Sya Taha looks in the Qur’an for a deeper meaning of fasting in the Holy Month.
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My earliest memory of fasting was at four years old. Waking up at 5.30am together with my sister and parents and eating rice and vegetables, bleary-eyed. When the adzan sounded on the radio, my mother would start clearing the plates. When I asked if I had to stop eating too, she said, ‘No, children can eat until the adzan is over.’ Even though we were not yet required to fast, and being much too young to endure 13 hours in any case, those cool moments at dawn remain a warm childhood memory for me. By 10 o’clock, I was ready to eat a sandwich. When I was about seven years old, I managed to fast half a day – eating lunch when I came home from school. My mother, who was a stay-at-home-mum, had lunch ready for us even during Ramadan. My parents encouraged me to continue fasting till sunset, but they never forced me to. The first struggles that I related to Ramadan were, naturally, hunger, thirst and weakness. Coming from a society where most people understood the ritual practices of the minority Muslim community, Muslim students were excused from physical education classes during Ramadan, but I remember most of us ignoring that exemption anyway. I remember training for athletics at the age of 10 in the hot afternoon sun, amazed that I was not as tired as I expected myself to be. I carried this attitude with me for the next 17 years. I can safely say that I grew to love this ritual because I was raised with such a flexible attitude to fasting. But, like many young adults, I started to understand the incentives for fasting only at a later age. During last year’s Ramadan I fasted for 18 hours while living in the Netherlands. It was summertime, and even though this country is known more for its wet and rainy weather, it was one of the hottest months of the year. I very nearly thought I would not make it the whole day, so I opened my Qur’an (in a browser) to convince myself that fasting was indeed beneficial for me. In the Qur’an, fasting or abstinence is ordained on us for the purposes of developing taqwa (2:183), which means not only piety, but also good conduct, making careful choices, and strengthening and empowering one’s self against evil. Saum, the word used conventionally to refer to fasting, refers to abstinence in general. For example, when Maryam was in labour with Prophet Isa (Jesus, peace be upon him), she abstained from speaking (19:26).
While the main purpose of fasting in Ramadan is to cultivate taqwa, fasting is also a way to absolve our wrongdoings or breaking of serious rules. As an alternative to freeing a human being from bondage or feeding the poor, up to two consecutive months of fasting are ordained as penance for intentional transgressions such as killing game animals during pilgrimage (5:95), or denouncing one’s wife and then wanting to reconcile with her (58:2-4). These penance options are also applicable to unintentional violations such as killing another believer by mistake (4:92). The purpose of abstinence as expiation is to reflect on the consequences of one’s action and seek repentance. In other words, there is no point in feeding the poor by buying shawarma sandwiches to give to beggars (as was once suggested by a religious teacher) if one does not realise the gravity of what one has done. Extending this spirit of abstinence to Ramadan, fasting then has a dual purpose: a time to practise self-regulation, and also an opportunity for us to reflect on our behaviour and seek repentance. The minimal requirements to fast during Ramadan are to abstain from the most basic of human desires – eating, drinking and having sexual relations from the moment when ‘the white thread of dawn is distinct from the black thread of night’ to sunset (2:187). This is often the biggest challenge for those who are starting to fast – whether children or adults. Once they are met, one can work towards avoiding instinctual or knee-jerk reactions such as backbiting, or harmful habits such as smoking or overeating. If one is ill, travelling or undergoing some kind of hardship, fasting is not an obligation. Once a person is in a better state, he or she can make up for the missed days by fasting at another time of the year, or by giving food or money to the poor (2:184). The beauty of holistically viewing fasting as abstinence is that even those who are unable to fast can participate in the spirit of Ramadan. Ramadan teaches us patience, allowing us to make sound decisions and guiding us so that we learn from our mistakes; we become better people who spend the hours before iftar not frittering away our time, but by helping others in society. In the beginning, I considered 18 hours of fasting in summer as a kind of hardship because of the long hours and the dry and hot climate, but my body adapted to the new schedule over a few days. Fasting becomes more meaningful to me when I know I must not only overcome hunger and thirst, but also work on repentance and self-improvement. This article originally appeared in the July 2013 Ramadan issue of Aquila Style magazine. For a superior and interactive reading experience, you can get the entire issue, free of charge, on your iPad or iPhone at the Apple Newsstand, or on your Android tablet or smartphone at Google Play
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