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Ramadan Reflections: Day 16 Nafs Hack with Nourah Samarkandi
Nafs Hack: Timing with Zhikr Assalamu alaikum! My name is Nourah Samarkandi, and this is my Nafs Hack for today. I like to do stretches in the morning. Normally, people time themselves with a timer when they’re doing stretches, but I like to time myself by saying Azkar Al-Subah. For example, when I do one move I say Surah Al-Falaq, and for the next move I say Surah An-Nas. This way, I remember to do my stretches and my azkar. You can apply this to any exercise you normally do. I hope this helps you remember to say your azkar during this Ramadan.
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Ramadan Reflections: Day 15 Nafs Hack with Sharif Aly
Nafs Hack: Holding Your Tongue Assalamu alaikum! This is Sharif Aly, and this is your Nafs Hack for today. Alhamdulillah, it’s such a blessing that we’re able to to experience this month of Ramadan together. One of the things that I’m constantly reminded of in Ramadan amidst the amount of worship that we do is that we cannot forget that Ramadan goes beyond abstaining from food and drink, beyond these areas of worship, but also in how we conduct ourselves in our behaviors. I know it’s easier said than done, but protecting our tongue and what we say, like stopping ourselves from gossiping or backbiting, is also a key part…
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Ramadan Reflections: Day 14 Nafs Hack with Amin Aaser
Nafs Hack: Intentionality I was 24 years old, I come home, and my mom looks at me, she says, ‘Amin, I need a grandchild.’ The problem was I wasn’t even married, so I was like, ‘Mom, c’mon.’ But what that meant for me was that I needed to find my wife. So, I took it with the same level of seriousness that I do everything else in life. I created a PowerPoint presentation, created an Excel spreadsheet, started thinking about all of the things I needed to find in my wife, and alhamdulillah I found her. When I did, I remember going to jummah and meeting one of my teachers,…
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Ramadan Reflections: Day 13 Nafs Hack with Nancy Khalil
Nafs Hack: Mandatory Vs. Optional When I was in college, I worked with a team to organize logistics for a very large Muslim college students’ retreat that was taking place in Boston. It was the first of its kind. I spent months organizing with my team, and a few weeks before we were supposed to go on the retreat, the option for me to go to Hajj emerged. I struggled. I didn’t want to let the committee down. I didn’t want to let the retreat down. I wanted to go on it with my friends, but Hajj is a really big deal. So, I talked through it with a friend,…
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Ramadan Reflections: Day 12 Nafs Hack with David Hawa
Nafs Hack: Increasing Your Giving Assalamu alaikum! This is your brother, David, with Islamic Relief USA with today’s Ramadan Reflection, Nafs Hack edition. This month, we have increased our worship and ibadath, we increased our salah, we increased praying, we increased our fasting, we increased our sadaqah, our charity that we’ve been giving. Now, some of us will ask, how do we, if we give throughout the year and we kind of live almost paycheck-to-paycheck, how do we give extra during the month of Ramadan? Well, this is a little hack that I’ve done for myself to increase my giving during the month of Ramadan. What I’ve done is calculate…
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Ramadan Reflections: Day 11 Nafs Hack with Waleed Gabr
Nafs Hack: Smiling Assalamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatu. Ramadan Mubarak to you and your family. My name is Waleed Gabr. I work with Islamic Relief, and my Nafs Hack is smiling. A lot of times, we interact with people and don’t realize the power of a smile. Many times, I come across a lot of people in the work that we do, which is such a blessing and so uplifting, and we actually don’t realize how powerful a smile is. Some people always ask me, ‘Why are you smiling?’ And I just reply back to them and say, ‘What is there to worry about?’ Alhamdullilah, Allah (SWT) has blessed…
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Ramadan Reflections: Day 10 Nafs Hack with Hamdy Radwan
Nafs Hack: Be Grateful for Your Food Assalamu alaikum. My name is Hamdy Radwan, and I am the vice chair of the board of trustees for Islamic Relief USA. This is my Nafs Hack. There are some people that are not as privileged as you are, and they may be short of food. I heard some stories coming from Africa recently. The mother and the father gave their kids the option to eat either in the morning or in the evening because they couldn’t afford two meals a day. I’m not saying that to feel bad about them because Allah (SWT) is the provider, and he provides everyone with his…
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IRUSA Hosts Iftar with US Department of Agriculture
An opportunity to break bread with government officials in charge of administering food policies remains one of Islamic Relief USA’s longest running annual rituals. On May 9, we were especially pleased to sponsor an iftar with the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). It was the eighth consecutive year that IRUSA sponsored the annual USDA event and the 11th straight year the USDA haled the annual interfaith event. More than 100 people were in attendance, a cross section of faith leaders, representatives of elected officials, farmers, and friends and family of USDA and IRUSA staff. Mike Beatty, acting director of the USDA Office of Partnership and Public Engagement, said he…
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Ramadan Reflections: Day 9 Nafs Hack with Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf
Nafs Hack: Contemplating Death Assalamu alaikum. My name is Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf, and this is my Nafs Hack. When I was in Sacramento (prior to a game), I was taking my pre-game nap, and I had a dream. To this day this dream bothers me. I had a dream I was walking over a bridge, and right underneath the bridge there a was a fire—hellfire. As I was walking, the bridge collapsed; when it collapsed, I went with it. But there was something that stopped me. And I didn’t want to shift and move my head. I’m looking up to see what prevented my fall, and it was a string of…
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Ramadan Reflections: Day 8 Nafs Hack with Mariama Badjie
Nafs Hack: Do it with Ihsan Assalamu alaikum! My name is Mariama Badjie, and I’m here with today’s Nafs Hack. When I was a freshman in high school, in my AP world history class, my teacher called on me and he asked me, do you think the Roman empire would have been what it was if Julius Caesar never existed? And I said no, Julius Caesar was amazing or infamous—however you want to look at it. But what he did wasn’t irreplaceable. I stopped and I said, well, maybe, maybe if he didn’t do what he did, someone else would’ve. And he said exactly. This is a concept in history.…
