Ranoush. / Foter

Ramadan is in full swing now, which means no food or drink from sun up (0548) to sun down (2017).  For Mus­lims, the fast means more than no food and no drink (no, not even water), which to the dis­be­lief of those who do not fast, isn’t as much of a hard­ship as it seems.  For the first three days, I was dev­as­tat­ingly tired, but only a tad hun­gry.  Now the fatigue has passed and the hunger is a dis­tant mem­ory.  I sup­posed that God intended it to be this way though, that soon the hunger and the con­stant think­ing about what morsel of food or drink will come next in our overeat­ing, over-processed, over-indulged life so that we might use that extra time to con­sider how and why we worship.

I work full-time and most of my co-workers are not Mus­lim.  It seems as if the moment Ramadan swings around, every­one has some yummy new food they’d like you to try, or that could just be me being hypersensitive.

moham­madali / Foter

 And as usual, when I decline by stat­ing that, “No thanks.  I’m fast­ing,” the same peo­ple that I’ve worked with for the last five years are aston­ished anew.  I’m no nar­cis­sist but I’m pleased as punch to answer the many ques­tions about myself and my faith.  There are enough erro­neous and neg­a­tive images of peo­ple of my faith cir­cu­lat­ing that I would like to be able to dis­man­tle a stereo­type or two.  Before con­vert­ing to Islam more than twenty years ago, I had some of the same ques­tions, all valid in their right, but I am struck by what appears to me to be and broad mis­un­der­stand­ing or unwill­ing­ness of commitment.

1. I know it’s hot, but today it’s only 102°.  (laugh, wink, laugh)  This is south­ern Texas.  It is hot every sum­mer, and none but the most unfor­tu­nate of us is with­out an air con­di­tioner in our cars, homes, busi­nesses, cov­ered walk­ways that take us to the park­ing lots, pub­lic library, gro­cery stores, and so on.  I’m not really suf­fer­ing in that regard and if I were, I wouldn’t be oblig­ated to fast.
2. I know that the day is long, albout fif­teen hours, but what about peo­ple so poor they go longer than that with­out food?  I think of them instead of my tummy.
3. I know that thirty days is an entire month, but I still have the other eleven to eat like I’m los­ing my mind, which quite frankly so many of us do with­out regard to the fact that we don’t need all of that food.
4. As soon as the sun starts to set, food goes into the mouth and we are allowed to eat as much of what­ever we like until the sun comes up.  Here’s the kicker though, after about three or four days of fast­ing, the stom­ach shrinks and every­thing you think you want to eat, you sim­ply can­not.  No room at the inn.
5. Sure, I lose a lit­tle weight dur­ing Ramadan, but a lot of peo­ple actu­ally gain.  Remem­ber the part about the incred­i­bly shrink­ing stom­ach?  Well so many of us gorge even when our stom­achs are split­ting at the seams and we indulge in foods that are far richer than we’d eat nor­mally.  In fact I recently read an insight­ful arti­cle about how in Egypt the sale of food dur­ing Ramadan increases by 60–100% (whoa!), and food wastage increases by about 60% (dou­ble whoa!), and the sale of antacids also increases expo­nen­tially (triple whoa!).  No kid­ding though, right?  Not quite the spirit of the fast, I think.
6. The spirit of the fast.  It is easy for those of us who live in rel­a­tive com­fort to for­get what a priv­i­lege our lives are.  Cer­tainly we all have our own life dif­fi­cul­ties, but for most of the peo­ple that I know, it could be a mil­lion times worse.  The most basic con­cerns aren’t usu­ally ours in that we eat and drink what we want, when we want.  We take all of the basics for granted.  The fast is our time to remem­ber those who can’t take any­thing, not even a sin­gle morsel of food, for granted, and to thank the God respon­si­ble for giv­ing it to us.

Mrs Magic / Foter

So… it’s okay.  No need to apol­o­gize.  I’ve made a com­mit­ment to myself and God and I swear, I’m not suf­fer­ing for it.  Really, I’m doing fine.  We can chat over cof­fee and a dou­ble dark choco­late chip cookie in 23 days, 8 hours, 3 min­utes, and 5 sec­onds.  I’m not count­ing, are you?  For now, let’s just chat.  Your com­pany will more than suf­fice, and my com­mit­ment will sus­tain me.

(This is a reprint from http://khaalidah.blogspot.com 2011)