The Downfall Of Summer Time On My Salaah

Ramadan Blues and The Summer Ahead

Author

Thasneema
April 19th, 2024

Assalamualaikum my dear,

How has your first week after Ramadan been going? Have you been feeling the Ramadan blues - feeling a bit disoriented as you try to go back to your daily routines of food and sleep, but while trying to maintain Ramadans spirituality?

I have definitely been feeling all that. And to top it off, I’ve been in bed for most of this week trying to fight off some virus that’s going around. It was almost like my body was waiting for Eid to collapse.

It’s been a week of body aches, coughs and sniffles. As a result, I’ve been barely keeping afloat with all my post Ramadan goals, and I’ve been feeling a bit frustrated with myself.

I know I needed to give my body a bit of a break. But at the same time, there was so much I needed to do! A few days in bed was ok, but more than a week? No thank you. My innate restlessness was kicking in.

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A turn in the day

I had a complete different reflection ready to send to you today, about work and money and juicy things like that. All it needed was a final edit, but as I tried to read through it, my mind was just not settling. There was this feeling of frustration and I was unable to concentrate.

The day was sunny and pleasant. The sun was streaming through the blinds into our home, but I was struggling to feel positive about a lot.

As a result, (as we all do) I decided to procastinate a bit, and organise my written pieces (since I lose way too many!). And alhamdulillah for that, because I came across one of my own pieces that I needed to hear for myself again.

People ask me why I write, and honestly one of the biggest reasons is to remind myself first, subhanallah. There have been more times than I can remember where something I wrote in the past came as a teacher to my present.

I’ve edited it a bit, just to share with you the main parts. But I could not resist sharing it with you, since I’m sure some of you may be feeling the same as I.

Why My Morning Routine Keeps Failing

Every night I have a plan for my morning. Hifdh, exercise, write a blog post, etc. They’re all tasks I set for myself to do before the daily grind begins.

But for some reason, I end up waking at Fajr time so groggy and brain dread that before my mind can even comprehend anything, I’m back in bed snoring away even before my head hits the pillow.

I wake up 2 hours later and then it hits me, there’s no way I can do all the things I’d planned for. Now, the daily chores begin and I’ll only have a few hours to myself.

And it carries on, day after day after day.

—

The same thing happened today morning and I’d had enough with myself. I spent nearly the whole morning thinking about this – what am I doing wrong?

Why am I not able to get those few hours in the morning – those hours ripe with barakah (blessings)? Was it because of my sleep cycles, or maybe the type of dinner I was eating? There was nothing drastically bad about them.

Then late into the afternoon, as I slowly got up from the couch to get ready for dhuhr, it hit me – I was asking the wrong question.

The actual question should be – why is Allah not allowing me to benefit from those barakah-filled morning hours?

And I knew the answer.

—

I was actually living the answer in that very moment as I made my way to my prayer mat – 3 hours later from the start time of the Dhuhr prayer.

If I’m late to my five daily meetings with my Lord, then how can I expect to be given assistance to be in time for anything else…including waking up in those morning hours?

How can I expect My Lord to unlock the doors to these moments filled with barakah for myself?

—

I see it as an example like this — you are an employee of a company and as part of your job, you are required to attend five set meetings a day. At the same time, the company offers daily optional sessions that will help boost your employee profile helping you to fast forward into your career.

But you have to sign up to attend these optional sessions and there are only limited places. Would the employee who shows their dedication by attending all five daily meetings punctually and prepared be given first preference to attend these optional sessions? Or the employee that turns up late and unprepared?

(Allah is above any of these human examples, but I wanted to share this just to provide an example easier to understand)

—

It’s not fun realising you’re slipping up in things, but I wanted to still share this reflection. I think a lot of the times, in these scenarios we think the answer to ‘waking up early’ lies in getting more sleep or eating less for dinner.

These are important, for sure. But focusing on just the physical needs of our body will never be enough. A whole dimension of our body is being missed out — our spiritual needs.

I used to do the same too but over time I started noticing a pattern. The days that I spent doing more dhikr or my salaah was more punctual, etc. my eyes would shoot open a good while before Fajr. And there’s an energy coursing through me and my body is ready for the day ahead. This was regardless of whether I had 3 hours or 8 hours of sleep, 8 cups of water or none at all.

More times than we realise, it’s not our physical or mental health that is holding us back, it’s actually just a poor spiritual health.

So going forward, I know the only real solution to catching those morning hours is to turn up punctually to the five daily meetings prescribed to me. To exercise and feed my spiritual self through the actions that have been prescribed to it.

May Allah keep us all in the best spiritual health.

Ameen ya Rabb.

Current Me Reflections

Although this post was about gaining the barakah of the morning, its focus on salaah is what struck me.

After reading this, I immediately glanced over at the clock. It was 6.10pm. Asr had kicked in around an hour ago. But with it being summer, I had more than 2 hours before Magrib kicked in.

Hmm, I’m not really late that late though.

That was my first thought.

But just a few seconds later, I stopped me in my tracks. Now all those feelings of restlessness and frustration made complete sense.

I may not be late to my salaah, but having that thought showed me something else about myself. I knew right there and then - salaah had slipped from my priority list.

—

Summer = Lazy Phase

Winter forces us all to plan our lives around salaah. 3 out of our 5 prayers are right smack in the middle of our day. Blink for too long, and you’ve just missed dhuhr!

I remember times in university where we’d have to leave the lecture hall to pray Asr because it was still Dhuhr when the lecture began and by the time it would finish, it would already be Magrib.

But summer…summer is the opposite. Summer…summer makes us lazy.

The time between one salaah to the next is hours and hours. Dhuhr starts at lunch but stays around all the way, till we get home from work or school. Soon, we’ll have a short span of time where we can wait till we get home from work and pray even dhuhr.

This means, we no longer need to plan our days around salaah.

Alhamdulillah for the ease Allah gave us. But it’s also a huge test.

Because suddenly, Salaah doesn’t form the foundation of our daily plan. Suddenly, Salaah just becomes an afterthought.

And that is dangerous.

—

Our Spiritual Health

A dear friend shared this beautiful quote on her status which made me see the concept of Salaah, and in extension any fardh (obligatory) acts, in a complete different light -

I love this! What a profound way to see Salaah.

These 5 daily prayers is what Allah prescribed to us as the minimum sustenance our soul needs.

Summer Salaahs As An Afterthought

Salaah becoming an after-thought is like making food or sleep an afterthought. It’s like pushing off our lunch until our stomachs grumbling makes the lady next to you glance over. Or like putting off sleep until your head starts to hurt so bad, you see flashing stars.

We would never do that to our bodies. We would never push our bodies to its brink before giving it what it needs.

But why do we do that to our soul - our spiritual body?

Why do we think it’s ok to keep pushing the needs of our soul till its brink before heading to our prayer mat.

And most of all, why do we expect our bodies and our minds to function as normal and optimal as we’d like it to, when we are starving our souls?

—

I wanted to share these thoughts with you today because I know some of you may be in the same boat as I. As we all try to keep up all our goals from Ramadan and try and keep of the post-Ramadan slump, sometimes the basics slip through the crack. We don’t notice the days grow longer, our salaahs stretching out. But then, we feel this sense of restlessness internally, a lack of peace, and we can’t piece it together.

Salaah is the food and the sleep of our soul. It is what feeds it and rests it. So whenever we feel misbalanced, a bit out of tune, trust me - the answer always lies in our salaah.

I pray Allah makes us those who prioritise their salaah above all else. Ameen.

And that is all from me this week!

Please keep my fitting coughs in your prayers 🤍

From the reflection corner,

Thasneema 🌻