Tag: ramadaan

  • Random thoughts about scholars, Islam and Ramadaan

    The Imam that gave the khutbah on the Friday before Ramadaan started said something that was really concerning. It came across as his interpretation of what was being stated in the verse or hadith that he referenced, and has left me feeling uneasy ever since. Even more so because I spent the better part of the first week of Ramadaan unable to fast due to illness.

    He claimed that those people who did not fast, or at least did not observe the benefits of the month of Ramadaan, it was Allah’s way of excluding them because Allah didn’t need their contributions. This concerns me because it seems to go against the principle that Allah will guide anyone who chooses to be guided. If we disagree with this view, it would imply that Allah will actively misguide someone, and if that happens, then two key issues arise. Firstly, what chance has a person got of achieving Jannah if they are being misguided by Allah? None. Secondly, if Allah is misguiding them, then how can they be held accountable for being misguided? They can’t, since they have no power against Allah’s will. 

    So, logically, I cannot accept that interpretation to be true. It further got me reflecting on the benefits that I may be losing out on because I was unable to fast. Was I being deprived of Allah’s mercy for a fasting person, or was I in fact being blessed with having my sins expiated during a month where every good is increased tenfold? Trusting that Allah’s mercy precedes His anger, I am inclined to believe the latter. 

    The ‘fire and brimstone’ approach of encouraging people towards good was never a hallmark of the advice given by Rasulullah (SAW). This is something that I most often notice from ‘scholars’ (and I use that word lightly) that mimic their non-Muslim counterparts, and often, it stems from the cultural tendencies of the East where kids are raised by fear of repercussions rather than love for compliance. I am of North Indian descent, so this is my first hand experience, and not conjecture. I’ve witnessed many rituals being contaminated by this same mindset, especially where the issues border on mysticism, or include the jinn. The amount of cross cultural contamination of Islam amongst Indians and Pakistanis is extremely concerning. And I guess the words of the Imam on that Friday just raised all those alarm bells again for me. 

    This is not a generalised swipe at all Muslims of Indian or Pakistani descent. There are many that are actively involved in clearing the misconceptions about what is Islam versus what is cultural baggage. I guess I just despise the approach to Islam that seems to focus on the potential punishments behind every non-compliance rather than focusing on the beauty and benefit that can be gained from complying. The mind set is vastly different between the two, and chances are we’ll see a lot less rebellion in teenagers and adults alike when they eventually grow old enough to be immune to the threats of their parents and teachers if they don’t do what is expected of them. 

  • A Young Girl Who Learns About Ramadaan

    islamic-quotes:

    A young non-Muslim who learns about Ramadan.

    (Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/20/ramadan-2012-islamic-fasting_n_1690410.html?ncid=edlinkusaolp00000003)

  • About that moon sighting…

    The sweetness of this month of Ramadaan is always tainted at the beginning and at the end because of the stubborn insistence and double standards of the people that proclaim themselves  to be the leaders of the Ummah. Their very own offices will release perpetual salaah time tables that can be used throughout the year, publish calendars that include to-the-minute exact times for starting and ending fast, all based on scientifically calculated methods, while still insisting that the moon for Ramadaan cannot be accurately predicted and therefore must be sighted with the naked eye.

    But the ridiculous double standards don’t stop there. They go on further to accept that if someone in another part of the country sights the moon, we can accept that as sufficient proof that the month of Ramadaan has started and therefore we can act on that. However, what they fail to acknowledge is that once again, a double standard exists. On the one hand, they’re trying to leverage off the permissibility of acting on the sighting of the moon in another town close to your own, but fail to acknowledge the practicality of the time taken for travel between the two towns during the time of the sahaba relative to our own experiences now. 

    For example, in South Africa, if I’m living in Johannesburg and the moon is not sighted in time for Esha salaah, it is common practice to check with the Muslim communities in Cape Town if they possibly sighted the moon since sunset is usually 45 minutes to 2 hours later than Johannesburg. Given that they’re on the coast with low humidity, their skies are considerably clearer as well making the conditions perfect for sighting the moon. However, Cape Town is 1200km (750 miles) away, which means that it would have been physically impossible to travel from Cape Town to Johannesburg in a single day on horseback or camel back or any other means of transport available during the time of the sahaba. In case I’m not making sense here, the double standard that I see in this is simple. We’re willing to exercise the leniency of making news of a sighting from another town a permissible indicator to start Ramadaan, but we’re allowing scientific/technological progress to be the basis on which we confirm it? Put differently, we’re happy to apply one part of the Hadith while relying on modern technology to fulfil the means. 

