School’s out and the summer is here and I’ve been trying to do a bit of planning and set up goals for the summer. I’ve never really set up any goals earlier and I feel that in order to develop better as a Muslim, I should try it out. While setting up guidelines for how I should spend my days this summer I started thinking to myself, wouldn’t it be great if there was a guide or program for how the “average Muslim” should spend his days (obviously these would just be guidelines). For instance, these things could be included:
* Make sure to recite the Qur’an every day. For example, use the morning hours for revision and memorization of new ayat, and evening hours to recite it in general, pondering over the meaning (you could recite a juzz every day so you will finish it within a month).
* Sit down at least a couple of days a week to read a book about fiqh, seerah, hadith, etc. Examples of books are: “Riyadus-Saliheen”, “The Sealed Nectar”, etc.
* Listen to a ders and/or attend a halaqah at least once a week.
* Pray duha, witr etc.
These things are easy to do and don’t take up a lot of time. You aren’t on the path of becoming a Talib al-’Ilm or anything by doing them, you are simply a regular Muslim.
The purpose of this “guide” would be to kind of codify the knowledge an average, regular Muslim needs in his everyday life. It can be hard to search out and compile this information in various Islamic materials for someone that isn’t that knowledgable to being with. This shouldn’t be confused with a “new Muslim guide”, rather it is for people that have been Muslims for a while and do have basic knowledge (like knowing how to recite the Qur’an). To give another example of what I mean, this type of information would also be included:
* There are some things that are wajib for you to know, like basic ‘Aqidah (nothing to advanced), fiqh (memorize the Shurut, Arkan, Wajibat etc. of Salaat and learn for example the fiqh of trade if you work in this field, etc.), some facts about your Prophet sall Allahu ‘alayhi wa sallam (and then these facts are listed), etc.
* Everybody sins, but the major sins need to be avoided especially. They are…
This guide would be kind of like this article, just a bit less about how the days are spend and more about basic information for someone that wants to live a fulfilling life as a devout Muslim, while not necessarily having the desire to become a full-fledged Talib al-’Ilm. Other things that could be included are information about the day of Friday (it is a day of Eid, you perform ghusul, read Surat al-Kahf etc.), special days in the Muslim calendar (ten days of Dhul-Hijjah, etc.) and these kind of things so that all the basic information an average Muslim needs in his practical life is compiled.
In my first “being an average Muslim”-article I mentioned a lecture by Yasir Qadhi and I’m doing it now again because in that lecture there is a brief guide for how to seek knowledge as an average Muslim here in the West and he gives a lot of practical advice (for instance, he gives some examples of good books and gives concrete advice on how you could spend your time). So that lecture is exactly what I’m talking about and I’d like to see more of that insha’Allah. I especially like the part in the lecture about the Muslim’s relationship to the Qur’an.
Maybe a fitting title for this kind of guide would be “Islamic culture” (notice how I didn’t write “Muslim culture”). I mean, things like the day of Friday, recitation and memorization of the Qur’an, praying Salat al-Witr before sleep, adhkar from the Sunnah during the day, etc. are all characteristics of Islamic culture and that should be our culture.
While Minhaj al-Muslim and The Ideal Muslim/The Ideal Muslimah are examples of books that deal with this subject, I was thinking of something like these books combined with the way Yasir Qadhi gives practical examples in the lecture. Also, I just came to think about something as I was letting my imagination fly. If this “guide” were to be in the form of a book, a bit more focus would be on Muslim identity (since it would be about “Islamic culture”). So, for instance, if a certain chapter deals with Eid, maybe instead of everything being about the fiqh of Eid, there could be something about how Muslims in different parts of the world celebrate Eid as well. But I’m really getting things out of hand, lol. I was really thinking of this “guide” to be in the form of a short article and not at all about things like Muslim customs around the world. Again, I’m just letting my imagination fly.
