Shaban & Its Importance in Islam

Literally, the word Shaban means branch. It can be said that Shaban branches off and leads to other good things. Shaban acts as a connection between the two blessed and sacred months of Rajab and Ramadan. Despite this, the importance of Shaban is often neglected and ignored.

Once, when the Prophet (PBUH) was asked why he fasts so much during this month. The Prophet (PBUH) replied,

“It is a month that people neglect, between Rajab and Ramadan. It is a month in which actions are raised to the Lord of the Worlds and I love for my actions to be raised while I am fasting.”

In this verse, “actions being raised” means that the actions are displayed to Allah during this month. This does not mean that Allah is unaware of our actions otherwise because Allah is the All-Knower and He sees and knows about everything. However, for Muslims this means that the month of Shaban is special because during this month Allah keeps a special tab on the actions of His believers. Also, if you worship Allah, pray regularly, read Quran and straighten out your deeds during this month, it is possible that Allah forgives all your previous wrongdoings.

Importance of Shaban

It is said that Shaban is the important to prepare for Ramadan. All Muslims are recommended to start preparing for Ramadan during Shaban. Muslims should use this month to prepare for fasting, praying and worshipping Allah. It is not recommended to begin fasting during the month of Ramadan without preparation. From a biological point of view as well it is important to be prepared before Ramadan begins. If Muslims prepare themselves for Ramadan beforehand, they will not feel tired and irritable from the lack of food and water during the day. It will allow them to adjust to the new routine very easily.

Also, for all those Muslims who have developed and acquired bad habits during the year, such as waking up late in the morning, it is essential to start quitting those habits. It will be useful when you try to wake up early in the morning to fast and pray to Allah Almighty.

Hazrat Ayesha, the wife of the Prophet (PBUH) said,

“I did not see him fasting in any month more than Sha`ban.”

She also said,

“The month which he loved to fast the most was Sha`ban.”

Upon being asked questions about this month, she said,

“In this month those who are destined to die are recorded for the Angel of Death. I love for my name to be recorded when I am fasting.”

Shaban and Its Rewards

Abu Hurayyah narrates,

“AbdulAziz ibn Muhammad said: Abbad ibn Kathir came to Medina and went to the assembly of al-Ala’. He caught hold of his hand and made him stand and said: O Allah, he narrates a tradition from his father on the authority of AbuHurayrah who reported the Apostle of Allah (peace_be_upon_him) as saying: When the middle of Sha’ban comes, do not fast. Al-Ala’ said: O Allah, my father narrated this tradition on the authority of AbuHurayrah from the Prophet (peace_be_upon_him).”

Conclusion

Therefore, earning rewards is the duty of Muslims themselves. It is best if they realize their duty and grab every opportunity that comes their way to earn rewards. Therefore, it is your duty to pray and fast and worship Allah during the month of Shaban. It is also your duty to learn Quran and understand its teachings and principles to be a good and true Muslim.

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Shab-e-Barat (Laila-Tul-Mubarka) 17th July 2011

In the Islamic culture, Shab-e-Barat has great importance and is celebrated with enthusiasm by Muslims all around the globe. For Muslims, this night has great importance regarding worship as well. Muslims would spend the entire night praying and worshipping, asking and requesting Allah for things that they desire. However, before delving into the customs followed during Shab-e-Barat, it is best to first understand the concept of this day.

The Concept of Shab-e-Barat in Islam

According to Islamic beliefs, on the night of Shab-e-Barat, Allah decides and determines the affairs of the coming year. During the night, Allah determines the destinies of all humans by taking into consideration the deeds of the previous year.

Muslims typically celebrate Shab-e-Barat on the 15^th of Shaban, usually around fifteen days before the month of Ramadan begins. This year, Shab-e-Barat will be celebrated on the 17^th of July, 2011. The celebration generally includes worshipping Allah all night, asking for His forgiveness and requesting for things that you desire.

According to a Hadith, Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) said that any individual who fasts for three days during the month of Shabaan and recites durood three times at Iftar, Allah will forgive his sins and will increase his provisions. Additionally, the person will enter Paradise on a female camel on the Day of Judgment.

Nawafil:

As mentioned earlier, on the day of Shab-e-Barat, Muslims perform Nawafil and worship Allah to gain as much rewards as possible. Some nawafil are listed below.

