“In the name of God, Lord of Mercy, Giver of Mercy. By time, man is at a loss, except for those who believe, take righteous action, urge one another to truth, and urge one another to steadfastness”

Most of us have heard this surah hundreds of times. It is one of the last 14 surahs of the Quran, known as the ‘oft-repeated’ surahs. This morning as fajr entered, I had an epiphany as I reflected on this verse. As I share it with you, take what is of benefit, and leave what is not. I pray this will bring you closer to the ‘truth’.

This short surah teaches humanity four of the most important values we need to inculcate to improve ourselves: belief, action, truth, and steadfastness.

I want to draw your attention to the last of these values and connect it to the theme of the surah – time. I believe if you take the approach I’m about to share with you seriously, you will experience far more ‘sabr’ (steadfastness) in your life immediately, and with practise the quality of your life will dramatically improve.

PRESENT MOMENT AWARENESS IMPROVES ‘STEADFASTNESS’

Most people spend their whole lives either living in the past, or fantasising about the future. People who re-live positive past memories, and imagine positive future outcomes feel good about themselves and perform better day to day. People who re-live negative memories and imagine a future they’re fearful of tend to feel worse about themselves and perform poorly on a day to day basis.

However, there are a few people who transcend these patterns altogether, and they are the closest to Allah. Rather than imagining the past or fantasising about the future, they are fully aware in the present moment. In the present moment, there is no pain. Pain only exists when we imagine painful past experiences or fear negative future experiences.

I believe this is what Surah al-Asr encourages us to do: believe, take good action, be truthful & be steadfast. All of this becomes possible when we are aware of the fleeting nature of time. Instead of fantasising about the future or the past, be completely attuned to right now. That is the secret to sabr (steadfastness/patience).

There are many types of sabr, and all types are improved and easier to follow when we stop the stream of consciousness that distracts our awareness and has us ‘daydreaming’. ‘Sabr’ exists in many forms, and pervades all areas of life. When you are in the gym trying to do the last repetition of lifting that heavy weight – sabr is what keeps you going until you reach momentary muscle failure. Lack of sabr would result in no real physical muscle growth. When you are studying for your finals – sabr keeps you persevering in your studies, instead of giving up.

Sabr can be both ‘patience’, or ‘perseverance’. It’s not just the kind of patience you need when you’re sitting in the waiting lounge of a hospital. It’s also the kind of perseverance you need to keep going when all around you have given up. It’s like pushing a car with a broken engine up a hill to get it to the garage where it can be fixed. It requires that you exert consistent effort without quitting.

So, what does ‘sabr’ have to do with ‘time’?

Our stream of conscious thought is almost always about the past or the future. Both past and future are merely projections of our imagination. Neither really exist, except in our minds. The only time that really exists is right now – and most of us are wasting this moment by thinking about other moments in the past or the future. The ironic thing is that when those imagined moments come to pass, we will miss them because our minds will be focused on the imagined future and past of that moment!

The problem with constantly thinking about the past and future is that it makes practising ‘sabr’ somewhere between difficult and impossible. Let’s use the example of sabr when reciting Quran. This is one very common type of sabr we need to inculcate if we want to be deserving of Paradise.

Let’s imagine it’s Ramadan and you aim to recite one juz/para of the Quran. If your mind is thinking about how long is left until you can finish it and get back to life, or counting how many pages you’ve already read, then you are not focused on the present moment. When this happens, Quran recitation becomes hard. It’s like waiting for paint to dry. The truth is, most of the thoughts that pass through your mind during this type of worship are probably not even connected to the Quran at all.

Your stream of thought is probably more like “oh yeah, I should have made that money transfer – oh well, I’ll do it tomorrow…. And I need to pick up some vegetables on the way home because we have guests coming over tonight… I have a mild disliking for that guest ever since the time that…” and so on. Sometimes we get fixated on one particular memory, thinking about how we could have acted differently, or wishing we could change it.

