Ramadan, the month of fasting in Islam, is indeed a great month- full of spiritual effort, patience, devotion and great rewards!The spiritual atmosphere can be felt in the air as we start and reaches a peak in the last ten days.None of this is in doubt in the present text..
However, due to the human need to idealize and to use what I call “black-and-white thinking” certain myths have crept into the community about what Ramadan can and can’t do-myths I would like to dispel here, in order for people to benefit properly from this holy practice.
1)Ramadan is easy:This idea is especially common in the Arab world but I have run into it in many communities.I have heard young Arab men saying”I just lead my life as I normally do without eating.I don’t notice the difference”. Really?! I would like to ask their bosses and especially their spouses lol The Pakistani Imams at our local mosques love saying, at day 15 for example,”Ramadan is now half-over and we hardly noticed it”. Are you kidding me?! I don’t know what world they are living in but I surely noticed it and more.And I noticed the many difficulties people were having with it around me -from people with high-stress jobs who couldn’t operate as efficiently as usual to those whose health problems were acting up to people who simply couldn’t do it for health reasons-physical and psychological!
Ramadan is not easy!If it were easy the Prophet saws would not have called it”The month of patience”. Patience is required for difficult things, not easy ones.When I first started doing Ramadan, after my conversion, I had trouble believing that a whole community had been ordered to do this practice .It seemed like an advanced ascetic practice designed for the most zealous of spiritual seekers.To the credit of the Muslim community,they take it on gracefully without complaints.
Despite their denial of the difficulty of the endeavour ,it shows in their behaviour, however..Visitors and non-Muslim workers in Muslim countries have told me about how the people around them became more irritable and impatient.This is actually just as common as the bad-breath, beloved of Allah, mentioned in the hadith.And there is nothing worse than denial.It just makes everything worse.Also,the benefit is hidden in the difficulty, n’est-ce pas?If it were “a piece of cake” as they say ,there would only be no benefit to it- just hypoglycemia as a consequence.
2) Ramadan is a health food fast.Wrong! The health fasts,per se,recommended by certain naturopathic professionals, invariably involve lots of fluid intake- sometimes natural juices, other times distilled water fortified with electrolyes and nutrients.The Old Testament/Islamic fasts are exercises in abstinence-good for our spiritual development and probably our long-term emotional one as well(learning self-control) but difficult on our physical bodies and our psyches..
I can always remember the first Ramadan when I attended the Tarawih prayer in Montreal and the Imam fell down in the middle of the prayer,writhing in pain.We had to accompany him to the hospital where they diagnosed him with kidney stones.There was little doubt in my mind that it was due to or worsened at least by the dehydration of the fasting process.I did not know enough of his medical history to be able to establish whether he should have been fasting at all.For some people it is a too risky endeavour.
Over the years I have had to proscribe fasting for a number patients.They were not in good enough health to do it.In a few cases ,this was due to intense depression or bipolar disorder.They were not getting better,in fact they were getting worse, and the medications were not working.In most cases ,the next year they were fine.Alhumdulillah.
A number of pious people I have met were not able to fast because of diabetes.And then there was the epileptic convert who I counselled to fast intermittently instead of every day but wouldn’t listen to sound medical advice.Because of that he had a grand-mal seizure in the mosque which triggered an intense ‘fitna'( conflict)in the mosque between those who considered it to be jinn and those who wanted to rush him to the E.R. to see a neurologist(I was obviously of the latter group).A fight ensued and the British police had to be brought in when one of the jinn believers pulled a knife!
So Ramadan is a health challenge.Consult with your own Muslim doctor to see if it is advisable for you,if you have a concern.
3)It is advisable to sleep as little as possible during Ramadan to increase the benefits.Another bit of bad advice.Some people may be able to do it but we should keep in mind that sleep-deprivation is another stressor. So if you are already “on the edge” it could put you over either into some unwanted psychological state like excessive anxiety or even psychosis or into some physical condition like a re-currence of a previous medical condition or a worsening of an already existing one( like in the case of the previously mentioned epileptic) of even something new.
4) People will behave better because they are fasting and “the shayateen are chained up”. This one the ulema have dealt with in various ways since many have noticed considerable bad behaviour even during Ramadan.The bottom line here may be that even if the devils are chained up the nafs (human ego) is enough of a trouble-maker on its own and can raise its hoary head even when fasting-even without the promptings of the demons!
5) Ramadan is a good way to lose weight.Wrong!Some people do lose weight during Ramadan but most do not.I have participated twice in a successful Weight Watchers program .Ramadan was the only month in which I didn’t lose weight! The scientific evidence indicates that if you feed guinea pigs the same amount of calories in one dose as opposed to dividing it up in three(more or less the equivalent of what most fasters do during Ramadan lol) they get obese and sick! It is ,in terms of physical health, better to eat several small meals scattered throughout the day.I believe that is the scientific consensus and at times for certain conditions like hypoglycemia doctors prescribe that very formula.
All this being said,Ramadan is a great and holy month and we thank our Lord for His gift.We just need to be a little wiser about how we manage it it.Ramadan Mubarak and Ramadan Karim. Salaams,Ibrahim As -Sufi