Top tips 05 to make the most of your weekends!

Top tips 05 to make the most of your weekends

Your weekends are precious — you'll want to make the most of them. You’ve probably worked all week with one target in mind — getting to the weekend and then doing something useful with it! Yet often when you actually reach the weekend, it tends to fizzle out and not quite live up to your expectations.

The following top 05 tips aim to help you make the most of your weekends — so that by the time Monday comes, you’ll feel refreshed, on top of things, and fulfilled about what you’ve done in your time off.

#1 Increase Your Worship

Free time at the weekend is a blessing. We all would love more free time. A secret of the pious is that whenever they want to increase a blessing they give shukr for it, due to Allah’s (glorified and exalted be He) promise in the Qur’an:
‘If you are grateful to Me, I shall certainly increase you (in favour).’ [Quran: Chapter 14, Verse 7]
What better way to give thanks for our free time than to increase our worship in it? Through this, inshaAllah, we will be blessed with more quality time. Throughout the week we may skip our Sunnas, read very little Qur’an and have poor concentration in salah. Now we’ve hit the weekend, let’s make up for lost ground.

#2 Visiting Family

Living in Leicester, a city where hundreds of Muslims migrate to for the Islamic environment, it can be exasperating trying to find your friends in the weekend. Why? They’re busy travelling to Preston, Bolton, and London or across the city visiting relatives The weekend is the traditional time for Muslims, especially in the West, where families tend to be dispersed, to visit in-laws, parents, siblings and call relatives back in the Muslim heartlands. And such customs are excellent Q2 habits to maintain as the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allāh be upon him) informed us:
‘Anyone who desires the expansion of his provision or to have the best of his life prolonged, should maintain ties of kinship.” [Al Adab Al Mufrad]

#3 Spending Quality Leisure Time with One’s Spouse and Children

The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allāh be upon him) urged us in the most unequivocal words to take care of our families:
“The best of you are those who are the best to their families, and I am the best to my family” [Ibn Majah].
As a teacher, I’ve seen the terrible consequences of ‘absentee fathers’ who work long shifts at the weekend, sometimes living for long stretches abroad, spending hardly any time with their kids. It doesn’t matter how long one’s beard is or how outwardly pious you may look, if you’re not spending quality time with your children – especially if they are in their teens – then don’t be surprised if they start acting up in all sorts of un-Islamic ways.
Boys in particular, in our times, need strong male role models if they are to avoid succumbing to a myriad of dangerous temptations. Activities with family and children should be varied and stimulating. Regular trips to museums, exhibitions or shared outdoor adventures can create immense bonding, revive spirits and provide cherished memories to last a lifetime. Such outings help refine teenagers, cushioning them away from the worryingly prevalent ‘rude boy’ or gangster culture which tends to attract a lot of Muslim youth.

#4 Studying Islam and Attending Gatherings of the Pious

Alhamdulillah, there is an abundance of courses, ranging from one-day conferences to 5 year alimiyya’ programmes, locally, nationally and online, that can be undertaken solely on weekends. Also, any other gatherings of the ‘ulama or pious for the sake of learning sacred knowledge or remembrance of Allah are ‘groves of Paradise’ which should be attended as much as possible: “No people sit remembering Allah, the Mighty and Exalted, without the angels surrounding them and mercy covering them and tranquillity descending on them and Allah mentioning them to those who are with Him.” [Ibn Majah]
I personally have come across dedicated students who, through their hard work at weekends, have learned Arabic to a high level, some graduating to scholarly levels. May Allah (glorified and exalted be He) grant us such aspiration and inspire us to put in the time.

# 5 Wholesome Recreation

The Messenger (peace and blessings of Allāh be upon him) and his Companions (may Allāh be pleased with them) were incredibly fit. Even a cursory browse of some of the accounts of their military campaigns, shows an astonishing level of physical endurance. Similarly, we often read about the well known sacrifices of scholars from the early generations, such as Imam al-Bukhari or Baqiyy ibn Makhlad and countless others, who thought nothing of walking thousands of miles to learn hadith. Aside from the stirring example of dedication to knowledge, these great men must have been at a high level of health to undertake such lengthy journeys – in an age well before modern transport or advances in medicine. Life in those times involved daily physical exertion – more than even daily trips to the gym would provide – and kept people healthy.