Ramzan comes to an end By Waseem Altaf The “holy” month of Ramzan has almost come to an end. During Ramzan the Muslims generally do nothing but fast. Let us see how this 29/30 day period affects us. First, the entire biological cycle is disrupted. At “sehri”, you stuff food, as you have to miss the brunch and the lunch; and you cannot smoke, take tea or other eatables. And the sleep cycle is affected too; as you have to rise at 4 AM, when generally you get up at 7.If you do not sleep again, the whole day you feel sleepy due to the deficit, and if you do, you get up at 9 and reach office at 10. At “iftar” you again overeat .The excessive food intake at two points in time and total emptiness of the stomach for about 15 hours on average substantially harms the digestive system. There are also psychological correlates of sleep, food and water deprivation. Frustration is one; which leads to aggression. During this month you find people highly irritable, on roads in offices; everywhere. Another consequence is the deterioration in cognitive functioning; as the higher order functions of the brain are adversely affected when a person is deprived of basic biological needs. You go to an office and you will find people half- asleep, yawning, generally sitting idle. You ask them to do something for which they ‘are being paid for’, and see how they react; as if you have committed a heresy. Asking someone fasting to do a worldly task is a “sin”. The official working hours are reduced and virtually nothing is done in the official business domain. A large number of business concerns run dry during this month. For instance the hotels, restaurants, and marriage halls to small vendors selling eatables for children in streets, loose almost all their income during this “holy” month. Some “staunch” Muslims with sufficient bank balance prefer to spend their Ramzan in Madina to have the heavenly experience which they later describe in colorful language in an emotional tone. Some are even directly addressed by the sacred personalities. They experience” while 20 million of their fellow citizens beg for a small piece of bread under open skies. The lesser “pious” sit for “aetakaf”. For 10 days, they dissociate themselves from their official obligations, ailing neighbors, overworked wives, children--everything worldly and say their prayers behind a curtain in the corner of a mosque. And we also have the “Ehtaram-e ramzan” ordinance, which even applies to non-Muslims. A non-Muslim seen drinking water can be arrested by the police and tried for the offense. The poor son of the Christian shall be arrested for drinking water but the hoarders, black marketers, profiteers fleecing the common man enjoy full freedom during the “holy” month. Prices skyrocket during Ramzan and no opportunity is missed out by the Sheikh Saab and the Haji Saab to squeeze the man in the street. Tired and bored you switch on the TV and find maulvis- some with beards and some without ,narrating stupid stories which can never be verified, glorifying past, condemning the West, the Jews and others, and predicting the reemergence of the Islamic civilization which would ultimately conquer the entire world. Some finding it difficult to quote logical reasons refer to spiritual prophecies and heavenly signs. Finally, Mufti Muneeb-ur-Rehman with Snellen Acuity of 20/4000 at CF 2’, almost legally blind, would “see” a celestial object 384400 kilometers away to decide whether 180 million or so poor folks can celebrate Eid the following day or the day after. However, Mufti Popalzai and associates may or may not agree with it; as the Deobandi moon may not be visible the same evening when the Barelvi moon appears. We surrendered moon sighting to the Mullah in the past and look what has he made of it. Imagine what would happen if the entire state with all its systems is taken over by the clergy? And gradually after Eid the blessings of having proper food and sleep and normal temperament, proper working hours and a normal life pattern would return. To our fortune it lasts for a month and not for the entire year. Had that been the case it would have further pushed back the “Ummah” a couple of hundred years behind the rest.
Posted on: Sun, 27 Jul 2014 14:47:05 +0000
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