Tonight, across Kashmir’s mosques and homes, a familiar sadness settles alongside the Taraweh recitations. The crescent of Shawwal may appear tonight. Ramadan the month of mercy, forgiveness, and liberation is preparing to depart. And the believer who truly lived it stands at this threshold with a grief the Prophet’s companions understood well.
The Salaf the righteous predecessors used to weep as Ramadan ended. Not from sentimentality, but from honest self-examination: had they given enough? Had the month’s extraordinary mercy been fully received, or partially wasted? Ibn Masood (RA) would say at Ramadan’s close: “Who among you has had his Ramadan accepted? Let him be congratulated. And whoever fell short let him grieve and try again.”
The Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) taught that Ramadan’s acceptance is signalled not by feelings of completion but by transformation: “Whoever fasts Ramadan out of faith and seeking reward, his previous sins will be forgiven” (Sahih Bukhari, Hadith 38). The question tonight is not whether the month is ending it is whether what it built inside you is permanent or temporary.
The Quran describes the purpose of the entire month in a single concluding verse: “So that you may attain taqwa” (Al-Baqarah 2:183). Taqwa God-consciousness, moral vigilance, the awareness of Allah in every moment is Ramadan’s only true product. If it remains after the crescent appears, the month was accepted. If it dissolves with Eid’s first morning, the fast fed the body but left the soul unchanged.
In Kashmir, where this Ramadan unfolded against the familiar backdrop of uncertainty, grief, resilience, and faith, the farewell tonight is personal. Thirty days of Sehri before dawn. Thirty Iftars at Maghrib. Thirty nights of Taraweeh. Each one a conversation between the servant and his Lord that cannot be replicated until next year if next year is granted.
Stand tonight in your last Taraweeh with everything you have. Make the dua you have been postponing. Open the Quran one final time before Fajr. And as the month departs, make it one promise: that what Ramadan began, Shawwal will not undo.
Ramadan Kareem. May Allah accept from all of us.
