Steadfastness after Ramadan 1/2

Praise be to Allah the Lord of the worlds! A praise such like that of His thankful servants, and I send peace and blessings on the most honourable of messengers and the Seal of the Prophets, our master Mohammed peace be upon him.

There goes Ramadan bidding farewell to us after it has arrived as a dear and cherished guest upon us for 30 days, but did Ramadan leave us while satisfied with us, or did it depart tearful out of grief upon us and upon our states ... We ask Allah to accept from us Ramadan as He suffered us to witness Ramadan and helped us to fast it, perform the night prayers therein and recite the Quran throughout its night and parts of its day.

My dear respected friends, today’s meeting is concerning (steadfastness after Ramadan) and the emphasis of the lecture will be on several points, which are as follows:

1) Be not like a woman who breaks into untwisted strands the yarn which she has spun, after it has become strong.

2) Beware of Satan.

3) Beware of falling determination (five things to help you stabilize your level of faith).

4) How to know whether Ramadan has been accepted or not?
5) Ramadan is a starting point and not an endpoint.

The first point (Be not like a woman who breaks into untwisted strands the yarn which she has spun)

What do you say to a woman who sat down for a whole month making a garment out of wool by means of a spindle, until when the yarn was nearing the finish; she broke it into untwisted strands.

This example represents the case of some of us; as soon as the month of Ramadan ends, he reverts to disobedience and sins. He is throughout the month in prayers and fasting, night prayers, humbleness and weeping, invocations and pleadings. He has thus excelled in spinning the yarn of his acts of worship ... To the extent that one of us wishes that Allah allows him to remain in that state, in which he is, due to extent of delight he finds from the thrill of worship and obedience, but he invalidates all of this yarn following the sunset of the last day of Ramadan ... Many ask themselves why have I done this and is amazed, and the answer to this question is illustrated by the following point.

The second point (Beware of Satan)

An enemy overlooked by so many and is not endowed with consideration except to whom my Lord does bestow His mercy, despite our knowledge of his enmity to us and what he wants from us, and a word I address to myself and to you: isn’t it a disgrace that Satan masters the art of planning and manufacturing of goals and insists upon them, and we ignore them ... Satan has a message, which is to admit you to the fire, and has clear objectives for that message, which is to make you fall in disobedience and sin, which will be a cause of you entering the hell fire. As for us, what is our mission in life? What are our goals? What is our duty towards our religion? Or do we live to eat, drink and marry?

Satan was locked away from us for a whole month and is now out and has freed himself, and remains insistent on achieving his goal, which is to make you fall into disobedience. The first thing he does with you on the first day after Ramadan is falling into sin, a sin that is not simple, so that destroys all that you did in Ramadan of acts of worship. Are we going to surrender to him or are we going to plan as he does... And here, a nice point I would like to refer to, namely that Satan has devised two plans for you; one prior to Ramadan and the second after it. The one before Ramadan would be in the month of Sha'aban, the second would be in the month of Shawwal. In the month of Sha'ban, he tries hard to make you commit the largest amount of sins before entering into Ramadan, so that the month comes and you are in great disobedience, which affects you throughout the month, so that when you wake up from it, the month of Shawwal has come and faced you with a further disobedience, and so on. And we have in our Prophet, peace be upon him, a good example for salvation from this plan of Satan. The noble Prophet reminded us and urged us to take care of the month of Sha'aban. He said: that is a month overlooked by many people and ordered us to fast some days of it to be prepared for Ramadan, and to remember the virtue of fasting and get oneself accustomed to it and be safe from Satan's plan, which is prior to Ramadan, then the Prophet peace be upon him orders fasting a few days of Shawwal and gave the incentive and award to those who fast it; which is his saying: "Whoever fasts Ramadan then followed it by six days of Shawwal, it was (for him) like fasting a lifetime ... Why all this, O Messenger of Allah! Firstly to be steadfast in obedience; secondly, to encounter Satan's plan, and especially in this month. After Ramadan, he will try to make you fall into the sin of adultery, family problems, problems with friends or forsaking acts of worship and watching movies;  essentially anything that takes you out from the atmosphere of obedience to be an easy catch for him ... Because at the moment of his coming out, he comes out tumultuous and furious;  all he did with you throughout the year, and the sins which he landed you in have been forgiven in a month (see the insistence from him to lead you to the fire), he wants you to lose what you gained as a reward in this month in one day, to prove to you that there is no benefit to come from you, and however obedient you are, it is easy to fall into sin.

The remedy of this point is to remain steadfast in obedience for a week after Ramadan, to force Satan to change his plan with you, and to confirm to him that you have really changed for the better, and to understand that we turn to the third point, for it clarifies that.

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