Keeping the Spirit of Ramadan

Ramadan is, of course, a really blessed month, in which Allah Almighty draws us ever closer to Himself. Or at least, that is what it is supposed to be. It is supposed to be a time when our hearts and our faith are renewed. It should be a time, also, when we rethink the way our lives are going and we try to re-set our goals for the year ahead.

It is an obvious fact that the only thing required of us in Ramadan is that we fast for Allah's sake. All the other prayers are what might be called an added extra. If, for some people, these extra prayers are too much, then they will not be punished for not having said them. All the extra things in Ramadan are supposed to be there to help us. They are not there to burden us. Ramadan is a blessing, not a punishment.

But therein lays the problem. If people do not really see what is being offered them during Ramadan, they will not be able to rise to the heights to which they are being called.

Let me put it very bluntly. I spend most of my time writing and traveling all over the world telling people that the message of Islam is both beautiful and sweet and that its message is enough to touch even the hardest of hearts.

Many who are not Muslim have never heard this before. They imagine that Islam is very harsh and that Muslims are both violent and uncompromising. The truth is, brother, that even many Muslims have never heard Islam described in such a way

It is a sad fact that many Muslims have never been told about the real Islam. They have faithfully observed its rules and regulations all their lives, and will be rewarded for doing so, but they would never imagine that Islam is something that could bring them great joy.

Many young Muslims, for example, tell me that they were taught to pray when they were about seven years old. It is then that they started to fulfill the obligations of Prayers.

But so many of them tell me that no one really explained why they were doing this. It is just something they learned to copy from their dad. As a consequence, when many young people reach their later teens, they begin to turn away from praying and from Islam. It is often a beautiful khutbah that brings them back to the practice of their faith.

There are still others who never hear that beautiful khutbah. They continue to pray and to fast all of their lives, but somehow they are still missing on what Islam has to offer them here and now, great happiness and great fulfillment in life.

It is in this sense, then, that we can begin to understand what is happening in Ramadan. There is no doubt at all that people will be rewarded for their good deeds if the intention of such good deeds is to please Allah.

It is a sad fact, as you rightly point out, that because many people do not really understand what they are doing; they become bored and disheartened, often falling away from their good intentions as the weeks of Ramadan pass by.

So what can be done? It is quite unrealistic to expect that Muslims throughout the world will all understand Arabic fully by the time the next Ramadan comes round. (This is not a reason for not trying to master the basics of Arabic, but it is unlikely that most Muslims will be fluent). What we can all do, though, is to work hard to understand what Islam can mean for us.

If we prepare our hearts well, Ramadan can be much more than fasting – although, as we have said, the real purpose of Ramadan is to fast for Allah's sake.

With hearts prepared to listen to Allah's call, Ramadan can be for us a special time of prayer. It can be the month when we get up in the last third of the night to pour out our hearts before the Creator of the heavens and the earth, weeping tears of sorrow for our past sins and tears of joy for the blessings we receive daily from Him.

In such a spirit, Ramadan can be for us a time when we come to love the Quran, spending long hours in its recitation and just as many hours in reading commentaries and translations in our own mother tongue, helping us to understand what we are reciting. In this way, the recitation of the Quran during Tarawih Prayers can be a time when we truly understand that Allah is speaking to us.

With hearts open to hear Him, we can also see that we are so blessed in life and that our poor efforts in giving up food and drink during daylight hours is only a fraction of the sacrifice that many in the world have to make as a matter of course.

Many will starve to death each day, with no Adhan sounding to give them food and drink. Looked at this way, we can be even more generous in helping the poor and the needy during this blessed month.