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Practicing Muslims- Only in Ramadan

Jul 23, 2012Featured, Insight7

Practicing Muslims- Only in Ramadan

The holy month of Ramadan has gladly started. And while it calls for a lot of spirirtual revamp, the change can be witnessed on a physical scale too. One of them is that, the billboards across the city have started showing media people with covered heads advertising  various transmissions for the month.

 

 

As pleasing as the sight is, its temporary nature is a factor that disturbs me to the core. Just a month ago these hosts carried an entirely different persona and bold glimpses of modernism. And their abrupt arbitrary transformation is something I still find hard to digest. Let’s just say, for me it is a reflection. A reflection of myself, and our society at large. This article is no offense to anyone because I include myself in all of it my society is inflicted with.

 

 

Throughout out the year we live our lives perfectly according to our own discretion. We get so busy in our own careers, social circles and families that religion nothing more than of secondary importance to us. Prayers seem too tire a lot and God is only remembered in times of need. We delve ourselves in all sorts of sinful attractions; and this has become the only way to live for many of us.

 
As soon as the Holy month of Ramadan approaches we all can see a newfound surge of Islam in every nook and corner. Face book and twitter become full of religious posts, television channels showcase female hosts in modest clothing, mosques get populated, cinemas get deserted, Charity runs at its peak, music and dance parties take the screeching halt. There’s a new, holy change in the air

 

 

My argument is not over who is practicing religion the right way and who is not. I am in no way a judge to it. My argument is over the temporary Islamization that takes over us Muslims for this one month and leaves us as immediately as the month ends. Is religion a fashion or some trend to be followed just because everyone is following it. Religion is supposed to be a way of life. Either we take it or leave it. There are no two ways about it, or are they?

 

All of this ‘change’ makes me wonder what is the pretense for? Why do we want show off to the world that we still are practicing Muslims when we are not? Why this periodic drama for the world to see? Do we only turn Muslims for the month of Ramadan only? Is there any such thing as integrity or not?

 

The sad part is as soon as the announcement for Eid is made, we rush to book the tickets for the latest Eid releases in the cinema. After all we have stopped ourselves the whole month! I in no way mean to say that watching movies is wrong, my only point is what is wrong should stay wrong all year around and what is right should always be right as well. Or are we trying to say that there is a room for hypocrisy in religion too?

 

Sadly that is what we have all turned into. Hypocrites. The question is who are we trying to fool? God? Our friends? Or maybe ourselves alone.

The Band of Brothers
Saba Fatima Ali

A final year medical student at Dow Medical College

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  • M.Saeed

    Writer’s frustration is very natural. Suppressed conscience pricks anyone doing something unlawful, not to talk of attempt to displease Allah SWT by hypocritically undermining the pillars of faith.

  • S Nasrullah

    Though the event of Olympics happens once every four years, but athletes, round the world, prepare themselves daily for the competition they intend to participate. Ramazan comes every year for the Muslims to exhibit their prominent and patent love of faith. Through fasting, they vicariously appreciate the pain of hunger and thirst that their less fortunate compatriots or human beings elsewhere may be afflicted for whatever reasons. A fasting Muslim’s piety and not his plight is in the reckoning. Even Seasonal Muslims have their prize and the potential to see the light and to align their direction to reach their desired destination.
    The Muslims genocide in Mayanmar (Burma) has gone unsung, unwept in most Muslim countries, especially Saudi Arabia, where every Muslim wishes to head to perform Hajj and Umrah. It is the Non-Muslim UN Agencies who have set in motion Rescue and Rehabilitation Mission to deter further bloodshed and drive sanity into the perverted minds of those carnivorous criminals. A namesake Muslim State, Bangladesh, exercised its inhuman and barbaric protective laws to return those Burmese persecuted Muslims boat people who indulged into a perilous sea route escape to find security in the nearby muslim soil.
    Ramazan is the proper month to ponder why Muslims are on the receiving end everywhere, and why their misdeeds have unfair and undeserved reflection on their Faith.

  • corruptman

    disagree.deen should be a personal matter and society will have no business with the deen. Pakistanis have a problem. They eat sleep and dream of religion.

  • abdul

    There are eighty thousand prisoners in UK jails. Out of them, more than ten thousand are muslims, about four hundreds are hindus, and six hundreds are sikhs. This was in 2011.

    Will the religious leaders answer why the crime rate perpetrated by the muslims in the west are so high. We are having at least one new mosque every week in UK.

  • john

    Islam does not have much good image,thanks to some people. Muslims follow their religion far more than any other communities. And yet, muslims have a very high crime rate.

  • john

    the author is a lady.

  • Mir

    Yes, This factor or situation often disturbs or let me confused specially when the ramazan month comes, This is clearly mentioned in various islamic books that every hukam which belongs to Allah pak is for all times and times to come, not only for a specified month (Ramazan). for example drinking is prohibited which is prohibited for all times.
    On the other side, there are some muqaddas nights, events places and months where prayer’s reward gets multiplied by 70 times or in other way rewarded more than as compared to prayers offered in any other day,place or event. So every muqaddas night, event and place has its own importance in our religion regarding its reward against prayers. for example Jumma, Eid , Ramazan etc. (Lailat-ul-Qadr is declared as best night for muslims for acceptance of their dua that is why Muslims gives preference to this night for offering prayers.

    So i after having thrown light on both sides of this factor concludes that i would not criticize peoples to not to do such prayers as they don’t do in other 11 months but to wish that May allah bless them and give them strength to do what they feel to do in ramazan throughout the year. Thanks