Ramadan: A Time of Intrusion

Peace, one and all…

Ramadan is a time of intrusion.  In Ramadan, God intrudes into the patterns of our daily lives, forcing us to interrupt and thus re-assess, our behavioural patterns.  God intervenes in our eating habits during Ramadan.  Thus, we are forced to re-evaluate ourselves, and also to undergo the consequences of our habits.

Our normal sleeping patterns are disturbed during Ramadan, as we rise before dawn for food and water and prayer.  The ways in which we interact with others are also placed under Ramadan’s microscope.  We must take extra care to avoid our everyday responses to the world and its challenges.  Or, rather, we are foced to live as we really should, and that is no easy thing.  It is not for naught that Ramadan is often described as a harbour, into which our human souls are admitted for a time of strengthening and repair.

Two factors contribute towards this.  Firstly, the institution of Ramadan places its own strictures upon us.  Secondly, Shaitan is removed from the world during Ramadan.  That is, his (meta-)physical presence is removed.  His influence over others remains, but he himself is taken away (and chained by the neck, it is said).  In other words, amidst the cut and thrust of life, it is not always easy to distinguish between our own selfish desires and Shaitan’s more external malevolence.  In Ramadan, we are given an opportunity to look at ourselves with greater clarity: thus sinful thoughts and deeds in Ramadan should be seen as emerging from our own faulty selves, and should not therefore be externalised.  Facing the clear truth is difficult, but it is ultimately liberating.  Once we realise our true state, whatever it is, we can begin the hard work of moving beyond it.

Thus in closing this short reflection, may we all take this opportunity to pause, consider and then move beyond all that encloses us in narrowness.

And tawfiq comes from God alone.

Ma’as salama,
Abdur Rahman