My Ramadan 2012 Plan

Assalamu alaikum,

I recommend looking for Ramadan specials, like lecture series.

Here is my personal Ramadan and islamic education plan for this month. What I don't finish is still worthwhile to complete afterward. I do not have a job at the moment, so I realize it's not possible for evvveryone to do the same plan. I will continue the job hunt insh'Allah. Perhaps my circumstances will change and this plan will have to be updated.

1. Wake up, suhoor, fajr prayer.

2. Short walk outside.

3. Heart Wheel Journal - you can find it with a quick google search and on youtube the author has short videos to go with each day. Each day has 3 pages. The first one gives you some things to think about, the second is a prayer planner, and the third is a planner for the next day and a reflection on the current day. What is the heart wheel? It's visual representation of you current islamic performance compared to how you believe you can do it. The areas are fasting, salah, dhikr chunks, chastity, night prayer, upright character, avoiding distractions, and daily sadaqa. There is also a chart to track your concentration in salat. Aim: stay on point and make this my best Ramadan EVER, sustainable improvement with salat.

4. Understandquran.com - they have a special offer for Ramadan. $10 for the short course. What is it? It's a program for learning the arabic through what is used in salat and daily recitations. After completing the course, I should be able to read the Qur'an and understand about half of the words in it. The idea is that you are already familiar with the short surah and common phrases and you just need to learn the meaning. In my case I am not familiar with all of these things, so there will be a fair amount of memorization involved. Do one chapter every 1-3 days, depending on how much is unfamiliar. Aim: learn arabic, understand Qur'an more directly, increase focus in salat.

5. Module 1 of the Quranic Studies on this website: http://www.mubashirnazir.org/Courses/Quran/QS001-00-Quranenglish.htm The textbook also is made up of passages from the Qur'an and a variety of exercises, including some for personality development. Do one chapter every day or two. Aim: understand Qur'an, implement more of it, I will be ready to register for Module 2.

6. Nap two sleep cycles. One sleep cycle is 90 minutes, so 3 hours total. This is not to avoid hunger, it is to keep myself fresh because most likely I will have less than 6 hours sleep in the night and after too many days on 6 hours sleep and in the past this resulted in starting to miss suhoor AND fajr prayer. Without enough sleep I don't remember why my alarm is set because my brain is not in control yet. If I wait until later for a nap it makes staying up later too easy (bad idea). Get up around noon to be fully awake for the next prayer.

7. Dhuhr prayer

8. Clean, organize, online job applications

9. Asr prayer

10. Review the morning's work, do any necessary tasks, take a short walk, and prepare iftar.

11. At iftar break fast with dates and water then maghrib prayer.

12. Have good dinner, take fluids, do something fun until isha.

13. Isha prayer.

14. Go to sleep before 10:45pm



I would like to fit in reading from Enjoy Your Life by Dr. Muhamman Abd al-Rahman Al-Arifi. It's about interacting with people, "as deduced by a study of the prophet's life."
I would also like to do some small islamic cross-stitching. I can use it as an exercise in dhikr and then use them as eid gifts.

Nora

my pre-ramadan classes update

Assalamu alaikum,

I could finish the New Muslim Academy classes today, but they have not finished the discussion board activities. I intend to follow through all the activities. There are supposed to be a couple more classes, insh'Allah they will offer those before I have to leave them behind for other educational things.


Understandquran.com is no longer free, so I haven't been doing the short course. They have a Ramadan special of $10 for access to the short course. They need the memberships in order to pay for the development of new courses. There is more about that on their website. Insha'Allah I fill follow through the short course during Ramadan.


I found another source of free lessons for new muslims. There are no videos and no discussions. Currently it is a series of articles at 4 levels (currently 106 lessons total), each with a quiz. Register to have your grades tracked. I'm going to wait a while before sharing it until I am more sure they are a good place to learn from. 


Nora

My Pre-Ramadan Classes so far...

Salam,

I'm really liking the New Muslim Academy material so far. The Intro to Islam videos are nice. Each segment is about 13 minutes long and I find the speaker to be congenial. One of my favorite bits so far is that knowledge of God leads to love and closeness to him. That would help with improving frequency of practicing Islam more. And actually, knowledge itself isn't enough. If it's not used it there is no way for it to increase, indeed, if it is neglected then the knowledge is really of no practical benefit. When it is neglected it is easily forgotten. 

In the Understand Qur'an short course I am working on the second class. Once I get to the fourth class, my pace should speed up for a bit because I am more familiar with the surah covered in lesson 4-9.

I'm happy.