how to be religious – Surobi Scribbles

How To Master Your Salah (Even At School or At Work)

Surobi Mohammed — Sat, 11 Mar 2023 21:59:48 +0000

“Between a man and shirk and kufr there stands his neglect of the prayer.”
Narrated by Muslim in Kitaab al-Eemaan from Jaabir ibn ‘Abd-Allaah from the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him)

I know how it feels. You are a busy student in school, you may not have many Muslim friends, and you really want to pray your Salah in school, but you don’t know how to. How do you keep your Wudhu? How do you make the time to pray? How do you get rid of the embarrassment of someone walking into your room when you pray? Worry not, because in this article, I will be sharing with you all the tips on how to pray even in school or at work, whether you are a Hijabi or a non Hijabi.

What is Salah?

Salah is one of the pillars of Islam. Muslims perform prayers and pray their 5 prayers throughout the day at set assigned times.

Before school/work:

Make Wudhu.

Hopefully, you are making Wudhu in the morning for Fajr anyways. You can choose to keep this Wudhu on for the rest of the day or even do Wudhu right before you leave the house. Regardless of when you do Wudhu, wear a pair of socks while you are in the state of Wudhu. Even if you do not plan to break your Wudhu, if it ends happening, you can just do Masah over Socks.

Take the essentials with you.

If you are a non Hijabi, always keep a headscarf with you, preferably the long home ones. You can just buy one only to wear outside and always keep it in your bag. Also have a pocket prayer mat. If you wear makeup, and you suspect you will need to wipe your make up off, have a cleanser and cotton pads to wipe them off. Keep a water bottle to use in the toilet, if you need to use the toilet. For me as a Hijabi, I just carry a pocket prayer mat with me everywhere. I also keep a moisturiser to moisturise my face after Wudhu.

It might seem like a lot, but trust me, it is not that much in the long run.

Check the prayer times and make a to do list around your prayers.

This is the best way to ensure your prayers are incorporated. You can also fit your tasks around your prayers. Another reason why you should do this is because then you also know when your free periods are to make Wudhu so you can get prepared for prayer.

During School/Work:

Do Wudhu.

So it may feel a little scary to do this in public. But please do not be ashamed of doing Wudhu in front of others. Muslims will usually know what you are doing and if you encounter non Muslims, tell them that you are getting ready for prayer. If they have questions, seek knowledge about Wudhu. Remember that you are not only spreading Dawah but you are also cleansing yourself and your sins are falling off before prayer. So make Wudhu with confidence.

You also don’t need to wash your feet if you did Masah over socks. If you want more information about this, check out this article.

Find a spot to pray.

You are incredibly lucky if you have a prayer room in your school/work place. I am absolutely blessed that my school does have a prayer room and I thank Allah for it. If you don’t have access to a prayer room, find a spare room to pray in. No one should ever restrict you from prayer unless you are interrupting anything. Have the app on your phone to find the Qibla and then place your pocket prayer mat on the ground and pray!

Bonus tip: consistency is key!

On those days where your Imaan is low, you may find it hard to pray. There will be days where you ask yourself what is the point, you may feel lazy or too sad. But remember that Allah sees your efforts. And indeed, Allah promises that:

Make friends who also pray if possible! You can keep each other accountable! You can then start to go to Islamic events and improve even more. But always keep your intentions pure.

So keep praying! It will pay off in this life or/and in the Hereafter In Sha Allah!

That is it! That is how you pray!

I hope you have enjoyed reading this article. If you enjoyed this article or found it beneficial, please check out my other articles too:

As always, Allah knows best. Thank you for reading, and have a lovely day!

Shaytan’s Khutbah / Discussing The Social Issues of the 21st Century

Surobi Mohammed — Sun, 29 Jan 2023 21:15:57 +0000

Assalamu Alaikum to the Muslims or hello to the non-Muslims! In this article, I will be sharing my fabulous and exciting trip to East London Mosque where I listened to a talk from The Sunnah Guy and Abu Taymiyyah. This happened on the 14th January 2023, and it was the first Islamic event I attended on 2023 Alhamdulillah. So what did I learn?

Disclaimer: As usual, I was not able to list all the lessons I learnt on this blog post, so I am just sharing some of the key highlights that I learned.

What is the ‘Shaytan’s Khutbah’ event?

This event happened in the East London Mosque, held by The Sunnah Guy and Abu Taymiyah. They discussed some of the social issues of the 21st century so it was the perfect talk for everyone.

Timeline of Events:

The doors opened at 6:30pm. My sister and I arrived slightly later. This event was so packed with thousands of people that they had to open up the first floor Subhanallah! My sister and I went upstairs and we were able to watch it from the big screen. It was spacious and there were many sisters there.

First Speaker: The Sunnah Guy
Prayed Isha in East London Mosque
Second Speaker: Charity
Third Speaker: Abu Taymiyah
The Sunnah Guy and Abu Taymiyah
QnA session

First Speaker: The Sunnah Guy

I was so excited to see The Sunnah Guy as his shorts on YouTube are very engaging and beneficial. You can find them here: https://youtube.com/@thesunnahguy
‘The best of sinners are those who turn back to Allah.’
One’s desires are their shackles so don’t be fooled by social media as they may lack fulfilment and instead have the right expectations in this world
Focus on yourself and save yourself from the Hellfire by being with ode who encourage you to be on right path and never feel shy to be Muslim.

