At any given moment, our attention is constantly being drawn toward a variety of tasks and distractions, whether it be school, work, family, advertisements, emails, the endless articles and links on the internet, or our smartphones that are constantly receiving alerts. However, the believer recognizes that there is nothing worthy of our attention except for Allah ﷻ. In order to overcome all of the innumerable distractions, Ramadan perfectly imposes upon us a thirty-day intensive in which we are forced to redirect our attention to Allah ﷻ. From the restrictions of fasting to the rescheduling of our daily routines, and all of the acts that lie therein (i.e. suhoor, iftar, taraweeh, tahajjud, etc.), we are constantly redirected towards the remembrance of Allah ﷻ. The climax of this intensive is achieved during ‘itikaf, in which we retreat to the masjid during the last ten days and nights, and we are 100% engaged with Allah ﷻ, free of all the distractions which otherwise constantly plague us.
