benefitting from the blessed early hours

During the last weeks I established a new morning routine for myself. I was planning this for a long time, but I never really had the strength and willpower to put it into action .

I now wake up a lot earlier.To be a little bit more accurate : at 4:30 am .

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم

“The Messenger of Allah (pbuh) said: ‘O Allah, bless my Ummah in the mornings.’ 

[Abu Dawud, Tirmidhi, Ibn Majah]

No I am not kidding.It is in fact one of the best habits I´ve ever developed! And I recommend it to absolutely everyone out there ! <3

Now lets have a quick look, at what my mornings usually look like :)

4:30 am 

My phone is telling me to wake up with the most nervewracking tone I could find.I take it and there is the snooth-Button.mmmhhhh looks so tempting to press it right now.Just 5 more min! Just 5 min, right?

But we all know, that it is those 5 min in which you either wake up to have a great productive day or just sleep for several hours...

So dont cheat.Get up.
I go to the bathroom, take wudu and go back to my room to pray.There is nothing better to start off your day than with prayer and dua.
Afterwards you should be completely awake. At least I am. ;)

4:50 - 5-30 am 

Now I´ll usually go downstairs and straight into the kitchen.

The first thing I´ll do is drinking a glass o water and then drinking a few drops o black cumin oil, according to the sunnah of our prophet.

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم

“The Messenger of Allah (pbuh) said: ‘O Allah, bless my Ummah in the mornings.’ [Abu Dawud, Tirmidhi, Ibn Majah]

Im a huge breakfast-fan and never go out without eating something. So I prepare something nice for myself, which usually is a huge bowl of fruits with oatmeal and milk.

The breakfast is my biggest meal of the day.I just combine every sort of fruit I can find. 

A typical Ayse-breakfast :

1 apple                  10 grapes

1 banana                 handfull of almonds or walnuts

1 Orange                a few raisins

1 mandarin              oatmeal and milk 

Then I will just grab my newspaper or the book I am currently reading and read it.With the oatmeal-fruit-combo I´ll usually have 1,5 l of tea and a few glasses of water.Afterwards Im usually quite full and dont feel hungry anymore.A lot of people told me, that I eat extremely big portions for a girl my size and for that time of the day.Well yes, thats true,but I eat healthy food and am used to eat much for breakfast, so if you arent much of a breakfast-type I can understand your point here. But you should definitely fill in the tanks with some carbohydrates in the morning :)

5.30-6.30 am

Now its time to exercise ! Dont be like the girl on the right, when you read the word "exercise". Its important.It makes you feel great.It prevents sickness and injuries of every sort.

And the most important thing is: Our bodies are just borrowed, they´re just vehicles we use for our souls.So your body has certain rights.And its first right is to be looked after.

Be thankful for your body, it does whatever you would like it to do for you.

And just look how much mercy Allah had, when he created us and arranged it for us, that we would keep our bodies healthy through mere usage of it! Subhanallah ! 

It doesnt really matter which exercise you do , as long as it suits the needs of your body.

I personally like rope-skipping, jogging and every type of cardio. Unfortunately I am injured.My left knee has a whole in the cartilage.Thats the reason, why I cant jogg that much and have to do muscle-building exercises for my legs, to support the injured cartilage. 

I had three surgeries for my knee, it was and is horrible for such an active person like me, so I take care. I really really really dont want to undergo surgery a fourth time. 

6.30-7.30 am

Well after having a good workout I go into the shower. That takes around ten minutes. Then Ill pray one more time and start preparing for the day.It can happen, that I just forgot to do some homework, which Ill do then at this time.After snacking on something little and making dua the last time Ill leave for school :)

 Prepare for the day . Make sure u dont forget your hijab :)

I benefitted so much from waking
 up early. 
I used to be this person :

Never again insaallah! 

When others are still sleepy and tired, I am in a good mood  and awake!

