Assalamualaikum, Bismillah

First of all, I would like to say thank you to Assistant Prof. Dr. Nurul Hidayah bin Samsulrizal and the department of plant science kuliyyah of science international Islamic university Malaysia because inviting me as a guest speaker today. May Allah bless all of you.

               Today, the topic is Ramadhan's month of blessing. This topic is very interesting and very nice and very important to every one of us, because, 

1) Ramadhan itself month of blessing 

2) this month has lailatul qadar

 3) the reward will be double and more 

4) the last one is, remember, we need to get the blessing of Allah not only in Ramadhan but we hope Allah blesses us every day, every time, every second in our life.

Brothers and sisters,

Let me ask you something, what is blessed? What is the definition of blessing? We always say Allah Allah bless you. In Arabic, we used to say, barakallahu lakuma, Allahu yubariku fik, barakallah fik. What is a blessing actually? There are many ayat and verses that mention the word tabaraka. For example, tabarakallazi biyadihi mulk.

               Bless means berkat, many welfares. For instance, we do iftar. Our budget is RM 1000.00 for 100 people. Suddenly, the person comes around 150. We are much panicked but we don’t know, suddenly all 150 person gets their iftar. That’s what we call berkat or bless. I had my own experience. During SPM, I and 2 of my friends studied together for the last subject, we slept at musalla, we studied together, we woke up early together, and we tahajud together. When SPM results came out, only one person succeeded meanwhile I did not. So I think that maybe Allah blesses him more than me because perhaps he is closer to Allah, perhaps he closer to his family and his teacher. See, that is what we called berkat.

Brothers and sisters and my fellow friend,

For this moment very short talk, I will simply share a few tips about how to get the blessing by Allah in this Ramadhan month of blessing. At the same time, would like to stress, that we must practice these tips not only for this month but we supposedly practice in our daily life, why? Because we hope Allah blesses us every day, every time, every second in our life and not in Ramadhan only. So, we must start now. Insyaallah Allah will bless us.

إِنَّ الَّذِينَ يَتْلُونَ كِتَابَ اللَّهِ وَأَقَامُوا الصَّلَاةَ وَأَنفَقُوا مِمَّا رَزَقْنَاهُمْ سِرًّا وَعَلَانِيَةً يَرْجُونَ تِجَارَةً لَّن تَبُورَ .لِيُوَفِّيَهُمْ أُجُورَهُمْ وَيَزِيدَهُم مِّن فَضْلِهِ ۚ إِنَّهُ غَفُورٌ شَكُورٌ.

(29) Indeed, those who recite the Book of Allah and establish prayer and spend [in His cause] out of what We have provided them, secretly and publicly, [can] expect a profit that will never perish -

( 30 )   That He may give them in full their rewards and increase for them of His bounty. Indeed, He is Forgiving and Appreciative.

يَتْلُونَ كِتَابَ اللَّهِ

They recite the Book of Allah

The first way or tip is to recite al-Quran. Yatlu word derived from tala, yatlu and tilawah. Have you heard the word tilawah, of course right? Tilawah kebangsaan, tilawah antarabangsa and the others. And maybe some of you had experience participating in the tilawah competition. So what is tilawah actually? From this word, it contains several meanings, we need to know some of them, why? Because we must understand al-Quran well so that Allah will give blessing towards us and al-Quran give shafaat for us also. This is what we called a blessing.

               First, recite or read loudly and nicely. For example, while we are waiting for khutbah sermons at shas mosque, why not we read al-Kahf but no need to read loudly and disturb others, maybe there are people who want to sleep and rest, at least we read and we can hear by ourselves.

               Secondly, read with tajwid, at least mad asli, for example, Qala Allah, not Qalallah, Inna not ina. We must ensure to recite al-Quran very well, and pronounce it properly if we recite different harakat for example might we get a sin and the worst is batal solat, for example, Alhamdulillah we read alhamdulillah.

               Thirdly, try to memorize the al-Quran as much as we can even though juzu’ 30, is okay.

               Forth, belief, this is very important brothers and sisters. Okay, now because here, there are many lecturers, staff, and students from kuliyyah of sciences, I would like to mention something that is related to sciences. Allah says: وَالشَّمْسُ تَجْرِي لِمُسْتَقَرٍّ لَّهَا

And the sun runs [on course] toward its stopping point (Surah Yassin 36:40)

And Allah says:

لَا الشَّمْسُ يَنبَغِي لَهَا أَن تُدْرِكَ الْقَمَرَ وَلَا اللَّيْلُ سَابِقُ النَّهَارِ ۚ وَكُلٌّ فِي فَلَكٍ يَسْبَحُونَ

It is not allowable for the sun to reach the moon, nor does the night overtake the day, but each, in an orbit, is swimming. (Surah Yassin 40:40).

