11-10-2003, 12:00 AM
It was narrated by Salman al-Farsi that the messenger of Allah delivered this sermon on the last day of Shaban. The Prophet (saw) said:
"All you people! A great and blessed month has arrived for you. A month with a night that is better than 1000 months. Fasting during this month is a duty, and extra prayers during it's nights are voluntary. Anyone who comes closer to Allah through good deeds in this month, it is as if he has perfprmed an obligation during times other than Ramadan. He who fufills an obligation in it will be like the one who fufills seventy obligations in another month. It is the month of Patience, and the reward is Paradise.
It is the month to visit the poor, the sick, and the needy to share their sorrows. It is the month where the food, sustanance, and the earnings of a believing Muslim increases and they are blessed.
Anyone who invites others to break their fast at dusk will have his sins forgiven and be saved from Hellfire. He will recieve the reward of the fasting person, without reducing his own reward at all.
Allah will reward you even is you help the Muslim break the fast with a date, a sip of water or milk......it is a month whos beginning is Mercy, its middle is Forgivness, and the last part is freedom from Hellfire.
Increase in yourselves four things: two with which you can please your Lord, and two others by which you cannot live without. The first two things which please Allah are to declare there is no God but Allah, and tto ask Allah's forgivness...The other two, which you can't live without are: to ask Allah for Paradise and to ask His protection from hellfire. Anyone who gives water to a Muslim at Iftar, Allah will give him water during the Day of Judgement from the fountain of the Prophet Muhammad, which will quench his thirst until he enters Paradise."
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May we all strive to be better Muslims this Ramadan.