The Day of the Prize and Ramadan as Training for the Whole Year

Occasion: Transcript of a Fajr khatira delivered on March 20, 2026 Source: Transcript of a video khatira by Dr. Ahmed Abou Seif, watch the original video on YouTube

Congratulations to you all. Alhamdulillah, Allah has helped us reach this position. It is related that the Prophet ﷺ named this day the day of the prize.^[1]

Think about it: when we hold a celebration, who is celebrating, and who is being celebrated? Here the giver of the prize is Allah, subhanahu wa ta'ala, and we are the recipients, in sha Allah. The One who honours us with this celebration is Allah, because of you. The occasion is made for you, and He makes known your efforts, what you did and what you are doing. Subhan Allah.

There is only one question here, and I do not want to call it a problem: are we qualified to receive the prize today? Did we do our part, our best, our duties toward what Allah asked of us? Allah is giving us the prize today because of our patience, our sacrifice, our efforts, our money and our time. And what was all of it for? Everything we did during Ramadan was for the sake of Allah, subhanahu wa ta'ala.

Can we keep that concept in our minds for the rest of the year? Can we keep the concept of "for the sake of Allah", full stop, and not for anything else?

What is left at the end

At the end of the day, as we mentioned before, the Prophet ﷺ reminded us that there will come a time when we are under the earth. We will leave this world. We will leave the money behind us, and the position, and our children and our family, everything. The only thing we will find at that time is whether we prepared something for the sake of Allah or not. We will start reviewing our actions and our reactions, everything that happened to us in this world, and looking at what is waiting for us on the Day of Judgment. Allah will ask you what, exactly, you did for His sake.

Ramadan as a training period

If we try to sum up everything that happened in Ramadan, it was a training. When you are hired by a big company, the first thing they give you is the tag, to show your identity: from now on you belong to this company. Especially if they give you a uniform, once you wear it you become like a different person: right now I am a police officer, right now I am an imam, right now I am an engineer, because of that uniform. That is the identity at the beginning.

After that they give you training. Professional people do not do anything before training. During the training you are not asked about anything and you carry no responsibility; the only thing you need to do is learn what you will do in the future.

Ramadan was the training time. How you fasted during the days and prayed during the nights is nothing compared with what you will do after Ramadan. After Ramadan you have finished the training, and you are ready to start your journey, with its responsibilities and duties. So what will you do from now on?

A training period needs no distraction, and during Ramadan we wanted you to focus on the material. After Ramadan you will start facing struggle and distraction and problems. But you have already had the training to know how to fix the problems you will face.

During Ramadan we learned how to control our desires. We learned to see the position of the Quran: we prayed behind the imam who recited for us the whole Book of Allah, subhanahu wa ta'ala, and we saw what the Quran does here and there and where it comes to us from. All of this came to my mind as a way to build the mentality of facing struggle.

We ask Allah, subhanahu wa ta'ala, to guide all of us, and to accept from all of you.

--- ^[1]: Editor's documentation: the speaker gave no source for this designation. The narrations that call the day or night of Eid al-Fitr "the day/night of the prize" are, as far as the editor knows, weak in their chains according to a number of hadith scholars, so the statement is kept as "it is related" and not affirmed as an authentic hadith.