So go ahead and set your clock to an earlier time than usually :)
And tell me what your morning-routine looks like ! Im curious about your mornings ! :)

May peace be upon you <3

why is fasting never an option?

"Three...two...one...everybody on the dates ! Azan is calling ! Azan is calling! "

Oh lovely Ramadan!Why are you gone so fast every time? I love you ! I love you so much from the depth of my heart! The spiritual atmosphere in Ramadan is very special.So deep and  authentic.Life is so much more worthless in comparison to akhirah in my eyes during Ramadan. In Ramadan I can do EVERYTHING I want. During Ramadan I feel great and I get rid of bad habits.


So why is fasting never really an option for us in daily life? I mean, we are making dua all day every day, we pray 5 times a day (during Ramadan I did even 6 times a day . Tahajjud is sooo great , but I´m going to write a different post about that later). And all that is good and completely fine...but why do we never think of fasting during normal days? WHY ? It´s like a mega-event if we do it (or Ramadan obviously :D). Well, let me tell you a story...As I always do  : D

During Ramadan (by far the most intense one of my entire life, guess I´m just starting to mature and be aware of everything more finally) I felt so good.I felt not only connected , but even like BEST FRIENDS with a ton of respect and a little bit fear towards ALLAH (c.c.). His love fulfilled me and I felt completely detached from the world.I felt like the only thing I needed was ALLAH. And I felt like he was honestly the one and only that I really wanted. And I wanted him desperately.
My life seemed to be so perfect.Everything improved from the first day.The world was so nice to me, because I was nice to the world.Success seemed to be increased in every aspect of my little life. I felt no hate. I didn't feel any bad feelings at all. I felt just love.Pure love.Pure, crystal clear and innocent. People told me , that I would glow and spread so much love even without saying something.
Not only mental and spiritual it was a month of success, but also health wise. My health was like up to 3000% . OK , I´m guilty I admit I didnt exercise ( I still don't, but definitely should) but I lost a good amount of weight. I ate zero junk, but replaced it with delicious fresh vegetables, fruits and nuts.I ate less, but had like double or three times the energy.

My productivitylevel was up the sky. 

   

When I look back, what I have done everything I still don't know HOW I managed it, but everything was so easy...
I read so much.And let me tell you something.I´m a little bookworm, since I can remember myself.I loved to read thrillers and novels and trivial stuff like that, which is not really hard to read right?But the moment you start reading Islamic or even scientific books the whole issue becomes a little bit different right? Well, not for me anymore ! I didn't only quited reading trivial literature and replaced it with Islamic or scientific books, but also increased the amount I read + I started taking notes and using a highlighter i n my books! And people it works WONDERS ! So highlight in your books and take notes ! 



So I thought . What was the source of my energy and well being in this month ? And I came to the conclusion that it was two things:
1) Fasting (and that means also awareness of god and transience) 
2) The ability to do what I really WANT, because there is no shaytan I had to fight 

So since I don't have any influence on aspect Number 2 I decided to focus on number one.Fasting.
I decided that I wanted to have the same energy in my life for the whole year so I would fast.
And I did. I did Shevval and then a couple days more as  just good deeds.And it worked perfectly! With fasting I realised how much time and effort I actually spent on preparing and eating junk stuff, that was bad for me in every way just because I was bored. The moment you fast and you know you wont eat till sun goes down, you automatically stop wasting your time thinking about it! It saved me so much time !

But I was scared that it would become normal for me and just like my "eating-habit"  . I didn't want it to be effortless and super easygoing. I still wanted to have at least SOME struggle doing it.I wanted to make an effort,because my intention was to please ALLAH and not developing a new eating-culture. So I looked up  a few hadiths.And I found some , which say that our Prophet (s.a.v.) used to fast Mondays and Thursdays.As   someone said, that he could fast more, he replied that fasting his way is the best. So I did it. And it works perfectly. I recommend fasting to everyone and hope to practise this for hopefully the rest of my life... Insaallah  if Allah is willing .

May peace be upon you <3

Your fasting Ayse