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 the money I’ve saved from eating. Normally, typically, if I go out for lunch I’m going to spend anywhere from $8 to $12 just to get a meal. You know, I don’t really eat breakfast. So, this is money saved. You know, $10 to $20 a day you spend eating.

In Ramadan, we should be spending less. So, what I typically do is take that money and I put it aside. So if I’m saving $300—$10 a day x 30 days is about $300, and if I multiply that by everybody in my household, as a household we’re saving this much money. I take that money saved and I put it to charitable causes, and one of my favorite charities to give to is Islamic Relief USA.

And I’ve taken this concept and applied it to other things that I do—like this annual iftar. I have an annual iftar where I invite friends from the community and family, and I tell them to come over.

But one of my stipulations is don’t bring any cakes—definitely don’t need them. Don’t bring any sweets, any flowers. Instead, that money that you were going to bring as a gift and the money that you were going to spend on the iftar, donate it for a cause.

This year I’m working with Islamic Relief and LaunchGood to give for orphans. Lots of people who are reading this are probably not coming to my iftar, but please donate. Help orphans around the world. It just takes $2 to help an orphan for a day. Go to this link and donate $2. If I get the most supporters today, Launchgood will additionally give $5,000 to my campaign. That’s like helping 10 orphans for a whole year.

If you can give today, anything, but mainly if you can try to give that $2 or $1 if you have to. But please help today.

I ask Allah (SWT) to accept your Ramadan. I ask Allah (SWT) to help us see the end of Ramadan. I ask Allah (SWT) to bless us and grant us jannah. Assalamu alaikum.