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Thursday 13 January 2011

New Year Resolutions - Part 1

Hope everyone had a wonderful start to this new year, inshaAllah. I felt like the previous year just flew by me and I didn't achieve much. So I've decided a make a few new year resolutions to help myself be a better Muslim and whether I achieve much in this dunya or not, I should prepare for my akhirah.

It is believe that in order to make anything a habit, one needs to repeat it over prolonged periods of time. Once you've done it 20 times or more, it will eventually come naturally. Hence, I've decided to spread my new years resolution over the period of next 12 months. This way, it is not overwhelming and it gives me time to practice.


The other benefit is that I have time to concentrate on perfecting this ONE thing and even if my imaan dwindles at any point, I can push myself to just do that single thing instead of trying to do a bunch of things and then feeling like I can't go on.

So here are my resolutions so far:

1. Praying salah at proper times. I wanted to start with salah because it's the difference between a true Muslim and a non Muslim. It's what makes us different. It's also the way we connect with Allah. Unfortunately, I used to miss prayers at times because I used to get preoccupied with other things or find it difficult to wake up for fajr.

2. Reciting Surah Kahf every Thursday after maghrib or on Friday before maghrib.

3. Reciting Surah Mulk daily. It's the Surah that will protect us again the punishment of the grave.

4. Learning a new Surah.

5. Waking up for tahajjud. Several scholars recommend this as the best time to pray and make heartfelt dua to Allah (swt).

6. Spending at least 2 mins reciting dua after every salah. Most people might find it confusing how this can be difficult. But, unfortunately, I never had the habit of making regular dua after salah but there are also other reasons which I won't go into.

7. Reciting duas upon waking up and going to bed. I would love to include how beneficial some of these duas are. InshaAllah, I'll cover them in individual posts when I get to them.

Right now this is no set order. I figure that I should probably test it out and see how it goes before fixating on what I'm going to be doing next. One thing's for sure, salah is this month's priority.

Now these are only 7 because at the moment as they are something I want to achieve. I may make changes as and when I see fit. If anyone would like to join me, they are most welcome. And of course, it doesn't have to be the same set of things that you'd like to do. It can be anything you'd like to fix. Do let me know if you decide to join. It might be more motivating for us. :)