With Ramadan approaching quickly, there is no better time to get into a creative mindset and consider decorating your home for this beautiful, exciting, and rewarding month insha'Allah. Last year's Ramadan was a brand new and unique experience for the global Muslim community due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Mosques were closed, gatherings were restricted, and many of us turned sections of our homes into personal musallas (prayer space) in order to maintain the excitement and spirit of the holy month. One of our Classical Arabic students, Torrie, shares creative ideas that she and her family used last year to make this month extra special as the pandemic challenged their usual habits.

Last year when my family and I realized we would be in lockdown for Ramadan, we used the opportunity to turn our family room into a designated musalla area (prayer area) for our daily prayers and Quran readings. This was very exciting for us because during previous years, we had not taken the time to decorate for Ramadan or designate a part of our home to prayer and worship. We used string lights to line the walls, put up decorative banners, created a prayer time schedule on a dry-erase board so that everyone in the family knew when to gather for prayers, bought new prayer rugs and cushioned the floor beneath them with thick blankets. It was very uplifting to have a place in our home decorated and designated for prayer and worship, because, as we entered the space, it was easier to enter into a focused state of mind as well. We plan to carry out this tradition during this Ramadan insha'Allah even as the mosques continue to reopen.

Decorating your entire home or a space in your home for Ramadan can be a fun experience for the whole family. A few tips for Ramadan decorating that I have discovered along the way are listed below:

Decorative lights are an easy way to brighten any part of your home and give it a festive and joyous atmosphere. You can use them to outline the space you choose for prayer, wrap them around stair railings, hang them from the ceiling, or set out decorative lanterns such as star lanterns, henna lanterns, and Moroccan lanterns.

Homemade or store-bought banners that spell out "Ramadan", "Ramadan Kareem", "Ramadan Mubarak", or your favorite reminders during this holy month. You could even cut out your own shapes with colorful construction paper, such as moons and stars, lanterns, and Arabic calligraphy.

Countdown to Eid calendars can be used as great reminders of how short this month of Ramadan truly is and how to make the most of it. This can be hand-drawn and decorated, and it would be great to emphasize the last ten nights as well as including Quran verses and hadiths that remind us to do good and seek Allah's forgiveness and favor.

Regardless of how or if you decorate for Ramadan this year, I hope that we all seek to please and worship Allah and seek His reward from this blessed time. I pray that Allah guides us to do good, forgives us of our shortcomings, accepts all of our fasts, and purifies our hearts during this month, ameen!

Make sure to also check out our previous Ramadan decorations articles!

5 Easy and Fun Decorating Ideas for Ramadan

The Traditional Fanoos and DIY Ramadan Lanterns

Looking for more Ramadan resources to get ready for this special, blessed month? Visit our dedicated website at studioarabiya.com/lp/ramadan-2021 with more blog articles, recipes, infographics, decoration ideas, activities for kids and teens, and more! We will keep adding more resources as we get closer to Ramadan, and Eid insha'Allah.