The 3 Ashras of Ramadan, pt. 2

Ramadan is a time where we increase our spirituality, blessings, and stay away from what if harmful for us. There are 3 ashras, or main ideas, that we should base our du’as around during this month. Because there are 30 days in Ramadan, the second ashra would span (or be focused on) over the second set of 10 days in Ramadan.

In my last post about the first ashra of Ramadan, I mentioned that the second one is closely related to it. The first was mercy; the second is forgiveness.

The word forgive, which is defined as “stop feeling angry or resentful toward (someone) for an offense, flaw, or mistake,” is a word thrown around a lot with religion. It is the nature of a human being to make mistakes, and the nature of God to have the mercy to forgive them. See how the first two ashras tie in together? We want Allah (SWT) to have the mercy to forgive us.

A guiding du’a for us to practice in the second ashra of Ramadan is in the image below.

“I seek forgiveness from Allah, my Lord, from every sin I committed.”

It is so common for humans to sin that we have definitely sinned a lot more than we think we have. Consequently, we could be visualizing a spot in heaven for us that isn’t actually there yet. Isn’t that scary to think about? The point of life, and the end goal of it, is to reach heaven. It would be a low point indeed if we were to overestimate how good of a person we are and ultimately not reach the threshold of salvation. That’s like Muhammad Ali, famous for writing poems about how he would humiliate his opponents, talking the talk and then getting knocked out in the early stages of a fight. As creations of Allah, we are imperfect. Because of this, we should stay grounded and get as much help from Him as we can to achieve eternal reward in Jannah.

Muhammad Ali always backed up his trash talk so he never overestimated himself.

That’s the second ashra of Ramadan! The third one ties in with the first two to create a beautiful lesson, so keep your eyes peeled for the post about it as we continue our journey to better ourselves this Ramadan.