Ramadan, the blessed and beloved month has arrived. Lucky are the ones who are striving hard to please Allah Most High in Ramadan. It’s the time when we can develop many good habits and help others to get closer to Allah. I am sure some of you are the eldest siblings at home as I am, al-hamdu lillah, so there are some additional responsibilities on us. We must realize the fact that young Muslims are the future of this Ummah, so we must be a good example for them to follow. We must realize that it is our duty to help them understand the beautiful teachings of Islam. In the Qur’an, Allah says:

Each year when Ramadan comes, Muslims fast, pray, give charity, do Qiyam Al-Layl, but this Ramadan my family decided to do something else along with fulfilling all the obligations to make this Ramadan very special.

I had to take my siblings to the roof so that we all could watch the new moon and make du`aa’. Everybody was so excited! When the moon was sighted, everyone was so happy and saying “ma sha’Allah, such a beautiful new moon.” Some kids tried to take pictures of the new moon—some of them succeeded—as you can see well in the attached picture.

They hugged each other and wished each other a happy Ramadan. Everyone was busy decorating the home with balloons on which they wrote “Ramadan Mubarak” and drew a new moon on each balloon with markers—my siblings had to do all these things by themselves—we didn’t buy them Ramadan balloons. They made Ramadan cards and gave them to family members and their classmates. They were very excited and each of them decided to fast the whole month. Mum knows they are too young to fast whole month so she is taking special care of everyone.

When we have little siblings at home, we must do something to let them love Ramadan more and understand its importance. They made invitation cards by themselves and invited their friends to have iftar at our home on the second  day of Ramadan. They had to help me and Mum to arrange their iftar. They decided what to cook and how to serve. They prayed together and had a discussion about how to spend Ramadan.

Goodbye, Television

Me: Hey, Ninu, stop watching cartoons, it’s Ramadan! You should do something that benefits you.

Ninu: (yells) Mummyyyyy! Sis is not letting me watch TV.

Me: (thinks) Uh!!! It won’t work like this. Guess I’ll have to do something else!

Me: (hugs little Ninu) Hey, Ninu, let’s make a timetable and I will give you some Ramadan projects as well. We will enjoy it a lot! Come with me, I’ll show you how to do it. I have glitters and crayons.

Ninu: (stands up and turns off television) Yuhu!!! We are going to make a Ramadan project. Hey, Abdullah, Tayyab, come join us, see what we are doing in here.

The thing I wanted to show via this conversation is that if you think your little siblings should not watch television in Ramadan, and should not spend most of their time playing, then it’s your duty to make them realize with kindness and love. You will have to keep them busy with Islamic activities somehow. A few ideas are as follows:

1. Ask them to collect hadith about Ramadan. Write a short note about each and ask them to tell you what they have learned.

2. Ask them to write down the names of their friends and five things they are doing this Ramadan.

3. Encourage your little siblings to have a small Ramadan halaqah (study circle) for themselves and their friends. 

4. Arrange a Ramadan quiz competition at home/

5. Ask your siblings to write stories in which one of the teachings of Islam should be discussed. Give them candies after iftar.

I created it on MS Excel. It’s a simple chart. Each sibling gets 10 points. 5 for sawm (fasting) and 5 for salah. When they try hard to please Allah and do more good deeds, they earn more points like +1 or +2. I only have to write the points and the date.

The one who earns maximum points will be given a surprise gift from Mum and Dad on `Eid, in sha’ Allah. I think they all will earn the same maximum points as this competition is getting very tough. Some kids are even doing Tahajjud Prayers. This way I can explain to them in a better way about how our deeds are being recorded, how these good deeds will help us on the Day of Judgment.. 

We planned to record Qur’anic recitations and nasheeds (Islamic songs) in their voices in Windows Movie Maker and burn it in a CD-ROM so the siblings will have their own nasheed album, in sha’ Allah.

So these were some of the things that we are doing this Ramadan. I hope this helps many Muslim brothers and sisters. Remember us in your dua`aa’.