Holy Ramadan: a Month of Discipline and Soul-cleansing

By Mustapha Ettoulay

Morocco World News

Ifrane, July 1, 2012

Ramadan is the ninth month of the Islamic calendar. In this month, Muslims all over the world fast from dawn to dusk. During that month Muslims abstain from food, drink and sexual intercourse from sun rise to sun set.

This holy month begins with the sighting of the crescent moon on the evening following the new moon. It lasts for 29 or 30 days depending on the lunar cycle. According to the holy Quran, Muslims must see the new crescent with naked eyes before they can fast.

Why is this month sacred?

Ramadan is the most important month of the year for several reasons. “The month of Ramadan is the month in which the holy Quran was revealed as a guidance for humanity, as a clear proof of that guidance, and a criterion for distinguishing between the right and the wrong”(2:185).
Also, the holiness of Ramadan comes from the existence of laylat Elqadr (night of destiny), believed to be the eve of the 27th day of Ramadan. This night, according to Islam, “is better than one thousand months” and it is a night, during which the revelation was completed.

Further, this month is the month of Sawm (Fasting); as it is known to Muslims Sawm is one of the five pillars of Islam and it is the month when Sawn has been made obligatory for all adults, capable and sane Muslims.

Additionally, the greatness of Ramadan lies in the opportunity it offers to become closer to God. ”Anyone who fasts during this month with purity of believe and with expectation and a good reward, will have his previous sins forgiven,” said the prophet Mohammed PUH.

Besides, during that month the reward for good deeds are multiplied. Along with the possibility of great reward, there is the risk of a terrible loss. Muslims think that if they let any month pass by carelessly, they just lost a month; and if they do the same during Ramadan, they will loose everything.

Why do Muslims fast?

Fasting serves many purposes. Muslims do fast for the entire month of Ramadan, since fasting is one of the five pillars of Islam, as well as being among the greatest symbols of Islam. While hungry, Muslims are reminded of the suffering of the poor. By fasting, Muslims are not only required to sympathize with the needy people, but they are thrown into the experience of hunger.

For Muslims, fasting is a great opportunity to exercise self-restrain, self-control, self-discipline and self-training. “O who believe, fasting is decreed for you as it was decreed for those before you; perchance you will guard yourselves “(2:183).

Additionally, one of the numerous purposes of fasting in that holy month is that fasting is a key to a true, sincere, comprehensive and Thanksgiving to almighty God for his bounties. This bounties need payment of a price which is thanking God through fasting.
Fasting during this sacred month develops courage, fortitude and a fighting spirit in human beings to surmount the heavy odds in life with a cool and tranquil mind.

It sharpens the individual power of concentration to overcome obstacles through a vigorous exercises all throughout the month, leading to a stealing of his power and resolve that could help him/her in challenging difficult situations in life. Many people take advantage of this holy month to dispose of some habits like drinking or smoking.

The Atmosphere of Ramadan

The atmosphere to be found during the day of Ramadan makes it stands out from the rest of the year. Moroccan people start their fasting day with a meal (Suhur) consumed collectively in the early morning before fasting. This Suhur is eaten before sunrise and before the dawn prayer.

Sawm in Morocco starts with a bang, a rather large one that marks for the new day of fasting. This voiced bang precedes the Addan (voiced declaration for Muslim to prayer).
After they hear the Addan, Muslim should stop eating and go to the mosque to perform their prayer.

What makes Ramadan the most glorious month is the atmosphere that comes either before or after breakfast. You will find ladies very busy preparing the most famous national dishes, such as Harira, Briwats,and shapakia to the extent that the kitchen becomes similar to a beehive.

In the streets, you will find traders and peddlers competing to sell their delicacies.

Approximately, one hour before the sun-set (breakfast) you will observe people rushing toward their houses lest they lose the opportunity of breaking their fast at home with their family members and friends.

Twenty minutes before Addan, streets become nearly empty. At homes, you will see people waiting in front of a well-decorated table with all delicacies from dates, milk, leben (fermented milk) water, briwat, honey, butter, cheese, cookies, chapakia, juice, harira, tajine, etc.

As the Addan is heard Moroccan Muslims break their fast in an enjoyable atmosphere. When they finish their meal (fotor), they gather in another room, where they discuss and exchange joke till the Addan of Alichae (night prayer) when they take leave to the mosque to perform Tarawih prayer. Tarawih prayers are prayed in pairs of two Rakaats from 8 to 20 Rakaats after the fifth pray of Alaicchae.

