Ramadan blog - week three
Monday August 30 –Twentieth day of Ramadan 4.42am - 8.02pm
Unlike any other Ramadan I have observed during my life, this year was one where I visited the most mosques around the country including Luton, Milton Keynes, Newcastle, London, Watford and Birmingham.
There was one thing I noticed at every mosque I prayed in and had Iftaar at - the notion of unity. Africans, Asians, Europeans, Arabs and Turks all prayed side by side and broke their fast together as one Ummah (community).
This concept of a ‘united Ummah’ is embedded in the Islamic creed and goes beyond the month of Ramadan. The foundation was consolidated by Prophet Muhammad when he freed numerous Abyssinian slaves, united the Arab tribes and merged thousands outside of the Arabian Peninsula under the flag of Islam.
1400 years on and this feeling of brotherhood is as strong as ever. This is evident in the massive charitable efforts for the Pakistan floods.
Personally, the idea of ‘one Ummah’ is one of the most cherished pillars of Islam for me. I feel that I can relate to 1.6 billion Muslims around the world on so many aspects of life that they become as equal in my eyes as my own family.
We are now twenty days into Ramadan and it's encouraged for Muslims to increase in worship during the odd nights in the final ten days. It was on an odd night in the final ten days when the first revelation came to Prophet Muhammad via the archangel Gabriel in Mount Hira, Mecca:
‘Read (Muhammad) in the name of your Lord who created man from a clot. Read and your Lord is the Most Honourable who taught with the pen.’
(Translated meaning of the Quran; Chapter 96, Verses 1-4)
As strange as it appears to many non-Muslims who will be reading my blog, I admit that I will physically miss the long hours without food and drink, the mental discipline it entails which results in a spiritual purity within me.
