‘After Ramadan they go back to sins!’

I had gone to the mall, as usual, as a matter of necessity- to procure those essential items for daily living. After all, we are all fated to want and to this quest for the unattainable. Visitors to the mall usually had to pass through the gated entrance, collect a pass from the security personnel […]

I had gone to the mall, as usual, as a matter of necessity- to procure those essential items for daily living. After all, we are all fated to want and to this quest for the unattainable. Visitors to the mall usually had to pass through the gated entrance, collect a pass from the security personnel before gaining access to the parking spaces within the Mall premises. Just before I arrived at the gate, one of the security personnel had apparently picked up a quarrel with the owner of the car in front of me. Thus when I got to her presence, she was still in a state of rage. She was muttering obscenities and pouring invectives on the driver who must have done enough to merit such imprecations. Now by the time I came to the spot where she was standing, she had not yet diverted her attention from the car which had by now covered some meters further ahead of me. The last statement that came out of her mouth was this: “that is the way they usually behave; during Ramadan, they comport themselves in the best manners possible; as soon as the month comes to an end, they go back to sins again”.

I brought my car directly to a halt at the gate, looked straight into her eyes and said to her in no uncertain terms- ‘that was highly instructive”. Other security officers around wondered exactly what was happening. ‘Wetin be your own’ they all chorused. Now in order not to risk another scene I immediately pressed the accelerator.

But the lady’s statement had already been etched on to my memory. Her statement kept hacking back into my consciousness. I found myself in a dialogic encounter with myself and my own other: “Was that man a Muslim? What could he have said to this young lady? Why is it that some among my brethren usually throw caution to the wind by conducting themselves in manners which are unbecoming of their Quranic identities? Is it not true that throughout Ramadan we were indeed angels in constant communion with the Almighty? We represented the best that Islam demands of us. We were loving and caring to members of our family? Husbands suddenly became dutiful. My sister at home became the ‘Khadijah’ of today, not the ‘wife’ of Prophets Nuh (a.s) and Lut (a.s) of yesterday. Suddenly she became very cooperative and supportive of her husband.

Now how do we account for this return to the spiritual ghettoes and the remits of religious infamy? Why is it that immediately Ramadan comes to an end some of us usually become the exact antithesis of what fasting in the month came to make out of us? Why do we find it easy to become highly irritable and irascible in our dealings with our fellow compatriots contrary to the lessons we learnt in the month that the hallmark of faith is the ability to be patient while the world expects us to be petulant; that the gravitas of spirituality consists of outstaying crisis and tribulations while humanity expect us to be feckless entities at the mercy of the tide?

I came to the conclusion that the man who made the young lady lose her cool was probably a Muslim. This explains her reference to Muslims as “angels” in Ramadan. But why should we become angelic and catholic during the month only for some of us to become demonic immediately the month comes to an end?

Brethren, I concede that your response to the above might be more germane than mine. But you would probably agree with me that one way to make sense of the above is to say that those who fast during Ramadan and become charlatans and oppressors of their own souls after its completion probably and actually never engage in fasting. They are like students on our campuses who pass through the University but refuse to allow the University pass through them. Such a brother of yours could have fasted without actually fasting. He could have prayed without actually praying. He could have joined us in the tarawih at night without having qualified, ab initio, to do so before the beginning of the month. Remember brethren, the very first condition for fasting is belief in Him, the Almighty – belief in the Unseen seer of all events in the cosmos. To fast therefore is to enter a contract with the divine – a contract which cannot be voided by Him but you and me. To fast during the month of Ramadan is to not be an angel during the month only to become a demon at other times. To fast during Ramadan is to enter into a divine transaction with your creator which would mature for the rest of the year until the next Ramadan.Yes, that you fasted during the month of Ramadan meant you became conscious of the less privileged in our milieu. But the completion of fasting does not translate to the occlusion or deletion of the less privileged from our reality. Thus not to assist them anymore would amount to infidelity to the oath we swore to during the month of Ramadan – that like the Almighty, we shall be compassionate to those who are not as fortunate and privileged like ourselves.