بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم

Assalamu Alaikum,

(These Roman Numerals are starting to get more complicated.)

The last two days have been nuts and today will probably be nuts as it is potentially the last day of Ramadan. But I am not sad. I am not planning to leave Allah swt’s presence after Ramadan. In fact, Ramadan is here just to give us a gentle nudge or ‘recharge’ or another way to remember to constantly turn back to Allah.

With that said, don’t be disheartened that Ramadan is ending. Allah’s love will be with you. He is the Most Loving.

Anyway, the topic(s) of today’s epiphany(s) deal with yesterday (Friday). Thursday deserves its own post, but because yesterday is still fresh in my mind, I better write it now:

I went to a different Masjid to attend the ending of the recitation of the Quran and the ‘khatm’ duaa afterwards. I don’t like to use the term ‘khatm’ as it suggests that the Imam ‘ended’ the Quran. He actually finished it in the 19th rakah, and in the 20th, he started again with surah Baqarah. The reason for this is so people don’t think you simply ‘end’ at the closing of Ramadan. Islam is this constantly cycle of renewing ourselves and going back to Allah. It kind of reminds me of the Expanding and Contracting cycle–>we keep going in and out, but we must always keep coming back.

So after the 20th rakah, we all sat and the duaa began. The first half of the duaa was in Arabic and I understood a good portion of it because some of the duaas the Imam were making were duaas I have learned. Some of them were beautifully spoken (in terms of language) and some I simply didn’t know. I obviously broke a few tears and prayed for everyone’s forgiveness, spiritual state, relationship with Allah swt, etc. etc. until the Imam started to speak in English. Read the rest of this entry »