At the time our prophet SAW times, sahabah, tabi’ tabi’in times, they don’t have telescopes, right? They don’t have NASA yet, but they did believe that the sun is moving and running because of that verse. They did believe that all planets are swimming, nowadays after 1443 hijrah, finally science prove it and unfortunately, these scientists not are Muslim.

Lastly, brothers and sisters,

The most and very important to get a blessing by Allah during Ramadhan and especially in our daily life if follow. Yatlu also means follow. See, 1 word contains several meanings, beautiful and amazing, right? After we recite loudly and nicely, follow by tajwid, then memorize, after that we believe, we must follow what Al-Quran asks us to do so and leave it what al-Quran asks us to do. If we just read might be we get a few blesses, I give the simple example, Allah says

وَيْلٌ لِّكُلِّ هُمَزَةٍ لُّمَزَةٍ

Woe to every scorner and mocker (Surah Al-Humazah 104:1)

Do not backbite and do not slander others. We read this ayat, we do understand from translation right, but we didn’t follow, we backbiting our friends, we slander our teachers. To reflex, how come Allah blesses us if we do not these simple things?

وَأَقَامُوا الصَّلَاةَ

And establish prayer

My beloved friends,

Now I would like to explain the second point. The second point to getting a blessing by Allah is to establish prayer. We know prayer is very important to use, we do it every day but do you know the meaning of Aqamussolah very well?

               The word Aqamu derived from aqama means to stand up, establish, set up, and begin the solat. In the other words, we need to make sure to purify first, take ablution perfectly, and make sure the right time and the right place.

               Next, we must perform 5-time prayers a day if we want to get more blessings from Allah at the same time, we need to add more like Sunnah prayer. Trust me, students and my friends, if we keep on making prayers, especially Sunnah prayers until it becomes a habit, inshallah we will get a blessing with His generous reward throughout our life. For example, tarawih and witr, and for witr, we need to do it because it is very very good Sunnah. Don’t miss out after Ramadhan at least once per week or twice or every day mashallah is very good. So start from today, this tonight month of Ramadhan, practice it. Remember that brothers and sisters, Mizi Wahid in his book CALL UPON HIM, said: “a prayer should not only be a tool we use to get the things we want from Allah but prayer should actually be done as a sign of our sincere devotion and utter depending towards Him”. This is so simple to be blessed through the prayers we make.

وَأَنفَقُوا مِمَّا رَزَقْنَاهُمْ سِرًّا وَعَلَانِيَةً يَرْجُونَ تِجَارَةً لَّن تَبُورَ

Spend [in His cause] out of what We have provided them, secretly and publicly, [can] expect a profit that will never perish –

Lecturers, my fellow friends, brothers, and sisters,

               Now, we reach the final steps to getting the blessing by Allah during Ramadhan especially is spend out and giving the charity. Before I elaborate on the last points, I would like to give the analogy because here at our university, they always mention SEJAHTERA PROGRAM, right? So how to relate the Sejahtera program with this topic and this verse.

               For example, as a lecturer, now you are an assistant prof, if you want to be an associate prof or full professor, you need to fulfill some criteria and requirements, right? 10 books, 10 or 15 journals with high index and here we must do Sejahtera program like do the program that involves the humankind, for example, plant the tree, charity program for anak yatim, help the poor people and so on, after that insyallah if you apply that promotion, your application acceptable.

               The same goes for blessing by Allah, If we just care about ourselves, read al-Quran alone, establish prayer alone not enough at least Jemaah prayer. And for these last points. We need to engage with humankind, people, animal, and the universe. In the other words, to get blessed by Allah, we have to spend some of our wealth that is given by Allah to the people, we must know the priority first, spend out to our mom and dad, our families, our cousins and follow by anak yatim, poor people and so on either we give secretly or publicly is okay but make sure our intention very pure and only because of Allah.

               InsyaAllah, Allah will answer our prayer and bless us, perhaps we ask Allah to give us something but Allah answer with a different thing, this is we what call the best bless the most berkat. For example, you ask, after finishing bachelor's, you want to marry, but Allah gives you a job first, Allah answer with others that you afford to buy a house, car, and so on. After that, insyallah you will be married. Mizi once said: “Allah shall shower you with more blessing in many ways than you ever imagine”.

               To sum up, there is 3 step to getting blessed by Allah, and Allah mentions, That He may give them in full their rewards and increase for them His bounty (berkat, bless) in Ramadhan and also in our future life, 1) Yatlunan Al-Kitab, 2) Aqamussolah 3) Anfaqu.

Thank you. May Allah bless us.