Ramadan experience - Part I

Ramadan started a few days ago. This month of fasting and prayer is very important for the Muslim communities everywhere in the world, and many believers were looking forward to starting the fasting.

In the religious sphere, I’m usually reluctant to follow rituals, especially when they consist in orders and rites you must follow by the book OR you won’t please God anymore and the gates of Paradise will definitely close in front of you. However, for long years I have been listening to my Muslims female friends saying that fasting for Ramadan was a wonderful spiritual experience, which enabled them to transcend the daily life activities (such as eating, drinking, making money and so on) and grant themselves some very special moments with God and other believers. Since a long time, I was entertaining the dream to join them on their spiritual journey and this year I decided to take action. But first, I needed to adapt the journey to my own capabilities and expectations.

Until today I gave up every year the idea to engage into fasting because I was afraid not to be able to overcome some obstacles, mainly linked to the short duration of the night in Europ during Summer and the associated perturbation of the sleep. If you want to pray five times a day¹ (not limited to Ramadan period by the way), you’ll have indeed to wake up at 4:30 during Summer for Subh (prayer at dawn) and go to bed after 23:30 after Isha (prayer at dusk), whilst carrying on the daily routine of work, home and family tasks. I really admire the construction workers I saw in Middle-East, who were anxious to fast by the book in spite of extreme climatic conditions.

You could say that it’s possible to go back to bed after Subh or to get up for Isha, and you would be right; however not everyone has the capacity to fall asleep again after waking up, standing and bowing. You’ll maybe answer then that you just need to be exhausted to fall asleep; maybe you can, but believe me, for some people, being exhausted just makes things worse: they’ll be on edge until they collapse, and they are at that time much more than just “exhausted” (I’ve been there). I know some people who prefer to eat only once a day during Ramadan - usually dinner, after Maghrib (prayer at sunset) - in order to spare a few moments of sleep in the morning; it looks smart but they’ll go to bed with a full stomach, sleep poorly, then start the next day on an empty stomach.

It occurs to me that the main goal of a whole month of fasting and prayer is to free oneself from his regular preoccupations or temptations in order to get closer to God; in other terms, to show some modesty and humility and to focus on what is really important. Fasting doesn’t aim at damaging people’s health or bringing them to wander on the streets like a zombie not able to find the way home. I’m always sad when I read that during Ramadan, there are more car accidents or altercations in some places because people get angry with hunger, tiredness or heat. It also saddens me when some Muslim friends tell me they gave up fasting because dehydration and tiredness had triggered persistent migraines they couldn’t get rid of. Do we really have to suffer that much to enjoy special moments with God? Are our prayers deeper and holier when we’re starving, have a strong headache and feel exhausted? I’m not so sure.

So I decided to fast, maybe not the Muslim way, but still; to dedicate one whole month to prayer and fasting, at my pace, while taking into account the limitations from my body (which may be extended if I notice that everything’s fine) and the extreme fragility of my sleep. I’ll fast during the day, I’ll get nourishment from spirituality instead of food, but in the meantime I’ll make sure I still get enough hours of sleep and that I will respect a reasonable gap between dinner and bedtime. More practically I decided to adopt the schedule used in Middle-East (a 14 hours fast) instead of the one used in France (a 18 hours fast), that way I can pray five times and still dedicate several hours each day to spirituality. And why not? Didn’t the Revelation take place in Middle-East?

After a long reflection on whether I should read the Bible or the Qur’an during fasting, I decided for the Qur’an. The choice of the Bible wasn’t idiotic in substance: after all, I’m a Christian, and these past months, I had been reading many exegetic studies and predications. So the perspective to go deeper and deeper in my own spirituality seemed enchanting. Unfortunately I discovered that the Bible isn’t fit for a continuous recitation or reading, whereas the Qur’an is “designed” to be recited. So I decided to read the Qur’an, and I hope to be able to complete the reading within the month. But first I had to purchase a new translation: until now I had only read some chapters (sûra) but the translation¹ was so literal that even the general idea was very difficult to understand. Thanks to the advice of enlightened Muslims, I got another translation², easier to understand because it takes into account the specificities of French (and not only those of Arabic) and includes the exegesis of the greatest Muslims commentators. Don’t think I’m lazy! At home I have several books by Ibn Kathir and even the Sahih Al Boukhari, however, when reading a text for the very first time, I’m not willing to consider right away all the comments and notes related to the meaning of each of the words in each of the sentences.

So during Ramadan, I’ll make my best to write one article every week, or every ten days, to describe the evolution of my state of mind, psyche and body. I already suspect that this experimence will be rewarding. As I started fasting last Thursday, two days early, next article should normally be issued before the end of the week.

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¹Praying five times a day (salât) is one of the pillars of Islam. The prayers are the following:

Subh or Fajr (dawn)

Zuhur (noon)

Asr (afternoon)

Maghrib (sunset)

Isha (dusk)

Islam has five pillars: chahada (Muslim profession of faith), salât, zakât (charity), hadj (pilgrimage to Mecca) and fasting (sawm) during Ramanda.

²This translation has been performed by Pr. Mohammed Hamidullah, who explained in his introduction that he was totally aware that the translation wasn’t elegant, but he aimed at staying close to the style of original text and to Arabic.

³This translation has been performed by Mohammed Chiadmi.