Preparing For Ramadan 2025

Ramadan is just around the corner! Here’s everything you should do to prepare.

As many of you may or may not know, the Holy month of Ramadan begins on the 28th of February this year! Muslims worldwide will fast from sunrise to sunset, practicing discipline and making an effort to do an excess of good deeds. Since Ramadan is a time to focus on our spiritual growth, we should prepare for it ahead of time.

For those who are unfamiliar with Ramadan, here are a few details: Muslims pray 5 times a day, and of those 5 prayers, there is Fajr which occurs before sunrise, and Maghrib which takes place at sunset. During Ramadan, fasting begins at Fajr and ends at Maghrib! The meal that is eaten before Fajr/sunrise is called suhoor or sehri (depending on what language you speak/your culture, both are correct though). Furthermore, the meal that is eaten at Maghrib/sunset is called iftar. The end of the month is marked by the ‘new crescent moon’ phase, and the following 3 days are celebrated as Eid, where Muslims rejoice the completion of Ramadan and sometimes exchange gifts.  As Ramadan approaches, it’s important to prepare both spiritually and practically to make the most of it.

To start, if you missed some days of fasting last Ramadan, because of an illness/injury where you had to take medication routinely, or you had your menses, then you must make up the days you missed before this Ramadan begins. This can be done any day that it is permissible to fast, just make the intention and fast from sunrise (Fajr) to sunset (Maghrib).

Next, I suggest planning ahead for meals, cleaning, and Eid gifts. You might want to research and find new things to eat in suhoor/sehri (the pre-dawn meal) and iftar (the meal to break your fast). In my family, we enjoy the same iftar items every year: chicken spring rolls, fruit salad, chickpeas, and a few other small dishes that we rotate day to day. We make sure to meal plan ahead of time and prepare all the spring rolls for the month before Ramadan starts. We then freeze them and take them out to fry when needed. We also started making banana-date milkshakes and boiled eggs for suhoor/sehri last year; ensuring we are stocked up on those groceries is also part of the preparation this year. Speaking of shopping, if your family/circle usually exchanges gifts on Eid, you might want to plan and shop before Eid starts to avoid the last-minute rush while fasting. If you don’t have time or run out of gift ideas, there are usually Eid bazaars (fairs) during Ramadan where you can shop for clothes and gifts. Of course, you’d just have to plan for when and where to attend them. Lastly, to reduce the amount of work you’ll have to do in Ramadan, try to deep clean your house beforehand. Get rid of any unnecessary clutter, organize the kitchen and the closets, mop the floors, and make your house shine. This will save you a lot of time and energy when you have to clean for Eid at the end of the month. It’s helpful to not have to worry about making food, shopping, or cleaning during Ramadan, so you can concentrate on more important things.

If you are currently a student or working, I would suggest getting your big projects and assignments out of the way before Ramadan starts too. This is because the lack of food can sometimes make it harder to focus: which could cause you to complete tasks slower than usual. Checking off your time-consuming and complicated tasks before Ramadan will make your experience go by smoothly. If you can help it, I would also avoid booking too many appointments during Ramadan. Reduce your workload as much as possible, you wouldn’t want to be overworked and stressed while fasting. Stress and no food is a bad combination; organize your tasks in a realistic way so that you can comfortably complete both your physical and spiritual obligations.

Finally, to prepare for Ramadan, do some spiritual reflection. Think about the purpose and history of this blessed month and decide how you are going to make the most of it. Eliminate bad habits and implement good ones. If you listen to music, plan to not at least during Ramadan. If you use a lot of social media in your free time, go out and buy or download some Islamic literature or relevant non-fiction novels to read instead. Some people decide to read the Quran throughout the month, 1 chapter every day for 30 days. If that is something you’d like to do, then make a plan. Find the copy of the Quran that you will use, make a schedule, and motivate yourself to stick to it. The same applies if you plan to read half or even a portion of the Quran: any amount will be rewarded, as long as you make an honest effort. You might also want to incorporate a new dua (prayer) into your routine. A good way to find authentic duas is to use an app like ’Athan’. It has a lot of resources that you can explore and use to upgrade your knowledge. It also offers a 5 times daily prayer tracker, and in Ramadan, it has a tracker for fasting. Both would be beneficial to use because you can easily keep track of the fasts you missed and need to make up before next Ramadan, and it’s helpful to have a reminder for every prayer too. If you have never used an app like this and would like to for Ramadan, I suggest getting acquainted with it beforehand. This mental preparation is essential to making the most of your actions during Ramadan.

Another thing that would be beneficial to do (that most of us wouldn’t have considered doing), is to double-check our facts. As adults, we should make sure that we are performing all of our mandatory acts of worship correctly and checking to make sure that what we were taught growing up is correct. Sometimes, as kids, we pick up a lot of information from school and online– incorrect information, or correct information that we misunderstood, and believe it to be true until adulthood. We might also confuse ‘culture’ with ‘religion’ and continue practicing them incorrectly until we learn the truth. Before Ramadan is the perfect time to correct our knowledge, and to at least make sure we are praying and fasting correctly. Go online and seek out authentic sources like the Quran and Sunnah (Sahih al-Bukhari, Sahih Muslim, etc.). It might sound silly to do, but best-case scenario, you know for sure you have been practicing correctly, and worst-case scenario, you find out you were missing something or doing something extra and can now correct it before Ramadan to gain the full reward of your deeds. Either way, it’s worth the time it takes to check, especially in this day and age where there is a lot of information out there, and it’s hard to tell what’s authentic and what’s not. All of this spiritual preparation will get you in the zone for Ramadan and will help you make the most of it.

Here’s a little summarized checklist that you can export and use to prepare. :)

Checklist for Ramadan prep:

¨  Make up missed fasts

¨  Prep meals (suhoor/sehri, and iftar)

¨  Deep clean house

¨  Plan Eid gifts/shopping

¨  Reflect on the purpose of Ramadan

¨  Stop bad habits and start good ones

¨  Plan to read Quran

¨  Learn a new Dua

¨  Set up a prayer/fast tracker

¨  Make sure you are praying and fasting correctly

¨  Keep the people of Palestine in your duas

For everyone celebrating, I pray that you have a blessed Ramadan and that all of your good deeds are accepted and multiplied. Please continue to pray for the people of Palestine and keep them in your duas throughout this month. May they all be rewarded for their resilience. Ameen.

Thank you all for reading, and I hope you will be able to use all that was mentioned to prepare for Ramadan 2025!

• Eid
• Fasting
• islam
• preparation
• Ramaan
• religion
• spirituality