Welcome Ramadhan with Joy!

9: Our Ultimate Purpose

What is the purpose of fasting? The ultimate goal of Ramadhan? What is it that we should achieve by the end of this beautiful, joyful month?

It is nothing but Taqwa.

Allah says,
يَٰٓأَيُّهَا ٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُواْ كُتِبَ عَلَيۡكُمُ ٱلصِّيَامُ كَمَا كُتِبَ عَلَى ٱلَّذِينَ مِن قَبۡلِكُمۡ لَعَلَّكُمۡ تَتَّقُونَ

O you who have believed, decreed upon you is fasting as it was decreed upon those before you that you may adopt taqwa.
-Surah Al-Baqarah, Ayah 183

So, you see, taqwa is our goal. Taqwa is what we must attain by the time we finish this joyful month.

But what is taqwa?
A beautiful dialogue between an illustrious Sahaabi enumerates it best.

Abu Salih reported: A man said to Abu Huraira RA “What is Taqwa?”
Abu Huraira said, “Have you ever taken a thorny path?”
The man said yes.
Abu Huraira said, “What did you do?”
The man said, “If I saw thorns, I would avoid them, pass over them, or stop short of them.”
Abu Huraira said, “That is Taqwa.”
(al-Zuhd al-Kabir 963)

From this, we can deduce that one of the prominent facets of taqwa is to protect ourselves from sins. And in our case, bad habits as well.

So, this Ramadhan, as we venture forth to race ahead in good deeds, let's not cast a blind eye towards our sins and short comings.

Alongside accumulating good deeds after good deeds, let's also put in an extra effort to leave off bad ones.

While we pray one Sunan after the other, let us not forget to tend to our mother who needs help in the kitchen.
While we finish our quran from cover to cover, let us not ignore our brother's request to help him with his homework.
While standing in qiyaam all night, let's not forget to aid our elderly neighbour.

Taqwa is not just about doing good deeds. It's more vast and encompassing than that. In fact, the primary aspect of taqwa is to prevent ourselves from bad actions.

Taqwa is when we hold back our urge to talk bad about people.
Taqwa is when we start off doing something to show people but decide to fix our intentions mid way.
Taqwa is when despite wasting time on social media, we pick ourself up to do something productive the moment we recall.
Taqwa is when we control our tongues from telling a lie, ready to face the consequences of truth.

Therefore, amidst the wonderful list we plan to do to collect good deeds, let's also add a list of the bad habits and sins we wish to break this month.

After all, our ultimate purpose in this month of joy is taqwa.