    There’s a verse in the Qur’an that always echoes in my head when this debate comes up. It says in Surah 21 verse 33:

    Sahih International

    And it is He who created the night and the day and the sun and the moon; all [heavenly bodies] in an orbit are swimming.

    Muhsin Khan

    And He it is Who has created the night and the day, and the sun and the moon, each in an orbit floating.
    Yusuf Ali

    It is He Who created the Night and the Day, and the sun and the moon: all (the celestial bodies) swim along, each in its rounded course.

    Anyone want to hazard a guess as to what will happen to this earth if the moon suddenly floated in an orbit disproportionate to that of the earth or the sun? Yet we’re willing to abide by calendars that tell us to-the-minute when to start and when to stop performing each salaah, but still insist on having pointless debates about the sighting of the moon whose cycle can be predicted as accurately as the sun?

    In the interests of unity, the Sunnah is that we follow the majority opinion of our community so that we don’t create divisions. For this reason only do I continue to follow the decisions published by our local masjid. But I pray that in time, this issue as well as the insanity around the use of the moon and star symbols will become a thing of the past and that Muslims around the world can move beyond the pettiness that erupts every single year without fail just because we can’t separate principles from rituals and apply them consistently. Insha-Allah. Ameen.

  • Sighting versus Calculating the New Moon

    the72sects:

    It might be a bit premature for a post like this given that Ramadaan is still a few months away, but this issue has been playing on my mind for a long time now. I was reminded about it again just now when I was delayed in my performance of my Dhuhr salaah, which nearly overlapped with the time for Asr. How did I know it almost overlapped? Not through measuring the length of the shadow of an object relative to the object itself, or from going out to try to determine the angle of the sun. I identified the overlap like almost every other Muslim these days, and that is that I looked at a perpetual salaah timetable that has been published by various Islamic bodies throughout the world, and that is available on the internet, on my mobile phone and in various printed formats. 

    So we’ve got access to this amazing wealth of knowledge that we know only stems from Allah because Allah has established this universe in due proportion with an order about everything. It makes everything predictable if we only apply our minds. Everything except the weather of course. And women. But I digress. 🙂

    Despite knowing the exact minute when the moon will be born, and despite knowing exactly how old it has to be before it is possible to be seen with the naked eye, we still insist on the physical sighting of the moon to establish the beginning of a new lunar month, when we go from day to day and establish our salaah according to a calculated timetable! Is it just me or is there a distinct contradiction in that? The moon sighting sagas has not only made the Muslims a laughing stock of the world on more than one occasion, but it has driven divisions in communities because of the ridiculous debates that rage around it.

    So in our collective wisdom, in South Africa for example, we agree that if the moon is not sighted in Johannesburg, but it is sighted in Cape Town, then the Muslims in Johannesburg are allowed to commence fasting in line with the people in Cape Town. So I ask myself this simple question; during the time of Rasulullah (SAW), how would it have been possible for a message to be sent in a single night from one town to another town to confirm the sighting of the moon when those towns were in fact days of travel apart? So is this then yet another contradiction in the practice of insisting on the sighting of the moon for Ramadaan?

    It simply doesn’t make sense. All it does is it confirms yet again the ridiculous gap in knowledge of those that perpetuate such logic because once again we fail to note the difference between ritual and principle. Ritual would be the sighting of the moon. Principle would be the changing of the month based on the birth of the new moon. Both of which is clearly guided by the measurements defined by the Sunnah. If these measurements can be accurately confirmed without the use of the naked eye, then the same way that we don’t look for the distinction between a black and white thread at the time of dawn to commence Fajr salaah, we should not be looking for the crescent of the new moon to confirm the commencement of a new Islamic month. When we get this right, the ridicule in the below image can finally be put behind us, so that as an Ummah we can stop being distracted with such ridiculous pettiness and instead focus on the real issues that face the Muslims today.