However, if you switch off your stream of thought, and just ‘be’ in salah, or when reading the Quran, suddenly it’s easy. When you’re focused on being aware and present in this moment, it doesn’t really matter how long the prayer goes on for or how many pages you have left to read. It could go on forever, and you’d be fine as long as in every moment of ‘forever’, you were only aware of that moment.

How do you improve your present moment awareness, and therefore your ‘sabr’? Enter a state of no-mind. Be aware, and be free from thought altogether. Notice that there can be a gap between you being aware, and you ‘thinking’. If you catch yourself ‘thinking’ during Quran recitation or prayer, notice yourself thinking and return to the present moment. Then, when the Quran is recited, listen intently and it will affect you deeply.

As Muslims, our spirituality is not separate from our daily lives. The practise of sabr pervades all areas of life, not just worship. And so should your practise of being aware of the present moment. The more you do it, the better you get at it. It’s virtually impossible to be aware of this moment, without being overwhelmed by awe of the Majesty of Allah in all that is around you. You won’t even need to ‘think’ about it – you’ll just experience it.

Salams Folks,

If you’re a Macite like me, you’re gonna love this:

Khutbah: “How to Unlock the iJannah” by Sh. Suhaib Webb from Islamic Institute of Orange Cty on Vimeo.

Enjoy!

In this article you’re about to learn the quickest, most
effective ways to increase your fluency in reading the
Quran in Arabic. By following these methods, over
time you’ll go from stuttering and stammering over
simple words to reciting any page of the Quran as
easily as you can recite Surah al-Fatiha.

But first, let me tell you about the time I realized I
seriously needed to improve my recitation fluency.
I was at an Islamic event with quite a well-known
scholar…

************WHEN I REALIZED MY RECITATION NEEDED WORK************

Back in my university days I was often involved in
organizing events and activities for Muslim students.
In fact, before long people saw me as the ‘I-Soc guy’
because of my activities in university Islamic Societies….

I was busy organizing the event with the big scholar,
running around and looking important, when it came
to my attention that the hafiz we had asked to do the
recitation for the beginning of the event had gone
AWOL.

(Can you see where this is going…?)

My mind immediately ran down a mental list of people
on our team who might be able to step in. As I looked
around the room, none of them were there. I started
looking around the room frantically now, for anyone
who could step in – even people who had nothing to do
with the I-Soc. I even asked a couple of random people,
but they were like “No, my recitation sucks – why don’t
you do it?”

They were about to find out why I didn’t want to do it!
When I completely ran out of options, I stepped up. First
I thought of reciting something I knew off by heart, but
I had only memorized a few of the really short Surahs at
the end of the Quran, and reciting them almost seemed
like it would be cheating.

Fortunately, I had been working on Surah Yasin, and
listened to it a few times recently, so I thought I’d give
it a go…. believe me when I say, I had never been so
relieved to STOP reciting the Quran. I’m usually a
cool customer on stage, but this time I was practically
sweating. I was stuttering and stammering all over the
place. I almost tripped up on the letters ‘ya-seen’.

When it was over, the scholar leaned over and said
“you know, you really should read the Quran more”.
How embarrassing is that?!
By that time he was preaching to the converted. My mission
was clear: I had to sort my recitation out… and after much
trial and error, here’s how to do it.

***********5 WAYS TO IMPROVE YOUR FLUENCY************

1. Ancient Thai Saying

The ancient Thai people, now famous for their Muay
Thai Kick Boxing style had a saying. “If you want to
be a good kicker… kick!” The same holds true of your
goal of improving you Quran recitation. Follow the
first advice ever given to the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh)
by his Educator… “Recite!”.

Recite as much as you can, as frequently as you can.
Nothing can replace this discipline. The more you do
it, the better you get at it. Before you know it, you’ll be
reading an unfamiliar page in the same amount of time
it used to take you to read a couple of lines.

2. Link New Habit With Old Habit

This is without doubt the single most effective way to
build a new habit. You need to link the habit of reciting
the Quran in Arabic with something you already do every
single day without fail. Something like brushing your teeth,
or putting your clothes on in the morning.

Or how about, linking it with one (or more) of your 5
daily prayers? That way, you’re already in a state of wudu,
so one of the main psychological barriers is out of the
way.

