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by Edna Yaghi
- Ramadan is the (month)
- In which was sent down
- The Quran, as a guide
- To mankind, also clear (Signs)
- For guidance and judgment
- (Between right and wrong).
- So everyone of you
- Who is present (at his home)
- During that month
- Should spend it in fasting,
- But if any one is ill,
- Or on a journey,
- The prescribed period
- (Should be made up)
- By days later.
- God intends every facility
- For you; He does not want
- To put you to difficulties.
- (He wants you) to complete
- The prescribed period,
- And to glorify Him
- In that He has guided you;
- And perchance ye shall be grateful.
- Sura 2, verse 185.
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- The millennium ushers in the first
Ramadan of the 21st century. It will also be the first
Christmas in the year 2000. Ramadan is a time of fasting, a time for
reflection, a time when Muslims the world over feel a oneness and at
peace with themselves and those around them. It was during the month
of Ramadan, which is the ninth month of the Islamic year, that
Prophet Mohammed (PBUH) received the first of the Quran’s
revelations.
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- Fasting is a shield and an expiation
of sins. It establishes equality among the rich and poor. It
cultivates piety and it sharpens one’s will power and establishes
the control of the spirit over the body.
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- In other religions and dogmas,
philosophies and doctrines, the observer of the fast abstains from
certain kids of food or dink or material substances, but he is free
to substitute for that and fill his stomach with the substitutions
which are also of a material nature. In Islam one abstains from
things of material nature, such as food, drink, smoking, and so
forth in order to have spiritual joys and moral nourishment. While
the Muslim empties his stomach, he fills his heart with love and
sympathy and his spirit with piety and faith, his mind with wisdom
and resolution.
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- In other religions and philosophies
fasting is invariably partial. It is either for spiritual aims or
physical needs or intellectual cultivations but never for all
combined, In Islam, it is for all these gains and many other
purposes, social and economic, moral and humanitarian, private and
public, personal and common, inner and outer, local and national,
all combined together.
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- Islamic fasting is accompanied by
extra devotion and worship, extra charity and study of the Quran,
extra sociability and liveliness, extra self-discipline and
conscience awakening. Thus the fasting Muslim feels a different
person altogether. He is pure and clean inside as well as outside
and he feels closer to God. Hence, fasting in Islam is not a divorce
from life but a happy marriage with it, not a retraction but a
penetration with spiritual armaments, not a negligence but a moral
enrichment. Fasting does not break but harmonizes, does not dissolve
but transfuses, does not disintegrate but bridges and redeems.
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- Christmas is a time for celebration
and a happy occasion. It is a time of peace and forgiving. A time
for feeling compassion for the less fortunate. It is a time to
remember the holy city of Bethlehem and when good tidings were
brought to mankind. It is a time of Christmas bells and jolly Santa
Clauses. A time when city streets are dressed in greens, reds and
laughter, a time when trees decorate every home with soft lights and
tinsel.
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- It is a time when the eyes of small
children are wide with wonder and when youngsters go to sleep on
Christmas Eve with visions of sugar plums dancing in their heads and
presents of all kinds to be anxiously opened come Christmas day. It
is a time of peace for all mankind.
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- But this year, Ramadan and Christmas
are not joyous occasions for those Palestinians living under siege.
Every day that they live is a miracle in itself. Every city is
constantly bombarded by Israeli helicopters and every child is shot
at. There is no civilian, no man woman or child who is safe from
attack by the monstrous usurpers of Palestinian land.
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- Palestine is no longer just divided
into Gaza on the sea and the West Bank further inland. Palestine
under siege is nothing more than two concentration camps patrolled
by Israeli soldiers who make certain that no medical or any other
kind of supplies are allowed to enter either of the concentration
camps. Whenever one Israeli is killed, the Israeli government makes
sure that tens of Palestinians are then slaughtered. It is a
Holocaust but the victims are no longer the mythical European Jews
but real Palestinians who fall as martyrs every day in the streets
of Occupied Palestine.
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- While Muslims the world over observe
this first fast for the new millennium, they should remember the
Palestinians who sacrifice their lives to defend Muslim holy places.
While Christmas is celebrated in other homes around the world, those
who celebrate it should remember that Christian holy places are also
under siege as well and there can never be peace on earth and joy to
man as long as little children are shot and killed or brutalized and
tortured simply because they are Palestinian.
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- The West portrays Israeli attempts to
wipe out the indigenous inhabitants as "violence" on the
part of Palestinians and "restraint" on the part of the
Israelis. But anybody with a mind and eyes to see can tell that
those who attack unarmed citizens with bulldozers, with tanks, with
armored jeeps and with missiles are the violent ones, not children
throwing stones at a nefarious enemy.
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- This year, every Muslim should examine
his heart and mind and decide on a course of action that will change
what is happening in Palestine. This year, those who celebrate
Christmas should also examine their hearts and encourage the
American government to back a real peace initiative, one that will
be just and comprehensive, not one that continues to deny
Palestinians the right to live in peace on their own land under
their own chosen system of government.
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Source:
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