Ramadan everyday

Anxiously waiting to hear the announcement for Eid, I was thinking about the countless blessings of the month that was departing. My anxiety wasn't so much because I was excited about the holiday, but rather it was due to my having to let go of peace. Like any Muslim, I didn't want Ramadan to leave me. It seemed I had just begun to realize the bounties saturated within this month, let alone start to take advantage of them. I had just learned to experience the beauty of reciting Quran, holding my tongue, of praying qiyam. "I can't believe it's all over," I thought as I waited to hear the news of Eid. But alas! Allah had granted me another day of peace as I was told Eid would be the day after next and not the next day. I had one more day to bask in the blessings of Ramadan, to soak in the goodness of the month and to earn rewards that I perhaps could not earn any other time of year. But what will happen when tomorrow is gone? I will find myself in the same predicament.

I have concluded that while Ramadan is a month that is definitively a physical period predetermined as the moon testifies, it is also very much defined by our hearts and minds. We can switch on the light of Ramadan if we want to. It is within our reach, but we must stretch our arms to get it. And if it is within our reach, then it seems to me it can be obtained any time of year. I recall sitting in the masjid during this month in the middle of the night. The lights were dimmed and if you were to listen carefully, you could hear only the continuous murmur of reciting servants. You could bend in sujood and spend countless minutes conversing with your Lord, imploring Him for guidance, yearning for His love. And while generally in Ramadan we may feel a continuous stream of the eman high, we somehow trick ourselves into thinking that the second Ramadan ends and Shawwal begins, we don't have to be as devote. We are under the impression that perhaps the new moon has brought with it some sort of barrier between us and Allah. And so we submit to the idea that like the temporal period of time that passed us, the attitude too was simply temporal, our behavior as ephemeral as our breath. Why do we fall, or, rather jump into this yearly trap? Who are we kidding?

Ramadan can persist within us, even during the month of Shawwal, and the month of Safar and even every other Islamic month we don't know the name of (let's face it, it's sad but true). We can enjoy the recitation of the Quran and we can strive to make it the spring of our hearts. We can restrain ourselves from indulging in backbiting and slandering others. And we can, without a doubt inshaAllah, converse with our Lord with just as much sincerity as we had in those late night Ramadan qiyams. It is but a matter of seeing Ramadan in a new light- as not just a month made up of a certain number of days and nights, but as an essence dwelling forever within us. We can turn the light of Ramadan on, on any given day or night, turning to the One who gave us the ability to think outside the box, just occasionally.