The Holy Month of Ramadan

Hemshyam Thangamani, IIK Young Contributor
Thursday, April 8, 2021

Ramadan is a very important time period in Islamic calendar. It is believed that in A.D 610, the angel Gabriel appeared to Prophet Muhammad and revealed to him the Quran, the Islamic holy book. That revelation, Laylat Al-Qadr - or the night of power - is believed to have occurred during Ramadan.

Even though Ramadan has a lot of religious benefits within it, it also helps us to acquire a ton of health benefits. Fasting – experts have found that restricting food intake during the day can help prevent health problems such as obesity, high cholesterol as well as improves our control over our mind & wellbeing. Everything in this world at some point of time, it needs an amount of rest to further continue its progress. Our digestive system is also such. By not consuming any food, our body is able to concentrate on removing toxins. This is one of the main reasons why Non – Muslims also try to fast during Ramadan. To be even more accurate fasting in Ramadan is not merely physical. It is considered to be a commitment of the person’s body & soul and control over himself.

An extract from ‘THINK LIKE A MONK - Jay Shetty’: “When we fast, we detach from the body and all the time we spend attending to its demands. When we remove eating, we can let go of hunger, satiety, pain and pleasure, failure and success. We redirect our energy and attention to focus on the mind. In the future fast, I got in the habit of using energy to study, research, make notes, or prepare a talk. Fasting became a creative time, free of distractions.”

Fasting helps us to understand the value of food we consume in our everyday life as humans come to know the value of something only when they don’t have it. This is also one of the reasons for fasting during Ramadan.

Traditionally, Muslims collect & donate to charities during Ramadan. They come together as a community or single handedly donate to local mosques for good cause. Mentally this gives a feeling of gratefulness. That feeling of gratefulness is a non – materialistic stuff which is something truly valuable. A report in 2016 calculated Muslim’s charitable donation at an incredible ‘EURO 38’ each second during Ramadan. Hence Ramadan develops spiritual, social as well as moral values. The charitable donations that are done will lead to a huge help for the needy, mainly in this contemporary society where a crisis is going on.

More or the less, we can’t change the fact that the amount of sharing and caring that usually happens has drastically been reduced – at least for me. The humanity Ramadan has brought into me is something sempiternal. Previous to the COVID pandemic, Ramadan in school was a feeling of cocktail. A lot of us never felt like having our food during our break period as our Muslim friends were fasting. This opinion could change from person to person whether to eat or not, but most of us never had our food. Some of us never even used to take our breakfast to school; this is how much we cared for each other. Innately, this strengthened the bond between each one of us. This is just one of those incidents that that take place only during Ramadan. Unfortunately, right now we lost one of our chances to express our feelings. Missing those times where we used to wait for those sweet Kunafas and spicy Biriyani made by our Muslim neighbor. Those days were so serene. That’s the only chance where we can feel the taste sinking into us because everything has its own season. That has been reduced drastically since last year. My tongue just can’t wait for those dishes that I can have peacefully post pandemic. But anyway hoping that Almighty Allah will restore happiness like before and put an end to this crisis. Let us all hope for the best!

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Hemshyam Thangamani
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