What are the major goals of Ramadan?

There are many goals that we want to achieve in Ramadan, but in the end, we said that the best and probably the most important goal should be the one which Allah and His Messenger (ﷺ) have set.

The things that we need to do to achieve the overall goal which was set by Allah and His Messenger (ﷺ) becomes the details.

The three goals that were set. What was the first one set by the Qur'an? Taqwa, that was number one. Because Allah specifically said,

“Oh you who believes, fasting has been prescribed for you as it was prescribed for those before you in order for you to achieve Taqwa.” [1]

In order for you to attain a good consciousness of God. So that is a clear definition of goal, purpose, et cetera.

We also understood that one of the major goals was forgiveness. Forgiveness is one of the major goals. Why? Because we have all the different Ahadeeth where the Prophet (ﷺ) has said,

“Whoever fast Ramadan out of true faith and seeking their reward from Allah, then their previous sins will be forgiven.” [2]

So, atonement for sin becomes, from that statement of the Prophet (ﷺ), a major goal. And in fact the Prophet (ﷺ) has said about a person who had fasted Ramadan and did not attain that atonement, he has lost out, a great great loss. This was an opportunity for him or her, which will not come back again. May be other opportunities may present themselves, but that opportunity is gone.

The third goal was that of improving, developing or establishing our relationship with the Qur'an. We took that from the very fact that Allah chose the month of Ramadan for fasting because it was the month in which the Qur'an was revealed.

“The month of Ramadhan [is that] in which was revealed the Qur'an, a guidance for the people and clear proofs of guidance and criterion...” [3]

So these, we said, were the three major goals of Ramadan. All of the other goals that we seek for ourselves, we would like to achieve this, we would like to do that, all of them will fall into one of these three categories.

References:

[1] [Qur’an 2:183]

[2] [Narrated by al-Bukhaari, 37; Muslim, 1268]

[3] [Qur’an 2:185]