1.      Offer 6 rakaat Nafl after the Maghrib prayers and after every two rakaats, recite Surah Yasin one time. This will help you get a healthy and prosperous life for the following year by the blessing of Alah.

2.      Offer 12 rakaat nafl namaaz and in each rakaat recite, Surah Fatiha one time and Surah Ikhlas ten times. After the prayer, recite 3^rd Kalma ten times, 4^th Kalma ten times, and Durood Sharif 100 times.

Allah says in Quran,

“Whoever of the nation [ummah] of My Beloved Prophet (Swall Allahu Alaihi Wasallam) performs 2 cycles [raka’] of prayer on the 15th night of Shabaan is better than this 400 years of worship.” {Nuzhatul Majalis}.

Forgiveness on Shab-e-Barat:

The Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) says,

“Allah Glorious and Exalted descends to the nearest heaven on the night of mid-Shabaan (15th night) and He forgives more people than the number of hair on the hides of the flocks and herds of sheep of the tribe of Kalb”. {Tirmidhi}.

However, there are some people who are not forgiven on the night of Shab-e-Barat because of their previous deeds. Those who are not forgiven on the night of Shab-e-Barat are mentioned below.

1.      Alcoholics and habitual drinkers

2.      Those who perform adultery on a regular basis.

3.      Individuals who disobey their parents

4.      Individuals who have severed family ties.

5.      Those who like to spread mischief.

6.      Those who back bite often.

However, some narrations vary in this regard. Other narrations also include individuals practicing magic, gaining interest, lowering pants below their ankles with pride, beginning a dispute between two Muslims and those who have hatred for a Muslim in their heart. All these individuals are among those who are not forgiven on Shab-e-Barat.

Conclusion:

Therefore, Shab-e-Barat has tremendous benefits for Muslims. It is best to pray and worship Allah on that night and seek his forgiveness.

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8 Useful Tips To Increase Your Website Traffic

Some might take years to generate traffic and some takes few months. High traffic is what we all want for our website. Many websites fails within a month or two because they are not getting much traffic, they just loose all hope without even trying some tools. Blogging is not an easy task that you just start and will get lots of money you need to be patience, smart and build links.

It does not matter how much great content and specific information you have on your blog, what matter much is visitors. How much traffic or visitor visiting your site daily or your stats is what matters much, because all of your web earning and branding depend entirely upon the traffic you get to your website. The following tips will help you increase the much required traffic to your website.

• Submit your blog to popular search engines like Google, Yahoo, Bing. Submitting a blog to these major search engines can really increase your traffic by indexing your site to their list.
• Keywords are what people search on the web and typed in search boxes. What people generally do is overcrowd their post with keywords to make it optimize for search engines. You should take this in mind that you want people not only search engines to find your website. Try to use keywords in your post title and in body as well. The blog should be rich in keyword content but not only contain keywords that are considered as spam.
• Social media is another best tool to increase your website traffic. You must share your site to social networks to increase your network. Also try using the plugins like tweet me, Facebook share, Linkedln share on your site to make it easy for your visitors to share your contents with their friends. This will greatly help you to make your blog popular on social networks.
• Do some link building as this will make your website rank high in search engines like Google and help you to increase the volume of traffic to your website. You can do this by submitting your articles to directories and comments on famous blogs, posting guest articles on sites. This will increase the link popularity of your website and leaving your link in comments will help people trackback your website.
• RSS(Real Simple Syndication) feeds submission is the best method for SEO in the purpose of submitting any website feed to the directories which are popular. Your regular visitor or audience will get their regular updates of your site and connected to you by this way. This will help you to increasing rank to search engines.
• Interact with your readers, Reply to their comments and answer their questions. Asking their opinion is what all you can do to make your readers engage with you and love to visit your site. Make sure that you are polite to your readers and if they are happy with you then surely they will tell to their friends and companions.
• Update your blog regularly like you must post regularly, but don’t post too early that your readers will not get time to read the previous one. So let the user analyze your post while you are posting another one. As it is well said before, it is always better to have quality than quantity.
• There are various online communities and forums available out there. Choose the forums and communities in your niche and actively participate on them. While participating in them, use your links in the forum signature as it will serve as a backlink as well as it will help you get a good amount of targeted traffic to your website.

What steps you take to increase traffic to your site? Do share it with us, here in the comments section.

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