THE holy month of Ramadan is a good chance for a person to change his/her life for the better. A Muslim should reflect on his actions of the past year and evaluate it and see whether there was injustice done to others. If he has done some injustices then it is time for him to correct them and also seek corrective ways for the wrong doings that harm others. All should realize that people suffer because of the actions or non-actions of other people. Let us start by passing a message to the abusive sponsors who keep on mistreating their workers. They should change their wrongful behavior toward their sponsored workers and be just with them when it comes to pay and treatment. An abusive sponsor should know that the sponsored worker is silent toward the abuse is mostly because he/she needs the job and does not want to jeopardize their employment with a call for justice. The abusive sponsor should know that most of them have left their homeland because they had no choice, and this move to Saudi Arabia would enable them to support their families and loved ones. The abusive sponsor should realize that the fact that the sponsored worker is away from his family and friends that he/she is living in pain each day he/she is away from his/her family and there is no need to make it even worse for them by treating them badly. Dear abusive sponsor, Ramadan is a perfect chance for you to change, if not what good is your fasting, praying and worship when you still haven't changed your behavior? Ramadan is a perfect chance for offensive manager, who delays salaries of employees, to do something good for once and start paying them on time. I wish if this offensive manager puts himself in the place of these workers and faces the agony of not getting paid for three months or more then he will know what value this timely payment holds for a worker. The pain of not getting your dues would be even greater if there is a family dependent on this worker to support them monthly back home. The pain would be greater if there is rent to be paid on time or medicine to be bought. Dear offensive manager, what good is your fasting, praying and worship when you delay the salaries of your workers? Ramadan is a perfect chance for wives, who abuse their domestic help, to repent from the wrongdoing and be just to them. There are wives who treat their domestic help as slaves and deprive them of their basic rights. They tend to overwork them, give them little food, not pay them on time and continuously abuse them verbally and emotionally. Ramadan should be a perfect time for such bad wives to reflect on their action and evaluate what they are doing and change for the best. They should know that the domestic help are humans too and have feelings. They have left their homes to live far away from their families while sacrificing their lives to provide a better living (even if it is just 10 percent) to their families and children back home. Again, I ask such wives, what good is your fasting, praying and worship when you still haven't changed your life and learned to treat people nicely and with dignity? Ramadan is a perfect chance for people who look down on the less fortunate to change the way they view people. They often look down at the cleaners, who work on the street, and tend to abuse them when they have the chance. To look down at someone just because he is holding a menial job or because he is from a certain nationality or because of the way he is dressed or because he is paid way less than you is not associated with Islamic teachings. If we cannot provide them with help or with love and compassion, then the least that can be done is to leave them be. Such arrogant people should read the Prophet's, pbuh, saying, "No one who has an atom's-weight of arrogance in his heart will enter Paradise". I again ask such people, what good is your fasting, praying and worship when you look down on people? A message to the bad people who reported their sponsored workers on Huroub (expat workers who have run away from their sponsors) in order to protect themselves from government actions is to atone. I urge them to fear God and correct their wrongful actions by shunning responsibility and blaming others. There are tens of thousands of cases of escaped expat workers who did not escape. It was the opposite, the sponsor wanted to escape from the responsibility of managing the worker, and would report the employee absent from work for a specific time, sometimes even without the knowledge of the employee, making their lives miserable by reporting them escaped. They should take advantage of the holy month of Ramadan and cancel the escape reports and give them a chance to either transfer their sponsorship or give them a final exit. Oh irresponsible employers, what good is your fasting, praying and worship when you have made someone else's life terrible and miserable? There are tens of other bad examples but due to limited space I stop here. I urge them if Ramadan has changed them for the best and they have managed to do justice to themselves first, then they should also be just to others during this holy month, They should then continue to be good even after Ramadan. The God of Ramadan is the God of all other months. I conclude here with this saying, Abu Huraira reported: The Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, said, “Do you know who is bankrupt?” They said, “The one without money or goods is bankrupt.” The Prophet said, “Verily, the bankrupt of my nation are those who come on the Day of Resurrection with prayers, fasting, and charity, but also with insults, slander, consuming wealth, shedding blood, and beating others. The oppressed will each be given from his good deeds. If his good deeds run out before justice is fulfilled, then their sins will be cast upon him and he will be thrown into the Hellfire.”
— The writer can be reached at [email protected]. Twitter: @anajeddawi_eng
