The month of Ramadan is especially important: It is a test to see if one is really ready and committed to abide by the spirit and rules of God's guidance. Sharing the spirit of Ramadan could be a truly uplifting experience in bringing communities together as one can glean from the following examples. Sarah Joseph is founder and editor of emel – ‘M' and ‘L' – Muslim Life – the first ever magazine that reflects Muslim life in modern Britain. She is a Christian who has accepted Islam and tells Saudi Gazette about her Ramadan experience.She is a winner of the 1999-2000 Prince of Wales Chevening/King Faisal Foundation Scholarship. Sarah said she has been fasting for 16 years in Ramadan, but her first Ramadan was incrediblyimportant to her. “I had been interested in Islam for a while but had not wanted to become a Muslim. I had ceased to be a practicing Christian but still believed in God and wanted to submit to the Creator. Both Lent – the month of abstinence preceding the Christian festival of Easter andRamadan were approaching; so was my birthday,” she said. “I decided that I wouldn't fast Lent or Ramadan, but instead would fast for a whole month before my birthday. However, a moment of realization came to me when I saw a girl go into sajda (prostration) and I decided that I wanted to become a Muslim. Ramadan came soon after and I fasted,” she added. The hours were long because it was in May. The fast would begin just after 3 A.M. and finish just before 9 P.M. Sarah remembers getting terrible migraines in the first few days, but they gradually eased. “I do not really know how I got through such long hours but when you have to do something you do itand that is one of the disciplines of Ramadan. You have a contract with God and you fulfill your side of the contract,” she explained. People were kind – inviting her to their homes for Iftar and as a new Muslim alone, that was much appreciated. “Ramadan still means a lot to me. Each one is different to the last. The hours are short now because it falls in winter, yet it still seems a challenge. Living in a non-Muslim country is difficult during Ramadan because you still have to work, and one often breaks fast at work or whilst traveling home in the evening. But these are experiences too, and it makes you strong to practice your faith in adverse conditions. “God sets human beings challenges. We either rise to the challenge or grow as people, or we collapse under the challenge and learn nothing,” she said. Michael Wolfe, who has written books on Haj, poetry, fiction, and travel, first encountered Ramadan in 1970, as a young traveler newly arrived in Morocco from the United States. “My first Ramadan fast taught me self-control and empathy,” he said. He was 24, decades away from embracing Islam, and with no real understanding of the Faith. “I had never before imagined a country where 99 percent of the population stops eating and drinking on a daily basis for a month in an effort to come closer to God,” he said. One evening shortly after arriving in Tangier, he was strolling on Rue de la Liberté. The pavement was lined on either side by men and women in woolen robes, crouched before steaming pots of soup set up on the sidewalks. “Every Muslim country has its recommended foods to break the fast with. In Morocco, people say that during Ramadan you must treat your stomach as if it were a baby's,” he said, and added, “The softest, gentlest item on the Moroccan menu is bysar soup, a thick brew of split peas in a wooden bowl with a healthy drizzle of olive oil puddled on the surface and a vigorous sprinkling of the cumin that brings out the flavor of the peas.” Michael joined a line and, when his turn came, watched a grizzled man from the Rif mountains ladle a quart of soup into his bowl. He sat down and began to eat. The man explained that in every city, Muslims announce the end of the fast in different ways. In some places, it is marked by a siren; other places by the beating of a large drum. “Here we fire a cannon. How did your fast go today?” It made Michael feel oddly flattered to be mistaken for a kinsman, and a little embarrassed to have to explain that he wasn't fasting. “The old man chuckled softly. He'd known I wasn't a Muslim, and he found that interesting,” Michael said. He advised Michael to fast anyway. “It's good for the system, and it armors your heart, so only good things can touch you,” he added. “Well, perhaps I'll try it,” said Michael. “The Qur'an recommends the fast as a means to sharpen our awareness of God – to be reminded of a natural state all creatures were born with. The fast is recommended to strengthen self-control. Personally, I found this concept puzzling until I'd completed my first month of fasting years ago. Perhaps you need to experience Ramadan to understand it,” he said. From feeling deprived, one comes to feel empowered by his/her ability to shake off the promptings of appetite and go about the daily work. From thinking how slowly time is passing, one moves along, as the fast progresses, to not watching the clock. “Indeed, Ramadan stands time on its head: You ‘break fast' after sun down, when others eat their dinner. You stretch out your evening to take in a second meal, and then rise before dawn for a final repast,” he added. “The old soup vendor gave me a feeling for its spirit, and that intrigued me. So much so that, as Ramadan neared its end, I fasted for the last three days of the period. It wasn't so difficult, really, with a whole city behind you and with no one waving plates of food beneath my nose at lunchtime,” Michael said. “By fasting with them, I entered into the city's spirit. I'd had my first lesson in Islam, however, and it left me with a lasting respect for the people who upheld its tenets,” he said. Ruqaiyyah Waris Maqsood (maiden name Rosalyn Rushbrook), a writer, who has written at least 24 books, still remembers her first Ramadan. “It was either in June or July in 1986, months which in the UK have extremely long hours of daylight. I had to start my fast at around 2 o'clock in the morning, and nobody had told me that the fast ended at sunset, so I carried on until it was dark – which was around 10.15 P.M.!,” she said. It was an “enormous struggle.” She was teaching at the time, and so had to spend a lot of the day talking, which added extra problems. In fact, she became quite ill and gave up after a week and a half, and felt extremely guilty. “In future Ramadans I did better. I loved the atmosphere of prayer and community, and had a group of around 12 teenage boys attending my classroom for their midday prayer and a retreat from the rest of the school which was having its lunch,” Ruqaiyyah said, She felt that the importance of Ramadan lay in an increased spirituality and sense of peace and well-being, caring for others, setting aside more time for study and reflection, and taking steps to join in with the community more. Since then, she has encouraged youngsters to use Ramadan as a time of not only prayer and fasting, but also of seeking out some way of doing active good to others, volunteering for some project or helping somebody.” Ramadan is a very blessed time. My only wish was that Ramadan could follow a time-schedule rather than the daylight hours, so that all our fasts were around 12-14 hours rather than very short in winter and very long in the summer. I was told that Muslims in the ‘land of the midnight sun' keep Riyadh times. I felt it was the fast that counted, not the length of hours,” she concluded. __
