Ramadan Mubarak

I pray for a peaceful and reflective month for you all and myself

Starting tonight, the holy month of Ramadan begins for Muslims everywhere. As a quick change of mood from yesterday, I wanted to extend both my gratitude and my congratulations to all my brothers and sisters in faith reading for reaching this month. Allah created this world to be a chaotic and messy place, we never know if we’ll live long enough to reach the next big event in life, our next achievement, let alone the greatest month of each year. As the prayer goes when we approach this month, as close as it is now: Oh Allah, allow us to reach Ramadan!

My Plan

Each Ramadan is a reflective month for me. Health wise it benefits me greatly, despite my fitness and physique my diet year round isnt the best - and this month is always an opportunity to cleanse from it. Alhamdulilah I have never had an issue with smoking or drugs…except for caffiene. Spiritually it is a different matter. I try to improve just a little each year, but seeing as now I’ve dedicated to writing about topics of my religion that I love, I deem it necessary to step it up. I’m going to be completing the entire Quran this month, as well as replace what I’m listening to on my commute and at work with an Islamic history course. It’s about 30 hours, one that covers the entire 1400 year period from the Seerah to WW1 by Ismail Kamdar (it’s actually on discount now for $30).

I will still be exercising about 3 times a week after Iftar. Any of my fellow Muslim gym bros know the struggle of maintaining your strength/size after a month of fasting. My advice is this: do what you can, but realize the condition of your muscles shouldn’t be your greatest concern right now. Your worship comes first. If you have a few years of experience at the gym, you actually gain back what you lost very easily in the weeks after Eid. There’s also this great post by BowTiedOx from last night which goes over many helpful tips.

As for posts on this blog, I will continue to post regularly. Expect a much calmer mood, and topics that don’t have much to do with contemporary issues. Rather, I want to post about more abstract and contemplative things, Islamic and otherwise I think you will like.

Other than that, I hope you guys and girls have a peaceful and productive Ramadan, uninterrupted by strife and malice. If you’re reading this, realize how grateful to God you should be that you lived to reach this month knowing all that could have happened.

Salam.