" Welcome Ramadhan"

Most of us take store discounts fairly seriously. We love going to stores with bargains to fish out deals.

Many of us like making shopping lists after flipping through advertisements. After all, who wants to miss a great bargain?

Once at the store, we head straight for the deals, and sometimes, while we're there, we notice even more bargains. Buy, buy, buy!

We may be really tired when we get home, but we feel great, since we know we've picked up some great bargains. The feeling of satisfaction in knowing that we got good value for our hard-earned cash is sweet.

But our purchases only last us as long as they're around, or at the most, until we're around. After that, they become as useless as the dried leaves outside the door.

However, every year, there's a very different kind of sale. For starters, we don't need any money to benefit from it. There are no ads. There are no lines. We don't even need to leave home. There are no receipts. Everything is recorded automatically. Most unique of all, we can't even see the great deals we pick up (at least not right away). They're automatically deposited into our account.

Welcome to Ramadhan.

For a limited number of days every year, we are offered to the opportunity to put our good deed collection into overdrive, and along with that, improve ourselves.

Each of our good actions are upgraded by at least one level. A non-obligatory action commands the reward of a fardh (obligatory action), and the reward of a fardh is multiplied by seventy.

Regarding Ramadhan, the Prophet (SAW) is reported to have said:

"...Whoever draws nearer (to Allah) by performing any of the (optional) good deeds in (this month) shall receive the same reward as performing an obligatory deed at any other time, and whoever discharges an obligatory deed in (this month) shall receive the reward of performing seventy obligations at any other time... " [Narrated by Ibn Khuzaymah]

In another hadith, the Messenger of Allah (SAW) is reported to have said:

"...(It is) a month of blessing, in which Allah covers you with blessing, for He sends down Mercy, decreases sins and answers prayers..." [Narrated by Tabarani]

Over the course of the year, we tend to get spoiled. The environment around us and other factors ever so slowly drift us away from our true purpose, the service of our Lord.

Each Ramadhan, we get the chance to tame ourselves and come closer to Allah. We all need a diet that allows us to stay away from calories and fat that not only build up on our physical bodies, but on our souls as well.

Reducing the food given to horses tames them and makes them submissive to their masters. Our nafs (base desires) and our bodies aren't much different. .