(source image: lotushead)

With each Ramadan we are blessed to breathe through; comes new trials with varying lessons.

Zahira writes about experiencing the first days of Ramadan in a foreign country, students will write their matric exams during the fasting and as I have just embarked upon completing half my faith; this will be my first Ramadaan as the one to another.

In the same way the fasting month travels through the year; finding home in summer and winter, each Ramadaan brings something unique that serves to fortify the soul by testing it’s mettle.

It’s the one time of year, where one’s spirit rises to the surface.

It’s where hunger is supposed to becomes less of a longing for fried savoury victuals, but the drive to feed oneself on that which will sustain you throughout your journey alive on this planet.

This fasting is the putting aside of all that is material and physically gratifying for a merciful few hours to achieve a state that elevates humankind above all that is animal.

It’s about reconnecting with your centre; being good for Good’s sake, treading lightly, wetting the mouth, mind and heart with the remembrance of the Creator, going about your work with a sense of purpose and giving due to the maxim that all a Mu’min does is an act of Ibaadah.

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(What follows below are previous year’s reflections and reminisces on Ramadan)

Friday, November 03, 2006

soul’d (memories of ramadan)

Heat.
And yet Ramadan brought a coolness of spirit; satin pools offering respite from the insistent fingers of the sun.

And the whisperings of the Shayateen, kept far from us, we’re told, during the fast, which amplified to me just how much of our baseness is our own, the internal conflicts – civil wars.

Praying in evening congregation – hundreds of souls binded by the lifting of one finger, “God is One”, wired firmly by the “Aameen”, in one supplicant voice – I held Hope by the shoulder, “we will smash through our schisms, if only we all prayed together.”

And don’t tell me that women should not pray like this, don’t tell me that masaajid and congregational Eid salaah are not for those born without a y-chromosome. These are times of Fitnah, only because we’ve kept mothers away from that which will feed their children.

And as swiftly as Ramadan shades us, that is how it leaves us, open; with a longing for 11 lunar births to whole the soul. May its legacy live on in the little things we forget; give off yourself in ways that will not lessen you- smile without motive, acknowledge those with hands cupped at traffic lights, be kind to all who join you on your path.

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Tuesday, October 04, 2005

Ahlan Wasahlan Ya Ramadan

A brief departure from the profane…

The sighting of a nascent celestial lantern… and Ramadan comes to us, voices issuing from Cancer to Capricorn, Guatemala to Gabon, a global call. The fasting month… the burning away: of excess, of baggage, of spiritual impedimenta, of human failings, of moral fallings. And at the end of this soul catharsis, a re-birth.

I’ve always looked forward to Ramadan, my Islamic birth month. It was on the fifth day of fasting, Islamic year 1403 AH, a winter’s Friday afternoon at that time, when at 14:05 I arrived to lay claim to my path.

But sentimentality is not why the holy month beckons to me.

It’s the quiet. And the visit to its oasis for reflection amid daily drudgeries; a place to befriend the Greatest of Friends, to pick up the acquaintance where you last left it, before you were distracted by your obligations and tribulations, forgetting that He still held on to your hand.

A period from sunrise to sunset; all that is carnal and base put away, leaving only the spirit, the essence of humankind, the reflection of Himself.

It is a beautiful time.

30 days out of 365, brief, yes, but not ephemeral.

To all observing Ramadan, may its spirit live on in your own spirit throughout the rest of the year, Ameen.