RAMADAN REFLECTIONS: THINKING, SAYING AND………….DOING

Rehal & Quran from Syria

Before Ramadan, I am listening to the tafseer of the Quran by Dr. Farhat Hashmi online and I have all these ideas of what I am going to do in Ramadan.

It is Friday before Ramadan begins and the Imam in the Jumma Khutba speaks about controlling our tongues and our eyes and not to look for negative things in our fellow Muslims.

Hmmmm……… I think, and plan not to be irritated by the “minor” disturbances during prayer. As the eve of Ramadan approaches, I plan and plan……….. for isha and taraweh…………We eat an early and simple dinner, I read the translation of the juz and a quarter that the Imam may recite for Taraweh and head out to the mosque.

The first part of the drama enfolds with Isha. I move to the outer edge on the other side of the entrance so that I can situate my rehal and small copy of the Quran to follow the Imam in taraveh.

Some of the women come in late, jump over my rehal oblivious of what it is used for. Some children as old as five years, talk in a shrill voice and laugh loudly through out the taraveh. Some run up and down the room, jumping over chairs, working off the refined sugar and carbs their mothers lovingly fed them for dinner.

The recitation for the Taraveh is beautiful and I am able to follow it word by word in my copy of the Quran.

I notice as the rakats flow, my focus is eroded by what appears the loud talking of the older children, and finally I lose my place as to which rakat I am praying.

I try to focus by imagining being in the Haram on the hard marble floor with no musallah, no food in my stomach except some zam zam and a date, listening with rapt attention as the words of Allah resound around His House.

After Taraveh I approach the mother of one of the older children and ask her why she is losing such a wonderful opportunity to teach her daughter the etiquette of being in a mosque, of listening to the Quran attentively and the unique tradition of Taraveh?…………. she says, well………. my daughter cannot sit for “this long”.

At this moment my cynical self kicks in. Let me see how long it was?

It was one hour with three rests………..I thought to myself…………. how long is a movie? A minimum of one and one half hour!  Did I think her daughter had never been to a movies?  No I did not.

How long is the line at Disney World? A minimum of one hour in the blazing summer heat. Had this child of an affluent mother never been to Disney world, I doubt it! Had she not waited in the heat for the rides? I doubt it.

I realize the perspective of the parent is reflected on to the child………one hour of sitting quietly and listening to the words of God being recited beautifully, in a large air-conditioned room, with a full meal in the stomach is long, while watching a movie in a theatre for one and one half hour and sometimes two hours is not long?

Either the child in question or all the children had a disease of Hyperactivity or the colonialistic brainwashing of Pakistanis and Indians of priorities kicked in, with Tarbiyah of the child in Deen coming in last.

Well all said and done……….. I ruined any sawab I was going to get last night

I realized how far removed I was from the Sahaba of our Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) who did not even pay attention when a scorpion stung him seven times…………

Were the shrill, loud and annoying voices of these children and the attitude of their oblivious mothers, during prayer more irritable or more deadly than a scorpion sting?

I realized that my span between thinking, resolving and doing still has a long way to go before it is shortened and becomes one!

As I struggle to correct my attitude please keep me in your prayers!