Spiritual delights of fasting Ramadhan (27)

We are in the last week of the blessed fasting month of Ramadhan. Today is the 27th and let us start our programme Spiritual delights of fasting Ramadhan with the special supplication for this day:

 “O Allah, grant me in it the grace of the night of ordainment, and turn about my affair therein from hardship to ease; accept my excuses, relieve me of the burden of sins; O You Who are Compassionate to Your righteous servants!”

Ramadhan and its fasts are a time for reflection. While experiencing hunger and thirst during the daylight hours, we become aware of people in our society and around the world who cannot afford to have eve one square meal a day. This should jolt our conscience as Muslims and make us strive to fulfill the needs of others, especially of the deprived masses and the downtrodden people. We have heard that this Ramadhan a French Muslim charity is serving 60,000 free meals during Ramadhan from a temporary structure on the edge of Paris. It’s a place where the Muslims – and anyone else who wants to join – can break their day-long fast, in a spirit of togetherness.

For 21 years, this French charity has helped poor and homeless Muslims – and non-Muslims – break their Ramadan fast at sunset. Named “Une Chorba Pour Tous” [which in English means: Soup for Everyone] serves approximately a thousand people a day during the holy month of Ramadan from its centre at Porte des Lilas in northeast Paris. An hour before the distribution begins there are already hundreds of people lining up; women and children on one side, men on the other. Its organizers say: “We feed Muslims who come here to break their fast, but we also feed non-Muslims, the homeless, alcoholics, people of all ages and backgrounds.”

In the Islamic Republic of Iran there are many charities throughout the country that arrange free snack and even meals at the time of Iftar. Several mosques are part of this charity network. In the holy shrine of Imam Reza (AS) in Mashhad and that of his sister, Hazrat Ma’soumah (SA), thousands of people are served Iftar after the Maghreb prayers. Thus, the month of fasting and spiritual reflection brings us closer to Allah and more attuned to the needs and suffering of other human beings. Indeed, we experience the temporary discomfort of hunger and thirst each day, but the magnitude of chronic hunger in our world is truly staggering. For instance, one in twelve people in the world is malnourished.

Every year, 15 million children die of hunger - or more than 41 thousand a day. A human being dies of hunger every 3.6 seconds. To satisfy the world’s sanitation and food requirements would cost only $13 billion dollars-about what the people of the United States and the European Union spend on perfume, each year. In the United States of America, the wealthiest nation, some 37 million children live below poverty line. Additionally, the United States ranks only 23rd among industrial nations in child mortality. Thus, it is clear that the satanic powers of the world, especially the US, are the least concerned about mankind’s welfare.

The act of fasting is to redirect the heart away from worldly activities – its purpose being to cleanse the soul by freeing it from harmful impurities, and this means caring for the people of not just the neighbourhood, but also of the entire world. Ramadhan teaches Muslims to better practice self-discipline, self-control, sacrifice, and empathy for those who are less fortunate; thus encouraging acts of generosity and compulsory charity; Zakat and Fitra. The most important aspect of Ramadhan is the duty we have to others, especially those less fortunate than us. Fasting, like most practices in Islam, is meant to help serve the wider community and not just the individual.

Fasting engenders a spirit of community as different people go through pretty much the same feelings during the course of a day. It teaches people to be patient, especially in their dealings with others. It creates a sense of shared trials and tribulations, and allows people to recognise the hardships that other less fortunate than them may have to go through even as they bond with these people through shared abstinence.

Finally, however, it teaches us one more thing: to assist others around us in making their lives easier while they fast and accepting their ministrations as they do the same. May our Lord accept our fast and sacrifice, and may He bring us closer to him through service to humankind.

AS/ME