Dear Najamsahar,
Thank you so much for sharing this. Masha allah it is so much of an inspiration to others.
I feel a sense of rashq towards you masha allah, that you have the chance to spend your ramadan in Jeddah :) It must surely be so so great than so many other places. May allah reward you immensely, and may you reap all the barakah of that land.
Congratulations on your umrah!
I have hardly much to add from my end, both myself and my husband work, and we are not living in a muslim country, so all the ramadan that we have on a daily basis is in our hearts. Alhamdulillah.
Okay, Sehar time ends around 4:15-ish (well it keeps shifiting by a minute everyday), and maghrib is at 5:00-ish. [guess my rozas are almost the same length as yours ].
I have a baby who is almost a year, and he gets up every night in the middle of the night. So instead of a proper suhoor, I take a small snack when I have put the baby to sleep once again during midnight. This could be from 1:30, to 3:00 -- his timings vary everday [ yeah, I am struggling with this one, alhamdulillah]
Maghrib is at work, so I carry a small snack (mostly a tuna sandwitch) with dates, fruits or fruit yougurt, and either take a fruit drink from the auto vender or carry a can from home. My husband picks our elder kid from school around 4:30, so he has his iftaar at home, then prays and goes back to work.
I return from work around 6:00pm. [Have already prayed maghrib at workplace]. Pick our baby from daycare, and start the household - washing dishes, preparing dinner, giving dinner to the kids, laundary etc. My husband returns by 9:00 or 9:30 usually. By this time the little one is in bed, and i have either prayed my isha or am going to.
Sometimes I take dinner with the kids, on others I wait for my husband to return. - There is really no specific rule at home :)
This ramadan, I had dropped my daily wirds of the Quran and tried to recite it from the beginning. Alhamdulillah, i did not aim to finish the entire book, since that would be too much injustice to my home and kids. I try my best to recite half a juz each night once the children are settled.
I cannot stay up all nights since I have to work, thus I did salat al tasbih in the odd nights so far. I hope my situation improves as the kids grow, and I can do better. And all tawfiq is from allah alone.
Oh, btw, my prayers during the day are very peaceful, since I do them at workplace, and it is very quiet.
The weather here is very good, we are actually wearing light jackets, and today I even used cotton gloves. So we hardly feel a thing during the fast, alhamdulillah.
We have a small muslim community who get together on iftaar on sundays. We join them there. On weekends, people also invite others home for iftaar. We plan to take our turn this saturday insha allah.
On all other saturdays we had iftaar together. For this I prepared besan ke pakorey (aloo, piyaz aur baigan ] fruits, a drink, and some sandwitches or burger- Hey, I am indian as well. We also like fruit chaat, and chholey (oh, I do stock chholas for my husband during the weekdays). No samosas - its a big deal for me. But I have a japanese version of it, its called gyoza. We can buy the skin, or the chapati, in which you wrap the samosas - it does not taste exactly same, but can at least give a nostalgia for home.
I did a couple of islamic courses online and that was great, alhamdulillah. Lots and lots to learn. Now my aim is to stay tuned in applying all of it in life, insha allah. Please remember me in your duas that I can do it. I do not have an internet at home, since there is no point, we hardly have time - my only access is at work. My work is such that on certain days I can get hours to myself, while on others there is hardly time to breathe - but I dont mind any of it. The best way I found to utilize my time was to learn some deen through online islamic academy.
You mentioned about shukr. it is alhamdulillah a great thing. I learnt this month that the amount of shukr we owe to Allah is so much that we can never be able to pay off. There are so many visible things for which we can understand to send gratitude, but there are multitudes of more aspects we might not be aware of, or they do not come to mind. So, alhamdulillah! to everything. A shaykh in fact said when we send gratitude, the tawfiq to do so is from allah. Therefore for the act of mere gratitude we need to send gratitudes, since He turned our hearts and allowed us to realize this is due unto Him.
May allah direct our hearts to His slavehood, this ramadan and months to follow thence, ameen.
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