If you’re going to do this, I’d advise that you do it with a
prayer you have been doing consistently over the last few
weeks. I’d also recommend you don’t do it if you think
you’ll be stressed.

For example, if you’re at work, and are taking three 10
minute breaks for prayer during the day, turning them
into three 15 minute breaks might not make your boss too
happy.

Now make the commitment to recite a small amount of
Quran every single day for the next 30 days after the
selected prayer.

3. Intelligent Repetition – The Mother Of All Skill.

Here is a trick that will double or triple your effectiveness
and speed at reading the Quran. Let’s say you’ve decided
to recite two pages of the Quran after Isha every night and
2 pages before you leave for work in the morning.

Instead of reciting the first 2 pages on day one morning and
the next 2 pages on day one night, try this out. On day one
morning, recite page 1, then recite page one again. Then on
day one evening, recite page 1 again, and again.

“But then I’ll only have done one page?!” I hear you
exclaiming. That’s true, but you’ll have done that page four
times, and what’s more important, is that by the 4th recitation,
you will read it about 3 or 4 times quicker that on your first
attempt. Aim for reading the page 5 times each day.

The next day, you can move on to page 2, and so on. At
the end of the week, you might like to do one marathon session
of going through all 7 pages you covered that week.

You may even want to do this with a tajweed teacher, who’ll
correct your recitation. You’ll notice that you can still recite
page 1 about 2 or 3 times faster and more fluently than on your
1st attempt.

600 days later you will have completed the Quran 6 times.
“Eat your heart out, Maulvi Saab!”

If you recite the page 5 times each day, and once at the end
of the week, it’s the equivalent of completing the Quran once
every 100 days – just over 3 months. That’s like reading 4
Qurans a year – but who’s keeping count ;o)

4. Learn Some Vocabulary

In previous emails, I shared with you the quickest, easiest,
most effective way to understand the entire Quran in Arabic.
If you want to get hold of the audio download where I
explain how to do it, visit www.quranforbusypeople.com

The key to the whole process of understanding the Quran
is to learn Quranic vocabulary lists. If you learn around 300
words, that accounts for about 70% of the entire Quran. But
you need to learn the right words.

This links in with your recitation because when you know
these commonly occuring words, you’ll spot them as you recite,
and something magical will happen….

Just as you do in english, you will unconsciously read the
first and lsat lteters in the wrod adn wrok out waht the wrod
syas, without having to read each letter phonetically (cool eh?).
In other words, just by being able to recognize the common
words, your recitation speed will increase exponentially.

HOWEVER, this does not replace numbers 1,2 & 3.
DO NOT wait until you know all of Quranic Arabic, before
you start reciting the Quran. This is a common mistake and it
is a waste of time. You can know all 300 words, but if you never
recite the Quran, you will still be a slow reciter.

If you do manage to learn 5-10 words a day for 1 month,
whilst still doing your daily recitations, you’ll know 70% of
Quranic vocabulary in a month or two. This will give you a
huge boost in motivation, and momentum.

5. Get Your iPod Out.

If you are still struggling, the iPod technique will propel you
forward. Get an online recitation from a famous reciter, whose
voice you love. Listen to the recitation, one page at a time, as
you read along the script with your finger.

Even if the reciter goes way too fast for you to start with,
just finger along the page. Then, rewind back to where the
page started, and do it again, and again. Because the reciter
goes much faster than you, you can go over the same page
several times in one sitting. Eventually, you will be able to
follow with your eyes, and then your lips and tongue.

So, here’s a quick review of the 5 ways to improve your recitation:

1. Practise Quran like a Martial Artist Practices Kicks.
2. Read 1 page of the Quran immediately after a prayer.
3. Repeat the same page several times before moving on.
4. Learn 5 words of Quran vocab per day for 2 months.
5. Get your iPod out and read along with a reciter.

If you found any benefit in this article, by all means
email it forward to your family and friends to spread the
blessings. You never know which tip will transform which
person’s life through the Quran. You can also direct them
to www.quranforbusypeople.com where they’ll get loads
more good stuff.

