Tuesday, July 9, 2013

What is Ramadan?

Ramaḍān, the holy Muslim month, is the month where hundreds of millions of Muslims on all corners of the Earth fast from dawn to dusk; it holds much significance over being the month when the Qur'an was first revealed. To Muslims, however, Ramadan represents much more than just a calender marker of their holy book or a yearly diet routine.

"Life is a journey."

This journey is often physically, mentally and emotionally exhausting. Many times, we find ourselves slipping into mistakes that we shouldn't have made; we find ourselves slowly derailing off the tracks; we find ourselves not who we dreamed of being as 5-year olds; we find ourselves not the people we want to be.

This is when Ramadan comes in; the best way to think of Ramadan is a (lunar) month-long New Year's Eve where we can not just make promises for our next year's experience, but actually have weeks to prepare ourselves, at least mentally, to execute them.

The main focus is coming to grips with yourself by learning how to control your mind and instincts. This is achieved by not only fasting while the sun is out, gracefully breaking that fast (far easier said than done, believe me), but mostly by feeding your spirituality through reading the Qur'an, praying, fasting, giving charity, doing random good deeds, etc.

It is not just a wonderfully strange cleansing experience of metamorphosing your mind (and body) into the one you want, but - perhaps more importantly - another chance to dive and (re?)discover the depths of your character and gain much-needed clearance.

All this talk has little value because nothing can do justice to the heart-warming atmosphere of Ramadan. Thus, I end this by wishing you all a very blessed Ramadan.

Ramadan Mubarak everyone! :)

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