take a deep breath and carry on, and remember that all this too is within God’s plan.

It has been confirmed that Eid will be on Wednesday July 6th insha Allah, so a few hours of this fast and one more to go.

Just heard the news that there was a suicide bomber at the Masjid al Nabawi in Medina! Outhu billah! Can’t imagine! And yet part of me is still at peace.

Like a sigh.

On top of everything else, they have attacked the sanctity of the Prophet’s masjid.

How could they?

I’ve spent the month reading Quran, as much Arabic as I can but all of it in English, because I can understand it better.

I’ve missed the Quran. During the rest of the year I’ll be lucky if I crack it open. Alas I tend to be a very lazy Muslim.

It was funny, because I was reading it and reading it, my eyes often filling with tears, and then I looked up at one point and said to God, “It’s been really nice getting reacquainted with You.” And then I realized how ridiculous that sounded. God is always there.

Like I feel Him all the time, and I talk to Him within my head all the time, and knowing He’s watching me will often be enough to prevent me from doing something I could regret.

But reading the Quran is different.

Just like reading a novel exposes the character and personality of the writer, I feel reading the Quran connects directly with God Himself and that’s what I meant by ‘getting reacquainted’.

Each year that I read the Quran during Ramadan often tends to focus on ‘themes’. I remember reading it one year and I kept noticing how many times God urges believers to spend our of what He has bestowed on us. It’s not just talking about spending on charity, but basically to not be tight-fisted. And I thought yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

You go to Muslim countries and everyone’s out to haggle as much as they can, scrounging. And it becomes exhausting. And I decided, no, I don’t want to be like that. I won’t be a spend-thrift, but I won’t be cheap either.

When it’s time to spend money, I will, and insha Allah, I won’t complain about it.

With the idea that it’s all part of my rizq, my provision, that God has planned for me.

I’ve been thinking about that a lot too.

This year I came across a lot of verses that talking about being generous. And I kind of smiled within myself because yeah, a lot of that work I mentioned, that’s so exhausting, is exactly about being generous. I baked a LOT!

I made chocolate cake with mocha icing, pecan bars, lemon squares, cheesecake cupcakes, and pine tarts (pineapple tarts) as well as meat-filled buns. And I made various packages containing some of these things and dropped it off to neighbors and to one aunt that lives close by who’s always been super helpful and of course to my mother in law and father in law. They’re elderly now and I know she can’t bake like she used to and she really enjoys these things.

At their age they don’t like a lot of material gifts, but this is something I can do for them, so I do. Alhamdu lillah.

And so when I came across the verse about generosity, I felt a bit good about myself. Happy that I’d worked that hard.

And I’ve come to a number of conclusions, but because they’re mostly religious and this blog isn’t exactly a platform for religious dogma, I’ll just leave it at that.

I had been planning on writing a lot this Ramadan.

Hasn’t happened.

This Ramadan the days were about at the pinnacle of length of fast. Basically there was a six or seven minute difference between the first fasts and tomorrow, the last fast. Not much!

This as hard as it gets.

It was hard, don’t get me wrong. Harder than I thought it would be, but at the same time it was doable.

And to be perfectly honest a lot of the difficulty was self-inflicted.

All the baking and cooking and wrapping of Eid gifts isn’t exactly part of the Ramadan protocol. It’s just what we do.

But I wouldn’t have it any other way.

By the way, the recipe for my pine tarts will be featured in the Toronto Star’s Wednesday (Eid day) Food section!!! https://www.thestar.com/life/food_wine.html So if you want to learn how to make those scrumptious little things, just check it out.

I just have to iron my Eid outfit, make some beef biryani tomorrow and some samia and another chocolate cake tonight (for hubby and son’s workplace folks–already packed away their share of pine tarts) and I’m set for Wednesday.

Oh.

And I’m almost done reading the Quran. Just a few short chapters left.

Alhamdu lillah, a beautiful blessed Ramadan!

Ooh, one more thing! I lost five pounds!!! Yay!!!

Aahhh.