Warmest Salams,

Mamoon Yusaf
Quran Coach
www.quranforbusypeople.com
+44(0)208.133.4520

Assalamu Alaikum,

As a “thank you” for deciding to visit my blog,
I want to invite you to join our “Quran For Busy People”
online community, and make sure you get this exclusive
audio download and powerpoint presentation.

You can download it here:

http://www.quranforbusypeople.com/

You will learn…

-> The exact formula to follow if you want to
understand the Quran in Arabic (in hours not years)

-> The biggest mistakes the vast majority of Muslims
make when ’studying Arabic’ (I made them too, and
now you can avoid them)

-> How to access the exact vocabulary lists that are
essential if you want to understand the Quran (hint: you
won’t find them in your local Islamic book shop)

Download it now and change your relationship with the
Quran forever…

http://www.quranforbusypeople.com/

Enjoy!

Warmest Salams,

Mamoon
Quran Coach
www.quranforbusypeople.com
0208.133.4520

Just wanted to share with you a quick strategy I learned that could be very helpful for you if you want the Daily Quran Habit…

It’s called the ‘4 Day Win’ strategy. Get a pen & paper, or open a ‘Word’ document and do it right NOW! It goes like this…

Step 1: CREATE A DAILY GOAL
Choose an amount of the Quran or an amount of time that you think is suitable to study the Quran each day. Your goal can be anything from reading 10 pages of translation to reading 1 page of Arabic to spending 5 mins with the Quran each day.

Write your daily goal down NOW!!

Step 2: REALIZE THE OBVIOUS

There is something so blindingly obvious about the daily goal you just set, that you probably overlooked it… this goal is not useful. That’s because if it was useful, you would already be doing it. You’ve probably been trying to force yourself to do this goal for quite some time, and yet you still don’t have the daily habit. If it worked, it would already be a habit – this is all the information you need to know that your daily goal is too big. Solution?

Step 3: PLAY HALVES UNTIL YOUR GOAL IS RIDICULOUSLY EASY

Cut your goal in half. Is it ridiculously easy now? If not, cut your goal in half again. Would you consider it ridiculously easy now? If not… you get the picture.

Keep cutting your daily goal in half until it is ridiculously easy. If you feel you SHOULD be able to do more, but the thought of doing more leaves you cold or even a tiny bit chilly – its still too big, so cut it in half.

Write your ‘Ridiculously Easy’ daily goal right NOW!

Step 4: TELL YOUR NAFS TO ‘SHUT UP’

Your nafs (or ego) is the lazy part of you that doesn’t want you to read the Quran when you could be watching TV. Tell it to SHUT UP.

HOW? Right now, your nafs is probably telling you that your ‘ridiculously easy’ goal is too small, and that if you do that daily goal, your Quran studies will never go anywhere, and you SHOULD have a bigger daily goal… It’s also the part of you will tell you anything you need to hear to STOP you taking action. Ignore it. Even if it tells you that you are such a super intelligent religious bloke/lady that this ‘ridiculously easy’ goal is below you – tell it that inaction is below you, so “SHUT UP!”, and continue with the plan.

STEP 5: IDENTIFY A DAILY REWARD

Your daily reward could be anything. It could be watching a brain-less TV show that you love. It could be going out with your friends for dinner. It could be whatever you would probably do instead of reading the Quran, but now you can do it without feeling bad about it… in fact you can feel great about it, because your giving yourself the gift of a lifetime.

STEP 6: IDENTIFY A 4-DAY REWARD.

This reward should be bigger than the daily reward. It should be something that your really really ****Really**** want but haven’t given yourself for a while. A pedicure, a double chocolate gateaux, a night out with your spouse, a Lad’s Night Out to the cinema & favourite restaurant… do whatever works!

STEP 7: LINK THE ACTION TO THE REWARD & TAKE ACTION NOW!

When you take the ridiculously easy action, make sure you give yourself the reward, and enjoy it!

