المساعد الشخصي الرقمي

مشاهدة النسخة كاملة : ?Ramadan: Worship Whirlwind, or Food Fest


نسيم الفجر
08-28-2009, 07:07 PM
Bismillah
Recently, I received a very inspiring email from one of my sisters in Islam, forwarded to her by another sister, who had written it with a very sincere underlying tone and a truly well wishing intention. The topic of the email was how, as Muslims, we should focus more on worship during this month than on preparing and eating elaborate and lavish



http://muslimmatters.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/paratha-n-curry-300x200.jpg


meals.

Now I know what the reader must be thinking: that it is the best of deeds for a Muslim woman to nurture her family, serve her husband his food, and take care of her children’s needs over and above her own – especially in Ramadan. No one is disputing this fact.
Ramadan is that special month when the family breaks their fasts together in the evening, and bond through other activities of worship, together. Hence, preparing iftaar and therefore facilitating the breaking of her family’s fast is indeed a very great deed that the Muslim mother/wife is in-charge of doing.
Eating and drinking is a need of the body; however, Ramadan is all about quelling this need for the sake of Allah, in order to become more conscious of Him.
The point of this article, therefore, is to focus on the thin line that exists between earning reward by serving your family their food during Ramadan, and indulging their whims to the extent that you relinquish your own personal, never-to-come-again-for-a-year, valuable chance of humble, focused, tearful repentance, supplication and dhikr; i.e. undistracted worship in solitude.
Sheikh Muhammad Saalih Al-Munajjid @ IslamQA points out:

“Many people misunderstand the true nature of fasting, and they make it an occasion for eating and drinking, making special sweets and staying up late at night and watching shows on satellite TV. They make preparations for that long before Ramadan, lest they miss out on some food or prices go up. They prepare by buying food, preparing drinks and looking at the satellite TV guide so they can choose which shows to follow and which to ignore. They are truly unaware of the real nature of fasting in Ramadan; they take worship and piety out of the month and make it just for their bellies and their eyes.”

Shiekh Muhammad Al-Shareef also hints at this trend among Muslims, to consider Ramadan a month of "feasting", in his recent lecture "The Fasting and The Furious" (scroll to bottom of the post for the link to the lecture's audio). It is true that, for most Muslim families, the arrival of Ramadan signals not a shift in focus from, but a shift in focus to, preparing and consuming food. Some reasons for Muslims’ extra focus on recipes, stocking, kneading, frying, *****ng, baking and serving ‘special’ food platters during this month are:

to be continued