For faithful Muslims in Los Angeles, Ramadan is an exercise in empathy for the more than 2 billion people in the world who live on less than $2 a day. It's also a lesson in gratitude.
Abstaining from food and water from the break of dawn until sunset gives those of us living in the world's most obese country a figurative taste of extreme poverty. In fact, back in 2008, when Rory Caroll broke the story to the world about mud cakes -- yes, cakes of dried dirt mixed with sugared water -- becoming a staple food in Haiti because of soaring global food costs, I counted my blessings. Having fasted every Ramadan since fourth grade, I was reminded of not just the hunger but the dizziness, headaches and fatigue that resulted from 15 or so hours of depriving my body of nutrition. The idea that this is a perpetual reality for people in Haiti in particular leaves me in sheer awe of how lucky I am. My fears and insecurities over one mundane thing or another diminish with the knowledge that I don't have to eat mud to survive.
Last summer when the East African drought, which led to the loss of tens of thousands Somali lives, coincided with Ramadan, the entire Muslim community rallied around aid efforts. Muslim organizations like Helping Hand for Relief and Development and Islamic Relief launched dynamic fundraising campaigns, imams dedicated Friday sermons to raising awareness of the issue, and youth groups held basketball tournaments and bake sales benefitting Somali relief.
Last July when our Center offered the pulpit to an international Muslim relief organization to make an urgent appeal for funds for the needy of Africa, a woman interested in learning more about aiding the poor approached me. As a staff member of the Islamic Center of Southern California, I can often be found in the lobby after prayers interacting with congregants and appealing for their support around one cause or another. When she approached me, I assumed she was interested in learning more about how to help needy in developing countries.
"I heard the announcement about helping needy people," she said. I launched into an appeal about how much a small contribution can accomplish; x amount can subsidize the feeding of a child, y amount can nourish an entire family for a week...
She listened until I had finished my impromptu sermon before replying. "I understand this, sister, but my two daughters and I are homeless and I want to know how we can get help." The irony was that our community was looking the other way with regards to the needy in our backyard.
I have seen this woman almost every Friday since then. Sometimes I check in on her to see how she's doing; had she called the emergency social service hotline whose number I gave her last week, had she met with the Zakat (alms) Committee at the mosque for charitable assistance, had she still been sleeping in the park at nights. Her response is always that she had recently received some piecemeal help, a grocery coupon here and emergency boarding there.
Her situation is as tragic as any story: partially caused by her inability to change her condition and partially due to simple bad luck. Confounding this is the impact of state budget cuts toward programs providing shelter, housing and services to homeless in Los Angeles City and County.
Since last July, I have met other Muslims who silently suffer with poverty and homelessness in our community -- people who have often gone completely unnoticed by those of us who pray alongside them. As Ramadan 2012 approaches, I am thinking about what is needed from me, the American Muslims of Southern California and society at large to offer more than mere bandages to gushing wounds, but transformative change to the lives of our brethren in humanity and faith. How can this Ramadan be more than a symbolic exercise in empathy? How can we be more than actors playing the part of the hungry?
Kashif N. Chaudhry: America, Ramadan Kareem
Jim Wallis: My Neighbor's Faith: A Test of Character
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Ramadan - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Benefits of Ramadan - What Are the Benefits of Fasting During ...
The same food and the same sensual pleasure become permissible as soon as the sun goes below the horizon. Voluntary hunger and intensive disciplining produces a unique bringing together of feelings and attitudes and demolish all barriers of ego and inequality.
Dignity of a person enhances due to hunger.
Fasting is meant to enable man to be closer to his Master and prepare him to take the challenges and responsibilities that face him beyond the cocoon of his ego.
It's not just the action of abstaining from food and sex. One shouldn't be thinking about them either.
Spiritual benefits aside, fasting really does wonders for the body as well...it's a good practice.
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Absolutely you are right, It was introduced by Prophet Muhammad for the first time in the history of religions. As you have said adherents of other faiths before Islam had it also This has been confirmed by the following Verse from the Quran
Quote
Chapter 2: Verse 183
O you who believe, fasting is decreed for you, as it was decreed for those before you, that you may attain salvation.
Those before you clearly indicates that people believing in God had this fasting
Chapter 2: verses 183-187 of the Quran talks about all duties in Submission, fasting was decreed through Abraham who was living a few thousand year before Muhammad
(22:78).
[2:184] Specific days (are designated for fasting); if one is ill or traveling, an equal number of other days may be substituted. Those who can fast, but with great difficulty, may substitute feeding one poor person for each day of breaking the fast.
Can you please explain the difference between mind and spirit? I have been under the impression for practical purposes both mean the same.
It should read
Absolutely you are right, It was NOT introduced by Prophet Muhammad for the first time in the history of religions. As you have said adherents of other faiths before Islam had it also
There is enough medical literature to support the benefits of fasting but
many seem to be not knowledgeable about the spiritual aspects of Islamic fasting.
Prophet Muhammad said as follows” God does not want a person to a person to fast and forsake food, drink and sex if he ( she) does not give up lying and falsehood.
The reason give in the Quran for fasting is very simple, it says “ SO THAT YOU MAY ACQUIRE TAQWA” The Arabic word Taqwa means a self correcting faculty within the human person.
It is there to warn you even before even you have actually gone off the course and help you come back if you happen to have strayed.
Of course ONLY IF YOU WANT, TAQWA is auxiliary and facultative, that is why the Quran says “ SO THAT YOU MAY…..In Islam’s scheme of autonomy and answerability, there is nothing automatic: NEITHER GOOD NOR EVIL; NEITHER REWARD NOR CONDEMNATION
The grace and mercy of God is there but ONE HAS TO STRIVE AND DESIRE.
Being hungry and abstaining from pleasure of sex is no pleasure in itself except when it is for the sake of GOD ALMIGHTY.
Other Islamic rituals are different from Islamic fasting.
People can show off going to Haj or paying charity but how can you show off suffering from hunger. It is easy to tell a lie that you fast but eat secretly.
I fast during Ramadan with specific religious objectives and just not to abstain from foods, drinks and others as stipulated in the Holy Qura'n. You are right sir, but "...how one can show off suffering from hunger."
Recently, in some Muslim countries, obscene are noted during this holy month. There is a clear demarcating line dividing the poor and the rich as usual. 2~3 hours before the sun sets, there is a spree by the rich to buy foods for breaking fast which are made specially for this purpose. Shiny new model jeeps creating a traffic jam stands in queue in front of the shops and buy these foods on "first come, first serve basis". In minutes to hours, all these are sold out as droplets of rain in the desert !! Persons like me, latecomer and living along the below par stratum of the society gets nothing !! Though my face do not reflects the suffering of hunger, theirs' is not noticeable! These people buy foods disproportionately and waste much of them and the poor collect it from the garbage and they make their routine meals out of it !! Eating extravaganza as the sun sets and overcompensating the deficit - really an obscene !