Take Action Now by getting a piece of A4 Paper and writing out:

Ridiculously Easy Daily Goal:

Daily Reward:

Slightly Larger 4-Day Reward:

DAY 1

DAY 2

DAY 3

DAY 4

Stick this sheet of paper in 3 places you will see it everyday – bathroom mirror, bedroom mirror, desk… and place a tick next to each day you take action.

If you don’t take action, go back to day 1, and make the daily goal smaller, and the rewards even bigger until you get yourself to have the daily habit – for at least 4 Days running…

Email me if you did it and it helped at mamoon@myliferesults.com

Also, for a power-packed hour of great Quran strategies, go to this blog post, and get the free audio download from one of the world’s formost experts on behavioural change, James Murphy – and use the techniques today!

At the mixed martial arts gym I used to train in, in Manchester, we were told do 50 press-ups and 50 ‘Hindu’ press-ups every day, no matter what. (They actually also told us to do the ‘Randy’ workout each day too, which I’ll write about later.)  On my first day I was out of shape and just about squeezed out 30 reps.  Here is the simple but effective advice I was given to increase the number of press-ups, and inevitably build bigger arms and a more defined chest.  This works for just about everybody. It worked for me, and it will work for you. You don’t need an expensive gym membership or gimmicky equipment – you just need this simple strategy.

THE PRESS-UP GAME

Do as many press-ups as you can. When your muscles start to feel like they’re about to reach failure take a pause but do not allow your knees to touch the floor. If they do, you’ve lost the game. Keep all your body weight on your two hands and two feet. To relieve a little pressure from your arms during the pause you can do this: Keep your arms and legs straight, stay in the general press-up position and stick your bottom upwards, so your body forms an inverted ‘V’. Pause like this for a few seconds, and you’ll have enough energy to go for a few more reps. During the pause, pick a number – usually 5 or 10 – and go for that number of reps. When you reach that number, pause again, and so on.

You can pause for as long as you like, whenever you like, as long as you don’t put your knees down.

THE GAME PLAN

Using this technique I managed to go from 30 press-ups to 50 in one day.  Each day, I would then continue doing 50 press-ups, and I simply decreased the amount of time I needed to ‘pause’ in between press-ups. After a couple of weeks, if not less, I could do 50 press-ups straight with no rest in just over a minute.

If you want to increase your press-ups even further, simply follow the same strategy, and add 2-3 reps to the number you did the day before. Alternatively, you can go from 50 to 60 in one go, by adding more pauses. Once you have done 60, you can work on reducing the number and length of the pauses.

If you can’t do 10 press-ups, you’ll need to start with raised press-ups, where your hands are each on a chair and your feet are on the floor. Alternatively you can do wimp press-ups, where your knees and hands are on the floor, instead of your feet. If that’s the case, train everyday in your bedroom for two weeks, before you start the proper press-up training plan.

If you want to be fit forever, working out on a daily basis must be a part of your identity, not something you do once in a while. The most intelligent way to use the motivation that brought you to reading this page is to create a plan for building a daily workout routine into your life, rather than looking for ways to ‘get fit fast’. Workout every day, and you’ll be in the best shape of your life in 3 months, and one of the fittest people you know in 6 months.

Cardio training is the easiest approach to daily training, and in my opinion (and the opinion of Men’s Health Cover Model Owen McGibbin), you really need to do an equal amount of both cardio and strength each week.

The best way to increase your cardio is to get yourself to associate more pleasure to working out than pain. I learnt how to do this when I decided to run the London Marathon in 2006. I used the same principle as in ‘how to get back in shape: strength training’ – set a daily minimum and maximum target, and do the minimum every day, no matter what.

For a cardio workout, the minimum for me was to get outside and walk for 5 mins, then jog really lightly for another 5. You might be thinking “that’s not a workout!”, and you’re sort of right. The thing is, the daily minimum is exactly that – the minimum I would let myself get away with. My target was to go for 15-25 mins each day after the 5 min warmup, and logically that should have been my daily minimum.  That strategy is fine for the days when you feel like working out. But it’s useless on the days when you really don’t feel like working out, and you’re extremely tempted to skip the session. Those are the days you do the bear minimum – just put your training gear on and get outside.