When the Moroccans are practicing this Islamic ritual, the movement in cities is stopped and every thing becomes inactive and stagnant till the end of these prayers as though someone hit the pause button on the whole Moroccan cities by a remote control.

Active and vigorous is the case of Moroccan cities after the Tarawih prayers. Streets, cafés, restaurants and supermarkets, all become full with people and activity.

The end of Ramadan

Two important rituals mark the end of Ramadan. The first is Zakat al Fitrah. It is a religious alms paid on the day when the Moroccans break their fasting period at the end of the month of Ramadan. It is an obligatory payment aiming at purifying the Muslims from those sins committed in Ramadan. It is given to needy people who are unable to cater for their essential needs.

Also, the end of Ramadan is marked by the festivities of Eid alfitre (the first day of the coming new month.) Eid ALFITRE or EID SGHIR is one of the two holiest religious celebrations. It is a family day when people enjoy their favorite meals in an atmosphere of festivity. People dress in their finest cloth, adorn their homes with light and decorations.

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I would like to share with you these posts from my blog.

And here comes Ramadan, Layla. Or rather it’ll start tomorrow. So we are cleaning our homes. I mean we clean what’s inside the house. No problem if the street outside is dirty. The street doesn’t belong to us. The strangers who visit us will judge us only by the inside of our house, and sometimes by the façade. This is what the strangers see. Anyone who doesn’t live with us is a stranger, not only distant family and the neighbours, but even our siblings and offspring who live in other places. So we must care about them all. We must show them that we are clean, that we belong to the world of today, since we have a good television set, a new refrigerator––in sum, all that important, respectable families should have. Those strangers don’t see beyond our appearances. They just see the floors, the walls, the furniture, the crockery, the television etc, etc, etc. They don’t see what’s in our minds and hearts. So we don’t care much about cleansing our hearts and minds. If we smile at our guests, that’s all they expect from us. We hide our problems as best we can until the strangers are gone.

And then, we can shout at one another, we can insult one another, we can invoke all kinds of evil on one another’s head, because we are used to that throughout the year. What’s the difference between Ramadan and the rest of the year? The only difference is that in Ramadan we spend more than usual, because we eat more than usual. But we remain the same people in the house. So someone has to assert his/her authority over the others.

And, in the evening, you know, we “all” gather round the table. We sit at the table while watching TV. And we should be careful while eating, because we laugh a lot. Our TV brings us the best comedians with their latest, and so we have a good laugh. We forget our problems. We feel that we are like the others. Because we see and hear the same thing as the whole country and we laugh at the same thing. And that’s the happiness that Ramadan brings us.

And after dinner, you know, our girls and boys will go downtown to enjoy themselves until midnight. Yes, our girls, too. What’s wrong with it? Everybody’s doing that. Why should a brother ask his sister where she’s going? Why should even her father ask her where she’s going or where she has been? We don’t live in the past. We should behave just like the other people in the world of today.

See, Layla, how times have changed?

Many, many years ago, you know, a friend told me this story:

“I met a European couple, who said to me, ‘When we wanted to come to Morocco as tourists we gave our bathing costume and trunks to our friends back there, because we assumed that we wouldn’t need them once we got into Morocco, which is a Muslim state. But as we arrived in Tangiers we were floored. We saw Moroccans in their bathing trunks at Tangiers beach!’”

Also in Tangiers, when I was a student there, I once got into my school library and found an American woman in her early thirties dressed in a Moroccan jellaba and head-scarf. She was sitting at a table and reading the Holy Koran. Around her were Moroccan female students in t-shirts and tight jeans!

Good night, Layla!
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Our Ramadan is beautiful, though, Layla. Why shouldn’t it be since our hearts are still alive despite all that’s happened since your time? Yes, it’s true we’re no longer the lords of the world. Yes, it’s true we are scattered into over fifty different countries. But our hearts are one because our God is One.

