Imagine you were expecting a friend, a friend who comes around only once a year. This friend is loaded with gifts and blessings for you and yours. This is a special guest, during his stay, he will be your personal coach, your personal spiritual guide, he will teach you self-control, he will teach you wisdom, he will teach you sincerity, he will teach you a secret that will help you rejuvenate, body, mind, and soul. He will connect you with yourself, with your Maker, and with those around you.
 
If prior to his arrival, your house was dirty, you would have tidied up to welcome this friend, and if your life was cluttered with frivolities you would have thrown out the garbage and made room for the precious gifts.
 
The blessed month of Ramadan is this special guest; all Muslims of conscience are reading themselves for this special guest, clearing their backyards, polishing their mirrors, and perfuming the environment with prayers and great expectations.
 
Ramadan is a great opportunity for them, and it makes them feel special, honored, to have been singled out by none other than the Merciful One for this one month long program that will transform them into a people He loves, people of piety, al-Muttaqeen.
 
"0 you who believe! Fasting is prescribed to you as it was prescribed to those before you that you may become al-Muttaqeen. (pious, God-conscious)" (Qur'an:2: 183).
 
Since 1991, at least seventeen such opportunities have slipped through our fingers. To all appearances, the bulk of Somali adults, like their Muslim brethren in the rest of the world, would have observed the outer rituals of this month; from sunrise to sunset, they’d have forgone food, drink, and other physical comforts. But in terms of piety and soul purification, what has this done for the collective Somali condition?
Ramadan is about kindness and love. It’s about shedding tears and repentance.  It’s about forgiveness and amnesty. It’s about increase and happiness. It's about unity and community.
 
In contrast, when the world looks at Somalis they see fissures and partitions, they see hate and cruelty, they see rotting bodies. They see poverty, they see ugliness, they see darkness, they see weirdness and dehumanized humans. They see terrorists and killers, they see hooliganism and lawlessness, they see impotence and self-serving monstrosity. Indeed, the nation that was once Somalia is no longer on the map, or in people’s books.  Not even on the lips of devout scholars when they invoke Allah on behalf of suffering Muslims, how often do we find Somalia in that list?
 
Islam teaches us that when Allah loves someone He makes both the inhabitants of the heavens and those on earth to love that person, too. Now when Somalis themselves can’t find the heart to love and respect each other, what right do we have to expect love from others? And if our fasting of the last seventeen years have yet to confer on us piety and fear of Allah, in what position are we to expect mercy and love from Allah, or from His creation, for that matter?
 
"0 you who believe! Fasting is prescribed to you as it was prescribed to those before you that you may become al-Muttaqeen (pious, God-Conscious)"
 
Let’s face it, Somalis have clearly deviated from the path of Taqwa (piety) and that’s why we are short on love, and that’s why we are today where we are, right at the bottom.

But Allah is great, greater than all the sins of the world. When all’s said and done, as black as the present looks, as bleak as the future seems, the door of repentance is still open to those of us who are still alive.
 
Brothers and sisters, there is a reason why you are reading this, today. Great things are in store for you. We are at the doorstep of a new beginning, a new dawn. And Allah wants this to be an occasion of joy for you, and yours. Ramadan is the month of Quran and knowledge, and Allah wants you to grow. Ramadan is the month of mercy, and Allah wants you to smile. This is the month of love, and Allah wants you to share your love. This is the month of giving, and Allah wants you to share your gifts. This is the month of perfection, and Allah wants you to shine.
 
In this blessed month is a night that’s better than a thousand months, the equivalent of eighty-three-plus years of worship! In just one night you would be able to live the life of a life time!
 
Brothers and sisters, think, open your hearts and minds, and reflect on the situation of our poor people, reflect on your own threatened existence as a nation. Spare a moment for the hungry mothers and children; the youth that needs to break the cycle of violence; the elderly who need security and care; the wandering minds that need your guidance. Ponder the Grace of Allah and thank Him for having given you once again this blessed opportunity.   
 
Ramadan Kareem!
 
“A great month, a blessed month, containing a night which is better than a thousand months has approached you people. Allah has appointed the observance of fasting during it as an obligatory duty, and the passing of (a part of) its nights in prayer as voluntary practice. If someone draws near to Allah during it with some good act, he will be (in reward) like one who fulfils an obligatory duty in another month, and he who fulfils an obligatory duty in it will be like one who fulfils seventy obligatory duties in another month. It is the month of endurance and the reward of endurance is paradise . . . It is a month whose beginning is mercy, whose middle is forgiveness and whose end is freedom from hell." (Prophet Muhammad)