In the second of a series of blogs published throughout Ramadan, our West-London Nisa-Nashim co-chair, Lorraine Hamid, reflects on the horrible attacks that took place in London on Saturday.
Lorraine will be posting each week during Ramadan to share further thoughts and insights into this important month. Ramadan Mubarak to all of our Muslim sisters.
This blog post was going to be about celebrating and explaining the everyday ups and downs of those of us who have been engaged in Ramadan for over a week now. It was going to tell you that the first day was very hard for me towards the end of the day as I had been too ambitious in keeping busy all day, but that I had recovered and got my Ramadan food and work routine in order by day three. It was going to tell you that I have loved seeing my four-year-old get excited by her Ramadan calendar, her fanoos lamp and staying up late for ‘midnight feasts’ which begin with sumptuous medjool dates. I was going to say how uplifted I felt attend the launch of The Big Iftar, so proud of how our communities are coming together and sharing the experience of Ramadan, food and friendship. This week’s blog was going to focus on the body and what fasting shows it’s capable of. I was going to detail the science of fasting and tell you all about the practical ‘struggle’ in our society to keep Ramadan about fasting as opposed to feasting. How there is a big risk of putting on weight owing to the consumption of fried and sugary foods late at night when metabolism is slowest. Then I was going to tee up some of the topics for next week on the deeper issues of what fasting is really for: a higher state of mind and spirit. The notes were ready last night and I was going to write that up this morning. But I haven’t. I really don’t feel like it and I don’t feel it’s right anymore.
Because again, in a few deadly minutes, horror struck on the streets of my city. And once again, I find myself reeling with emotion and thoughts, trying to find meaning and reflecting on what my purpose is right now, as just another Londoner, a human being, who happens to be Muslim, witnessing this carnage in my home city. This news came right at the end of my extended Ramadan ‘day’ as I sat in bed chatting to my husband who had just got home. We had compared our experiences of the fast yesterday, had finished our prayers and were getting ready for the hour or so of sleep that we take before getting up for a 2.15am breakfast. A pop up news alert on a smart phone interrupted that plan as news came in of an ‘incident’ in London Bridge and Vauxhall. My first feeling was relief that my husband had made it home already, he’d just passed through Vauxhall 40 minutes or so ago. Alhamdulillah, thank God, thank God, he’s here. Then I immediately worried about whether it was going to be another so called Muslim responsible for this. Not more jumped up criminals claiming to be undertaking these heinous crimes for God. For God’s sake, not AGAIN. Then I wondered if I might know anyone caught up in this. I couldn’t sleep and scrolled constantly for updates and news about people I know in London.
I thought for a bit as I was reading all the news and decided to post on facebook about how things were for me. Lots of people were obviously worried about the news and I thought as a Londoner, it’s worth telling people you’re OK. But I felt I should say a bit more about my immediate feelings as the news was unfolding. My main sense was and still is that fear is an incredibly powerful but that power dissipates and we can choose to quickly come back to ourselves again. Even though we felt frightened as the police cars and helicopters circled around us, we didn’t have to let our imaginations take over and give in to fears about other incidents occurring in our own street. We can feel the fear, we can acknowledge it, but we can’t let it take over. The same for the anger we feel about all of it, repeatedly. Because of course this is what these criminals want. They want you to focus on being terrified and angry and for you to give up your ability to use your better instincts and fight back with something better than they have. They have no love, no faith, no humanity. They only have hate and their actions are utterly futile. People are beyond sick of this and see that there is no better response to their hate than to keep on loving and caring and living freely as before. No surrender to the purveyors of hate. No retreating into our safe spaces and turning away from other people because we fear they might hate us ‘in revenge’ for what happened last night. I can’t fight my fears by staying alone, I must engage with others, contact friends, neighbours, family and check they’re OK. I need to do this to reaffirm any doubts I have that everything will be alright. Because it will be OK. London and many other places in the world have survived much worse through the determination of good people. These criminals won’t win. Not in this life or the Hereafter, killing just one person will be counts as having killed all of humanity. They will suffer forever for this. Good people, brave people will flourish. They always outnumber and overpower the bad. Last night a woman single handedly kept an attacker from entering a restaurant door and thereby protected twenty people who escaped through the back door. What determination and power to turn the intense fear and pain of that moment into such power, what presence of mind! I am in total awe of her, a real life super hero.