Unfortunately, we no longer speak the same tongue, the beautiful Arabic in which you spoke with your family and with your lover. We now use that Arabic –that we call Classical Arabic– only at school, at mosque and in the Administration. Even in the media people do not always speak in that beautiful Arabic. In my country, Morocco, there’s at least a magazine fully published in Moroccan Arabic. And you have Algerian Arabic, Libyan Arabic, Egyptian Arabic, Syrian Arabic, Iraqi Arabic, Yemeni Arabic, and everybody has his own Arabic. If only we all knew the original Arabic in which the Koran was revealed! You needn’t wonder at it, since most of us have never been to school, for only at school can one learn the Arabic which you learnt at home as your mother-tongue. Now that Arabic is nobody’s mother-tongue anymore. That’s why most of us simply don’t know the Koran. And most of those of us who do read the Koran don’t understand it the way you and your people did. So the Koran has had little impact on our lives for a long time now. Even now we only know some of it through our centuries-long customs and traditions. And that’s one of the two most salient causes of our decline.

Yet, this tenuous connection with the Koran is far from being the only cause of our decline. The second biggest cause, you know, is the struggle for power. Iraq, and you know what Iraq was like, is now in a mess because people there are still fighting each other for power. It’s the same old greed for authority, the same old love of the throne, the same old craziness for worldly glory. Now we are so many countries because of that craziness. Each country has its own Arabic, its own “caliph”, its own army, its own frontiers.

And yet we are all one because God is One. We all read the same Koran. We go to mosque. We fast and break the fast with the same pleasure. And of that I’ll tell you more, Inshallah.

Good night, Layla!

_______________________

One of the beautiful things about our Ramadan is that it is celebrated all over the world: from Malmö in the North to Johansberg in the South, from Tokyo in the East to San Fransisco in the West. In Baghdad and Islamabad, in Kabul and Istanbul, in Washington and Wellington, in Nablus and Los Angeles, in Cairo and Ontario, in Warsaw and Arkansas, in Mecca and Dakka, in Izmir and Tangier, in Aukland and Portland, in Berlin and Beijing, everywhere you go you’ll find people –no matter how many they are– fasting from dawn to dusk, asking Allah’s forgiveness. They remind the world that it’s Allah Who is the Lord of the World, not America or NATO. Anyone can fast Ramadan. Even Christians join their Muslim neighbours in the fast of Ramadan in some parts of the world just as Muslims share with them Christmas and any other celebrations. They don’t care of those who kill each other in the name of God, be they in the right or in the wrong. They only care about pleasing God, Who, they know, does not want them to starve themselves for the sake of starving, but to educate them, to make them feel hungry and thirsty so that they realize how much God is bountiful towards man by providing him with all kinds of food and drink, which he tends to take for granted, and therefore they should give thanks to the One Who made them and provided them with all means of subsistence. By feeling hungry and thirsty themselves, those who fast would remember that while they are expecting to eat and drink at iftar at dusk, many people just won’t have anything to eat that day or won’t be able to eat every day, and they would realize that water, which is taken for granted in many countries, is a scarce commodity in many others. By fasting, those who fast remember God for hours and days, Him Who always remembers the faithful. And many, many people come to Allah during Ramadan. At no other time of year are mosques more full and lively than in Ramadan. At no other time of year is the Holy Koran more read than in Ramadan. At no other time of year are the poor, the homeless, the orphans remembered and cared for than in Ramadan. In Ramadan mercy and compassion descend upon the Earth. In Ramadan curiosity arises among those who believe in Scientology or those who believe they descended from a monkey, or those who believe the World was made by chance, or those who believe there’s just no God and no life after death.

In Ramadan, many “Muslims” don’t fast––not because they are ill, but simply because they believe they are free. They don’t care about God. They don’t care about Heaven and Hell. They believe they are free to do whatever they wish. And yet God will give them a chance. They are “free” to try whatever they like––as long as they are alive. And if they repent in time, they will find God the Most Merciful, the Most Compassionate. If they remain obstinate, they will see what happens after death. God is not in need of anybody worshipping Him or fasting for the sake of Him. But God is happy to see people from all races and colours, from all walks of life, wake up before dawn to have their souhour, and then at sunrise they go to their work in Casablanca, in Cairo, in Kwalalumpur, in Paris, in Kanu, in Haidarabad, in New York or in any other part of the world, and they keep fasting during their working hours, and then they come back home and sit with family and wait for the dusk prayer, and then have iftar together, and then go to taraweeh prayers and ask Allah the Most Merciful, the Most Compassionate, for forgiveness and for a place in Heaven.

See, Layla, our Ramadan is lovely, too, isn’t it?

Good night, Layla!