramadhan is the phase of forgiveness (maghfirah) and we should be waiting for this moment to pray to Allah and ask Him to delete our sins. However, things are different nowadays. Children starts to play with mercun, although the government has stressed on the dangers of mercun that can cause death and injuries. And yet, similar cases happened again this year, 6 year old died due to firework explosion, standard one student lost his finger because of mercun. Don't you think that we are wasting our money for this dangerous stuff and we encourage our kids to play with it? This is disgraceful for me, as a Malaysian where we never learn from our mistakes (we do learn, but take things for granted) and the worst thing is, we did not focus on the ramadhan itself. It should be clear that ramadhan is the month of ibadah, so, encourage yourself and the children to make more ibadah rather than doing unnecessary activities (in other terms, lagha stuffs).
Finally, we come to the last 10 days of ramadhan, and Lailatur Qadar (the night of power) is the night for His believers to increase our ibadah credit and wish for anything, as Allah will hear our demands. This is the last phase of ramadhan, the liberation from hell (i translate it directly from the term pembebasan dari api neraka). After we went through the maghfirah phase, we arrive to this phase where we ask for this special request. Hell is the place for infidels and those who did heavy sins to Allah, and the place is forever to them. Ramadhan is the only chance to grab this opportunity to get rid of this place and become a good muslim. Lailatulqadar offers us 83 years of pahala of ibadah, which is more than our age (definitely.....). Unfortunately, for some, we never appreciate these offers and just continue fasting with the old style which we do not know whether Allah approve our puasa or not. Furthermore, we did not instill our passion towards ramadhan because of our surroundings, environments that distracts us with Aidilfitri and duniawi stuffs. Try to think about it again......
And now, we are about hours before syawal..........
All things are ready for open house.....
The dishes, decorations......
And we about to leave ramadhan......
Did ramadhan bring changes or improvements to you?
Or just be the usual you......
Before we leave ramadhan, let's reflect ourselves again.....
Hopefully i can see you again, Ramadhan....
the month that brings rahmah to everyone......
the only month where my only aim is worshipping Allah...
and practice Islam thoroughly in my life....
I'm sorry i did not try my best to worship You...
yet i create many sins.......where did i go wrong?......
Oh Allah, please forgive me...
Give me another chance to repent and be a better person....
and have the chance to meet the next ramadhan.....amin...........
Wishing you Selamat Hari Raya Aidilfitri, maaf zahir batin......
Do enjoy yourselves during raya, and never forget to give thanks to Allah........