Second Speaker: Charity Partner

Third Speaker: Abu Taymiyah

There will be four directions which are the ways Shaytan takes you away from Allah:
Front – doubts about the Hereafter and religion (through philosophy)
Back – cause them to love the Dunya and keep asking ‘what’s next?’ when in reality the heart craves for its Creator.
Right – blocking away from knowledge.
Shaytan cannot come above and in between you and Allah.
Our ultimate purpose is to worship Allah.
Shaytan can use other tricks such as through pronouns/surgery/watching movies. But the most beloved act of Shaytan is drugs and intoxication.
Every man is for himself so don’t do evil acts for anyone and you are the one who accepts the invitation.
The two types of clothing are:
Clothing to wear on our bodies.
Clothing of Taqwa: having self consciousness
Men are made weak so be careful how you conduct yourself.
The more you learn about Allah, the more glorified it will become.
The 6 tricks of the devil: committing Kufr/Shirk, innovations, major sins, minor sins, busying yourself with what is less virtuous, and your family members.
Always ask yourself, ‘what is the root cause of all these sins?’
Everyone is welcome in the mosque, whether you are a non Hijabi or whether you are a niqabi, Whether you are a drug addict, whether you are practising or non practising, you are welcome into the mosque and into Islam.

Fourth Speaker: The Sunnah Guy and Abu Taymiyah

Stay close to your elders and a man and a woman should not be secluded.
The more Haram you do outside of marriage, the less Baraka in your marriage.
Men’s weakness are women and money so make sure you have good people around you.
Music will cause hypocrisy as it exposes you to women, takes you away from Quran and the love of music and Quran cannot happen together.

Q&A session

Work towards being a righteous person. Look for a wife not only with looks but also who will be a righteous mother.
To stop watching inappropriate content online, get rid of smartphone just like Sulaiman (pbuh) slaughtered his branded horse.
Pray two rakats when you fall into sin and keep going.

Food:

In terms of food, my sister each had our own egg bread which was bread containing egg which was really huge and quite delicious. We also had pakoras.

Alhamdulillah, this was my article on this amazing event! I really enjoyed this event by the mercy of Allah and I would highly recommend anyone to come to events such as these. It was very engaging and both speakers were fabulous (may Allah bless them).

Please share this article with anyone who can benefit.

Of course, as always Allah knows best.

Thank you for reading, and have a lovely day!

How To Get Back On Track For Ramadan 2022

Surobi Mohammed — Sun, 10 Apr 2022 20:53:14 +0000

“The most beloved of deeds to Allah are those that are most consistent, even if it is small.”
Bukhari

Assalamu Alaikum fellow Muslims or hello to my non-Muslim friends!

As I write this article, it is now the 10th Ramadan 2022. We are around ⅓ of the way into Ramadan, and I feel like it has gone so fast. However, have you been productive so far? Perhaps, you feel that you haven’t been as productive these first few days of Ramadan. Or perhaps, you were smashing it in the start and then slowly trailed off. In this article, I will be sharing with you how to increase your productivity during Ramadan and keep that momentum going for the rest of Ramadan.

Look back at your goals and your tracker.

The first thing I would suggest doing is looking at your routine right now and also at the goals you want to achieve. Hopefully, you have a plan on what goals you want to achieve this Ramadan and also a tracker to track your progress. If not, make one right now using this link: Make Ramadan 2021 The Best Ramadan! / Ultimate Step By Step Ramadan Prep Guide – Surobi Scribbles. This will allow you to know what you have to do moving forward.

Fix up your sleep schedule.

One of the main things that I realised when I was falling behind on my productivity in Ramadan was the fact that my sleep schedule was inconsistent. I know it can be difficult to plan when you will sleep in Ramadan especially if you have commitments such as work or school. But sleep is what can structure your routine. Sleep at your optimal sleep times and then work on the other times.

Make to do lists and plan around your prayers.

Hopefully, now you have fixed up your sleep schedule and that should make things 10x easier. But what do you do now that you are awake? In this case, I would suggest making a simple to-do list of what you have to do, especially if you have to revise for exams like me. One tip that I learnt a long time ago is that you can first start by writing your 5 prayers in your to-do list and then incorporating your other tasks around your prayer.

Remember the reason why you are doing this: consistency is key.

It is okay if you mess up one day and you only manage to read 1 page of the Quran one day instead of your daily 10 pages. We all do have a busy schedule and it is all about the intention. Have a strong intention that you are doing good deeds for the sake of Allah. But also remember that your career and studying can also be for the sake of Allah so have that intention you are studying and revising for Him. Seek forgiveness and try your best to move on and keep being consistent in your good deeds, even if they are small.

Gain support and support others.

If you feel that the whole year round, you haven’t charged up your Iman for a while and you want to now use this Ramadan to spiritually recharge, then I know it can be difficult. However, don’t think that you are alone in this. We are all Muslims part of one Ummah. If you have any questions or you find anything difficult, please speak up and aks your fellow Muslim brothers and sister. Research from verified sources and listen to Shaykhs and Muftis. You are never too late to start.

One huge lesson that was reinforced for me this year:

This lesson is crucial. Unfortunately, we live in a society where everyone seems to be judging each other and sometimes, you might be afraid of looking like ‘a Ramadan Muslim’ or you think others are judging you because you suddenly decided to be religious this month. I have felt like I am being judged as a non-Hijabi and maybe subconsciously we have all judged others. Please do not think this way. Everyone is minding their own business and people who are judging you or others are wasting their own time. Don’t focus on who is judging you. Instead, focus on yourself and your connection with Allah this month, and remember that you are in your own journey in Islam. We should all be proud of each other for all the good that we do. That is what makes us an Ummah.

I hope these tips and the final message I gave helped you in some way. In Sha Allah you will implement one of these in your own life. Please remember to share this article with your family and friends to spread the messages and gain rewards In Sha Allah. Please check out my other articles below:

Thank you for reading, and have a lovely day!