Why is it so important to have a bear minimum? Because if you don’t workout at all, you are training your mind and body to not work out. When you miss one training session, you’re twice as likely to miss training on the following day. If you do the bare minimum, you’ll still be training your mind to build the daily workout habit, and you’re much more likely to train properly the next day – especially when you feel like you didn’t get a full workout today.

How to do the cardio sessions

When starting out, aim for 5 mins warmup jogging; 10 minutes of slightly faster running; 5 mins warm down jogging. If you’re really out of shape, you can even start with fast walking, and build up to running for a full 20 minutes.

When this becomes easy for you, start interval training.

Do your cardio sessions 3-4 times per week to torch fat, and do the strength training workouts to build muscle. Train daily for 6 months, and you’ll be one of the fittest people you know.

There are a whole bunch of training programs out there that assume that you will train every single day, no matter what. However, if you trained every day no matter what, you wouldn’t be out of shape in the first place.

This training plan is different. It is designed to get you back into shape by first getting you to associate pleasure to working out. It works on the basis of having a minimum and maximum target for each session. On a day when you really don’t feel like working out, you do the minimum. When you’ve completed the minimum workout, you are in a better position to choose whether to do the full workout or not.

After a few weeks of following it, you will find it easy to complete the full workout every time, and will only fall back to the minimum when you really need to – these are the days when the old you would have skipped the session.

The plan as its laid out below does not assume that you can already do the number of prescribed reps. The reps are your goal. If at the start you can only do 15 push-ups, start there and you’ll build up to the prescribed number of reps by training 4-5 times per week, and aim to increase by 1-2 reps in each workout. The article on “how to increase press-ups” will be useful.  You’ll be amazed at how quickly you get to 30, then 50 reps.  Once you can do this number of reps with ease, you will need a new training plan – and I’ll give you one.

Ideally you’ll have a chin-up bar or some way of doing a rowing motion to work your back & biceps. If you don’t have a chinup bar, do the workout minus chin-ups, and buy one from the shops at some time during the week. Here are the workouts:

Maximum (Workout Goal):

50 push-ups, 30 squats, 10-20 chin-ups, 30 lunges (on each leg), 50 sit ups, 50 supermans (lower back)

This entire workout will only take about 10-15 mins. Take as little rest as possible, and aim to reduce the time of the entire workout.

If this workout is too easy for you, do incline pressups; up to 50 jumping squats & lunges; and up to 100 sit ups and supermans.

Bare Minimum (Acceptable Daily Workout):

50 pushups, 30 squats.

Do this every day, no matter what. Obviously if you can’t do this number, do as many as you can, increasing each day using the techniques in the “how to increase your press-ups” article. Don’t wait until you can do 50 press ups before you do the full six exercises above. You can do all six on day 1. The point is if on day 4 or 5, you feel like skipping the session, just do the press-ups and squats. You can do that everyday, can’t you?

Most people advise not to do strength training every day. The hardest boxers and mixed martial artists I know consider the type of workout laid out above as their daily warmup before they start their MMA training.  They consider ‘real’ training as a hard-core heavy weight-training workout – the type you can build up to when daily training is completely natural to you.

If your muscles feel a bit sore on day 2, that is a good sign, and after you do the first 5-10 pushups on day 2, that muscular pain will go away as blood goes to your muscles and they warm up. You can keep training.

Disclaimer: If in doubt, see a physician before engaging in any training program.

When I’m out of shape or haven’t been working out for a while, I only need to do this for a week or two before I’m back to achieving the “maximum” daily training goal. At this point I’ll start the next phase of strength training.

This audio download was recorded by one of the world’s foremost experts of behavioural change, Anthony Robbins’ Master Coach James Murphy. To take up coaching with a Robbins Research International coach will normally cost you around £350 per hour – because you read my blog you can get this one hour session with James for a very limited time for FREE!

