Ramadan Reflections on Muslim Mannerisms
12 July 2016By Dr Mustaqim Sahib
Bleher
A time for reflection, Ramadan is also the month of community, and this is the
aspect we appear to lack most. Like most aspects of Islam, Ramadan has by now
been heavy commercialised with branded offers directed at individuals who are
asked to compensate for the lack of genuine Islam in their lives by purchasing
Islamic merchandise. Individual Muslims appear to have adopted the same
consumerist attitude, expecting service provision by Muslim institutions on
the one hand, and marketing their own understanding of Islam aggressively to
anybody appearing to be in any way different to them. Having already succeeded
in turning the general non-Muslim public of the countries in which we reside
against Islam by our poor and selfish portrayal of this otherwise most
convincing religion, we are now doing an equally good job of turning fellow
Muslims off Islam or at least off frequenting Muslim-run venues, including, or
first and foremost the mosques.
You go to Juma prayers to endure a khutbah sermon preaching a narrow-minded
message in dreadful defective English by a "sheikh" fancying himself as
everybody's God-sent teacher. You might enter the mosque for nightly tarawih
prayers in the hope of spiritual uplifting and leave totally deflated because
you encountered some of those whose sole purpose of being there seems to pick
on your dress code or the way you pray. If you chance upon going to the mosque
on the 27th night of Ramadan, the most likely candidate for the auspicious
laylatu-l-qadr or night of power, expecting to benefit from some extra
recitation of the Qur'an, you will most likely find yourself caught up in the
midst of a charity auction instead where worshippers are almost pressurised
into parting with money they sometimes don't have, after all, you can pay by
credit card! Should you stay at home, you won't miss out altogether if you
mobile phone number is registered in a Muslim name. I received three SMS
messages from the same charity begging me not to miss out on the blessings of
laylatu-l-Qadr, the final one just after midnight telling me that we had
entered the last third of this night and there was still a chance to give.
Having started Ramadan at a different date than those who sent the message,
this wasn't my 27th night anyway. I have written numerous times before about
this issue here. For more than two decades now, the starting and ending of
Ramadan has become a sad show of political allegiance. We are meant to start
the lunar month based on the sighting of the moon, but we now "see" the moon
based on predetermined dates like those in the Ummalqura calendar of Saudi
Arabia. Arguably this takes the unpredictability - and excitement - out of
major Islamic events of the year, but the justifications are dishonest to the
core. Some pretend to see the moon when it cannot possibly have been there -
by the same token I could open my fast early by closing the curtains and
pretending the sun had set! Some claim to have a scientific formula for
arriving at the most likely date for the moon to be sighted but sadly get
their calculations terribly wrong due to an only cursory understanding of
astronomy. By the same token online prayer time tables are usually out of sync
by at least a few minutes, because they only account of longitude and latitude
but not elevation of the place they provide timings for. In May this year the
so-called "International United Hijri Calendar Congress" decided on "a common
calendar" which has Islamic festivals falling on the same date across the
globe, by ignoring "İhtilaf-ı matalia" or local variations. They, too, call
this a scientific approach, except that for the moon to be seen all around the
world at the same time the earth will have to be flat!
Interestingly, the reformists and the dogmatics, such as ISIS (although the
latter is an American financed subversive movement to both discredit Islam and
facilitate intervention in the country's proxy war with Russia fought over
Syria amongst other places) have more in common than it first appears. They
are obsessed with rules and control. They love corporate Islam which dictates
to individual Muslims what is halal and what is haram and they cannot tolerate
diversity. And due to their overbearing influence, that which is truly halal
becomes obscure and frowned upon and that which used to be haram becomes halal
by attaching the appropriate certificate or label to it. Islamic banks, for
example, which charge higher interest rates than the high street, or halal
meat, pre-stunned for the convenience of the automated slaughter process,
available now in endless flavours in all supermarkets. If you still want the
real item, where the animal is cared for both during its rearing and during
slaughter, you'd have to do it yourself. Or you'd have to restrict yourself to
a piscatorial and vegetarian diet.
There are more Muslims in the world now than ever before. Islam has gone
mainstream and we've become just like everybody else. So how do you teach your
children to hold on to their religion when it no longer makes much difference?
You buy them Islamic articles to replace the lost identity. Nasheeds, for
example, abound now which, in spite of being spiced up a little bit by their
exotic Arabic phrases or fleeting references to the divine, could quite
happily be played in a disco. You can buy Islamic T-shirts, Muslim hoodies,
designer hijabs and even attend Muslim fashion shows. The ISIS brand is out
there too with T-shirts and other bric-a-brac. And you can fill the empty void
left in your home by the departure of spirituality with so-called Islamic art,
from wall decor to carpets.
Hijra, emigration, is a very important concept in Islam and essentially means
moving away from a place where Islam is besieged to a place where it can be
freely practiced. It also means moving away from that which is sinful in
general. Might it be time to commence hijra away from the modern-day Muslims
who have happily carved out a market niche for themselves in a world otherwise
ruled by forces of evil? Prophet Muhammad, peace be with him, said: "Islam
began as a stranger and will become a stranger again, so give glad tidings to
the strangers." He was asked, "who are the strangers" and replied: "Those who
correct the people when they become corrupt." He is also reported to have
said: "They are a small group of people among a large evil population. Those
who oppose them are more than those who follow them."
©
EsinIslam.Com
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