Being Steadfast After Ramadhan

May peace be upon you.

2 months have passed since Ramadhan.
How have you been?
Better? Worser?

How is your relationship with Allah as His servant?
How is your relationship with humans as a khalifah?
How is your love for Prophet Muhammad PBUH?

How is your five daily obligatory prayers?
Are they done on time, as early as possible, with khusyuk(tranquility)?

How is your relationship with the Quran? Do you read it once a day, twice a day, once a week, occasionally when you feel like it?
Do you make time to read and understand the book of Allah or do you try to squeeze it into your day?

Are you still practising those sunnah practises like you regularly did in Ramadhan?
Solat sunat qabliyah subuh(2 rak'ahs before Fajr prayer) or waking up barely minutes before sunrise? What about Duha prayer? Solat witir after Isyak prayer?

Are you more aware of yourself, your mind and your heart? 
"Change your thinking, change your life". Still practise self-auditory exercise? The 5 prescribed medicines of the heart, do you take heed? For a heart that fluctuates, do you still practise reciting, "Ya muqollibal qulub, tsabbit qalbi ala deenik"?

What do you do with your money?
Do you set aside a certain amount for your parents? Every time before or after you enter or leave the mosque, do you drop a few dollars into the mosque's donation box? Do you give a certain amount to children or elderly who needs it?

Do you remember death, the grave, the torment of the grave, the questioning in the grave, the crossing of the Siraatul Mustaqim, the gathering at Padang Mahsyar more?

How is your attitude and behaviour towards your family, friends, brothers and sisters, neighbours, classmates, adults, children, elderly, non-Muslims, animals? Are they all the same?

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ramadhan may be over, but the Lord of Ramdhan and all the other months is still here, and still near. As each day passes, a part of us dies and a day we are closer to meeting our Creator, thus in between our arrival onto His Earth and the returning of us to Him, we should strive to prepare ourselves with good deeds and a pure heart through the various means we can utilize in this dunya.

Conclusively, there are many tools that we can pick up from Ramadhan that we can continue to utilize so as to sustain and improve the quality of our ibadah throughout the year.

Let's reflect and audit ourselves. Reset our minds. Purify our hearts.
Seek to be consistent and strive for excellence. In all that we do. 
For everything that we do, each decision, each step that we take, shall be a means to seek His Pleasure.

May Allah SWT grant us strength and patience.  Ameen.

We're dying, but we've not died yet.