UNITY

With the Name of God, All-Merciful, Most Merciful

RAMADAN & EID: PATIENCE & GRATITUDE

Thought For The Day, BBC Radio 4, 15th June 2018 (1st Shawwal 1439, Eid al-Fitr)

Imam Dr Usama Hasan

Eid Mubarak! Over the next few days, beginning today, more than a billion people around the world will be celebrating Eid al-Fitr, the Muslim festival that ends the month-long fasting during Ramadan.

For an entire month very year, hundreds of millions of Muslims abstain from all food and drink, including water, during daylight hours: that’s up to sixteen or eighteen hours without eating or drinking, every day. Ramadan, especially during the summer, is a gruelling physical and spiritual ordeal, and mirrors the tradition of fasting in other religions, such as the original Christian observance of Lent. In fact, we know of Jews and Christians in Britain who fast for some of Ramadan, and Muslims who fast during Lent. Despite many conflicts, the world’s great religions have so much in common!

Fasting can have numerous health benefits, although it is not recommended for pregnant women or those with certain medical conditions. The BBC Horizon programme, Eat, Fast & Live Longer, broadcast in 2012, documented healthy weight loss and increased neuron growth in the brain caused by periods of hunger. The episode looked at the 5:2 diet, involving fasting two days a week, and also at several days of consecutive fasting. Well, Ramadan involves 30 days of consecutive fasting. And outside of Ramadan, the Islamic tradition recommends fasting precisely two days per week, or at least three days per month.

On a spiritual level, fasting represents patience, whilst eating and drinking should involve gratitude: after a long fast, even a glass of water feels like a luxury. The Prophet Muhammad taught that “one who eats gratefully is like one who fasts patiently,” and that the best form of fasting was that of King David, or Prophet Dawud, who would fast on alternate days. This is ideal, partly because it represents the ultimate balance of patience and gratitude.

In the Qur’an, there is much praise of those who are “extremely patient and extremely grateful,” especially in response to the vicissitudes of time. Patience and gratitude are two intertwined halves, two sides of the same coin of faith: we are required to have patience through troubled times, and show gratitude in good times.

For Muslims, showing gratitude to God includes being grateful to people through whom we receive God’s favours. Gratitude also includes using our God-given talents, skills and faculties for good and noble purposes, rather than for engaging in mischief and evil.

Fasting is a metaphor for life: difficulties are followed by ease. Breaking the fast at the end of each day, and at the end of the month, is a foretaste of heavenly bliss. So go on, treat yourself for Eid: you’ve probably deserved it!