Am I feeling more spiritual?\u00a0 No, not really.\u00a0 A lot of that is just because my nature is very grounded and logical.\u00a0 I did not fall in love with Islam by listening to the Adhan while visiting an exotic Muslim land.\u00a0 I do not weep when I pray.\u00a0 I don\u2019t feel transcendent in my prayers.\u00a0 I fidget and get distracted and have to just about staple my feet to the musallah to stay where I am and get through four raka\u2019ats.\u00a0 I am a very practical Muslimah.\u00a0 I believe one hundred percent in Islam.\u00a0 I am convinced of the truth of tauheed and the importance of living according to the laws set down by Allah.\u00a0 I struggle with the discipline of prayer but I believe in it absolutely.\u00a0 I love reading books about Islam, books on hadith and tafsir and history and stories of the prophets, and am more comfortable with them than I am with listening to Qur\u2019an.\u00a0 I have a mental block against memorizing, not just Qur\u2019an but Arabic vocabulary, and it frustrates me and makes me feel guilty \u2013 ah, there goes that guilt again! \u2013 that I memorize in such fits and starts.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t make any grand promise to myself to finish memorizing Juz \u2018Amma.\u00a0 I just said I\u2019d try to work on surat ad-Duha.\u00a0 I have gotten about halfway through and haven\u2019t worked on it in several days.\u00a0 I imagine I\u2019ll get back to it and finish it someday soon, inshaAllah.\u00a0 Or perhaps not, distracted by work and kids and house and exhaustion from getting up so early.\u00a0 Only time will tell.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve been Muslim almost 18 years now and I\u2019m mostly comfortable with my approach to Islam.\u00a0 I know there are more emotional types and more practical types.\u00a0 There is room in Islam for the Abu Bakrs and the Uthmaans.\u00a0 I do wish I was able to lose myself in my Islam more, that I could quiet the unease in me and just \u201cbe\u201d in the moment when I am praying or reading or listening to Qur\u2019an, but that is not my nature and I know that Allah knows what\u2019s going on in my heart and my brain and that I am devoted to Islam unconditionally.\u00a0 So even though I\u2019m not a \u201cgood\u201d Muslim, I know I\u2019m a striving Muslim in my heart even when my actions are falling behind.\u00a0 I don\u2019t rest on my laurels thinking that I can just coast along and Allah will forgive my shortcomings, but now, after probably the first fifteen years of being Muslim, I no longer constantly mentally berate myself for when I do something wrong. <\/p>\n
Tonight is the 25th night of Ramadan.\u00a0 The kids are in bed, I actually prayed the ishaa\u2019 on time, and I read up to and into the 26th Juz in English.\u00a0 I found my dhikr beads and inshaAllah after I spend some time online I will make istighfar and recite some du\u2019a that I read in Sahih al Bukhari.\u00a0 I usually don\u2019t put on Qur\u2019an when I\u2019m trying to sleep because I end up trying to listen and hear what is being said and then that keeps me awake, but I\u2019ve had about four iced coffees so I think I\u2019ll be up for a while.\u00a0 I\u2019ll check Facebook and say hello to some friends and comment on some status updates, and then I\u2019ll try to find some nice websites to read or maybe work on that surah.\u00a0 I ask Allah to forgive me and to support me and help me to be more productive in all areas of my life.\u00a0 My mantra is one day at a time and so far it\u2019s been working. \u00a0<\/p><\/div>\n
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<\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bismillahi Rahmani Rahim Salaam Alaikum wa Rahmatullah How is my\u00a0 Ramadan going so far?\u00a0 Am I spending my days in constant remembrance of Allah?\u00a0 Am I devoting more time to study and acts of \u2018ibaadah?\u00a0 Am I feeling a huge spiritual uplift this time of year?\u00a0 Well, for me it\u2019s both simple and complicated.\u00a0 I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":81,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n