As a Muslim, I know that God doesn’t ask, want or need these criminals to murder in His name. Killing yourself and other people is so obviously out of the sphere of acts of piety that I don’t even want to dignify it by stating the obvious over and over. If some people want to ‘believe’ that killing innocent people is part of their religion, especially in Ramadan, then that’s their choice and shows more about their ignorance, their ego, evil intent and blood thirstiness than it does about God or Islam or any religion for that matter. So, what then is a Muslim meant to be doing in Ramadan anyway? This month is the holy of holies, the month when the Quran was revealed. So last night as with many of the nights of last week, many Muslims were at the mosque, at special Ramadan night prayers known as Tarawih. In each part of those prayers they are listening to recitation of the Quran. Each chapter of the Quran begins with the statement ‘In the name of God, the Most Merciful, the most Kind’. Mercy is the starting place for everything. Every chapter of the Quran, every small act should begin with this statement. And the beginning of Ramadan focuses on this too.
What does this mean to me? In my humble opinion, I feel that as God is Merciful and loves Mercy, He wants us to renew our understanding of mercy to ourselves and to others in our own lives. When you’re fasting, you’re in more control than usual of your senses. You’re not led by your hunger to eat, you’re in control now. It’s worth saying here that fasting includes the pleasures of the flesh as well, you also must hold your tongue and refrain from bad and ill intended speech like gossip and backbiting. You must try to control your every worst impulse. So, you must fast in a complete sense for many hours of the day, not giving in. You experience hunger, thirst and the reality of not being able to do everything you want immediately. This is a rare state of being in our pampered, abundant, have it all now lives. Fasting is meant to challenge you, you should feel difficulty. You can then empathise and be more merciful to those who live and feel like this every day, without an end in sight. With practice, the process of fasting can really take you away from the mundane realms of your own self and into something better and higher. Ghandi said that if you control the senses, you control the self and if you control the self, you control the world. That’s why he fasted so much. Far from contracting yourself in line with your fasting stomach, fasting can allow you to grow and free yourself from your lowest instincts. Of course, achieving this growth takes focus and practice. Amongst many other fails, in Ramadan, my impatience is tested and my ill-discipline in reading Quran with deep thought or being able to pray mindfully is brought to the fore. But I can keep working on this, I have God willing the remainder of Ramadan and beyond to improve. I will allow myself that hope that I can be better. I want it and I know God wants that from me too.
Fasting is all about trying to move yourself forward and into a higher state consciousness. God states this very simply in one verse of the Quran “Oh you who believe, fasting is prescribed for you, as it was for those before you, that you may become righteous” (2:183). There then is the why and the what. Human beings have always used and needed the prescription of fasting for their various ailments. The outcome of the fasting process should be better human beings, on many levels. We’re only part way into Ramadan and am sure everyone has their own personal intentions of for the month. One thing is for sure though, this Ramadan like many that came before it has involved big tests of character. The spectre of terrorist attacks whether they be at an ice cream parlour in Baghdad or on the streets of London, challenge us to be that better human being and refuse to fall into the terrorist’s trap. Perhaps it’s a mercy that this happened in Ramadan rather than outside of it so we can think more about the right response before we act? We are striving to rise above the senses and control the self.
God only knows what state of self those evil so and sos were in when they rampaged last night. They’re dead now and can’t tell us. One thing’s for sure though, to put it mildly, they totally missed the point of Ramadan. As they were indulging their lust for feeling powerful and superior by killing the terrified random people around them, they failed to remember that Ramadan is for righteousness. Their aim is to ruin Ramadan. The ISIS statement explicitly calls people to ‘act’ in this holy month. They can’t control their senses or their selves. They won’t control the world. They shouldn’t be allowed to ruin anything and it’s up to us to ensure that doesn’t happen. Defy them and live more fearlessly and freely and at the highest state that you ever have before.
As for me, I won’t let them ruin my life with fear and I won’t let them ruin my Ramadan. No one can take away what God alone has given me. I am free, I am free, I am free. I will be fasting and praying and reading and going about my day to day life as normal. I will continue to take my daughter to the mosque to watch people pray and read and so she can enjoy the special Ramadan children’s activities there and her daily date treat from the Ramadan calendar. These criminals have only made me more determined to be less affected by their whole agenda. Psychologically, practically and spiritually I want to redouble my own agenda of learning and practicing the nuances of Ramadan more deeply than ever before. I will refuse to be led into pointless arguments about what does or doesn’t cause these people to become terrorists. I don’t know because I am not one and have nothing in common with these people. I apologise that hasn’t been the more light-hearted piece that I was planning today. But I wanted to be open about the specifics of this terrible day and how it impacts our life right now. I hope that sharing these thoughts is helpful and relevant. Thank you to everyone who gives me feedback, I really appreciate it. The same again this week please, any views and comments, contact me on ismilorraine@googlemail.com. God help and protect all the good people of this world, and God willing until next week’s instalment, salam, shalom and peace be upon all of you.
Lorraine Hamid