THIS WILL BE OF HUGE BENEFIT TO YOU IF:

• You don’t tend to achieve all the goals you set

• You don’t have outcomes in each area of your life

• You often have loads of great ideas and plans, but don’t always follow through with action

• Want to know the process of building momentum towards your goals, so that you can consistently follow through on any goal

• Want to know how to take action towards your goals, even when you don’t feel like it.

WHAT YOU WILL LEARN:

• How to define an inspiring purpose for your life

• How to create a ‘code of conduct’ for your life – uncover the values that drive the deepest levels of your behavior

• How to set and achieve goals

• How to get yourself to take action, even when you don’t feel like it

• The “Motivational (American!) Football” technique developed by James to get you the result every time

• How to shift and change your FOCUS to stay motivated long term.

James developed these techniques based on just under 20,000 one-to-one and group coaching sessions that he’s conducted, and he’s used them himself to train for marathons (he’s done 6 and is currently training for an ultra-marathon).

As you learn these techniques I want you to ask yourself “How can I use this to achieve my personal goals in the same way James uses it to achieve his fitness goals?”

HOW TO GET AND USE THE FREE DOWNLOAD:

• Fill in the box below and press the “Subscribe” button:
  

  Your email:
  

   

• Check your email inbox, and follow the instructions to get the download

• It’s a 1-hour session with a lot of information, so listen to it once to allow your mind to absorb it

• The second time you listen to it, have a pen & paper with you, and sit down and DO the exercises James suggests – they are powerful and they work.

• Take Action towards your goals and improve your life results!

Whatever your future Qur’an goals are, and whatever vision you have for how the ideal ‘You’ will interact with the Qur’an, at the most practical level, you will need to develop the daily habit of picking up the Qur’an and studying it every day. One of the reasons I’m such a fan of the Daily Qur’an Habit is that it doesn’t matter where you’re starting, and it doesn’t even matter where you ultimately want to end up – you will only reach your goals with the consistency that comes from daily interaction with the Qur’an.

It really doesn’t matter how ‘religious’ you are either. I know many people who go out of their way to make sure people know how religious they are. They are often making up for a lack of confidence in their faith which is a result of not having daily interaction with, and guidance from, the Qur’an. I also know people who are not from particularly religious backgrounds, and just genuinely want to learn and improve themselves. They are often believers who know that the Qur’an is the source and the main substance of Islam, so they go about building the daily habit. You may even be one of them.

When starting on this journey you may look at the Qur’an and in all honesty see nothing but squiggles and dots. And that’s okay. It doesn’t matter where you are, all the matters is the direction in which you’re heading. You are in the best position to really connect to Allah, because you don’t have the veneer of religiosity.  If people don’t see you as religious, you don’t have to worry about meeting their expectations, which is a stone’s throw away from putting people before Allah – which you probably don’t want to do. If people do see you as religious, that’s fine, as long as you are conscientious of that fact and don’t let it interfere with your Daily Qur’an Habit (which no-body sees).

It’s much easier to give yourself this gift of the Qur’an by making this little addition to your life than it is to start thinking about all the things you may have to stop doing if you become ‘religious’. Frankly, I say don’t be religious.  Just read the Qur’an everyday, benefit from it as much as you can, and go about your business. Everything else will fall into place. If you don’t build this habit first and foremost, the spirit and message of Islam will likely be lost on you as you fumble around joining this group and that, trying to work out the new ‘Islamic’ rules of how life should work – those rules only make sense when the Qur’an is in your heart.

I’m not a religious authority of any sort, and I’m certainly not here to tell you what you ’should’ be doing. I’m just here to give you tips and tools if you happen to want one of the life results I want. On a personal level, the Daily Qur’an Habit is certainly well up there for me.

If you’re already convinced, I would recommend subscribing to this blog which will gradually be filled with ideas, strategies, tools and resources that will help you build the daily habit. I would also recommend joining my new Face-Book group “I Want the Daily Qur’an Habit”. It is my goal to make this FB Group an extremely useful resource to all of its members, by regularly giving everyone valuable content. If we never meet again, let me leave you with a genuine prayer. I pray that you live your vision of how you ultimately want your relationship with the Qur’an to be.