Ramadan 2013 has ended and Muslims in Finland, particularly must be heaving a sigh of relief.
My Muslim friends are far too polite to directly compare our Lent with their Ramadan but there is always the unspoken criticism that hangs on the air "How can you call Lent a period of fasting when you may still eat three meals a day?"
But Lent and Ramadan are as different as chalk and cheese.
The Catholic Lent is a sustained period of moderate (depending on the attitude and ability of the individual) fasting, a constant source of modest mortification.
Never so severe that our capacity to carry out a surgical operation or drive a bus is placed in jeopardy.
Ramadan, on the other hand, insists on a fast period from dawn to dusk, hard in Britain, even harder in the land of the midnight sun.
A shade easier in the Middle East where dusk occurs in the early evening.
But, at either end of the Muslim fast, there is the unseemly gorging of food and drink (remember, no liquids and no food during daylight hours is the rule). Vast quantities of bulky carbohydrates and protein are eaten in an attempt to see them safely through the day.
And now, as today is the start of the feast of Eid, marking the end of Ramadan, the real feasting begins....not dissimilar to the Christian over indulgence at Christmas.
I have long claimed that Muslims who work in charge of potentially life threatening technology, should be excused duties during Ramadan. The human body was not created to undergo such extremes of feast and famine and it would be interesting to see some statistical evidence such as a rise in A & E admissions during this period.
I still do not understand Ramadan and the Muslims that I have consulted on the matter equally do not seem to be clear as to why they fast.
The most convincing answer has been that it helps the individual understand what it is like to be poor.
An admirable aim but it would be made better still if they adopted the Lent format which reflects on poverty for 24 hours a day, for 40 days of the year.
| Feast or Famine? But not both |
My Muslim friends are far too polite to directly compare our Lent with their Ramadan but there is always the unspoken criticism that hangs on the air "How can you call Lent a period of fasting when you may still eat three meals a day?"
But Lent and Ramadan are as different as chalk and cheese.
The Catholic Lent is a sustained period of moderate (depending on the attitude and ability of the individual) fasting, a constant source of modest mortification.
Never so severe that our capacity to carry out a surgical operation or drive a bus is placed in jeopardy.
Ramadan, on the other hand, insists on a fast period from dawn to dusk, hard in Britain, even harder in the land of the midnight sun.
A shade easier in the Middle East where dusk occurs in the early evening.
But, at either end of the Muslim fast, there is the unseemly gorging of food and drink (remember, no liquids and no food during daylight hours is the rule). Vast quantities of bulky carbohydrates and protein are eaten in an attempt to see them safely through the day.
And now, as today is the start of the feast of Eid, marking the end of Ramadan, the real feasting begins....not dissimilar to the Christian over indulgence at Christmas.
I have long claimed that Muslims who work in charge of potentially life threatening technology, should be excused duties during Ramadan. The human body was not created to undergo such extremes of feast and famine and it would be interesting to see some statistical evidence such as a rise in A & E admissions during this period.
I still do not understand Ramadan and the Muslims that I have consulted on the matter equally do not seem to be clear as to why they fast.
The most convincing answer has been that it helps the individual understand what it is like to be poor.
An admirable aim but it would be made better still if they adopted the Lent format which reflects on poverty for 24 hours a day, for 40 days of the year.
Hi Richard. Interesting topic today. I'm not at all familiar with the Ramadan tradition.
ReplyDeleteThanks Jadis, for the timely warning.
ReplyDeleteHi Rosario (great name). Before long I think we will all become very familiar with Ramadan and all that it entails.
ReplyDeleteRichard :
ReplyDeleteLent came first, by six n a bit centuries.
It's worth repeating.
A goodwilled and intelligent Moslem friend was astonished to learn that Christians in the middle East Palestine etc were there before Islam.
Long interval of polically incorrect truth about history.
Regarding Ramadan there are rigourous lenten practices that bear on the origins, I believe ethiopian lenten practice is pretty rigid.
Also, I don't remember either personally meeting this practice as such nor the right word for it in general, ( all standing or kneeling at the same points , for example,)but there's a business of all the same diocese, or/ and all the same parish sort of standardizing local practice : eg all Sundays in lent kiddies can have sweets, or only Mothering Sunday , or similar, which all doing the same was part of Quebec (rural?) practice into living memory,pretty well up to VII, I understand.
Reissued/varied every year.
Again, explaining to moslem friends, who were pooh-poohing carmelites eating anything whatever, even only burnt toast, during a fast they were amazed and shocked to learn that Christians DONT stock up at sundown.
Let alone the vary idea that What you give up and How you fast in lent has always varied- it doen't fit their idea of religion.How can it nNOT be all spelled out, or extapolable from what is spelt out.( You should hear the exegesis on diabetics not doing ramadan, and the difference between melanomas and warts for ramadan purposes))
For all that , however vague their ideas on why they do it may be, I am convinced that Ramadan is physcologically ( like the Moari resistance movement rituals that Jomo kenyatta mugged up on at LSE prewar and applied in the maomao) what enables Islam to pass from one generation to the next.
The no liquid in a any summer, let alone a tropical one , means considerable shared -suffering.
The breaking of the fast at sundown leads to any number of accidents as moslems use cars to get home in time.
If they've any money at all of course, they'll stuff themselves silly during the night and predawn as well.
But their moment of family togetherness breaking the fast in less well off North African Families, with a few dates and harara (thin broth to well endowed stew , depending on yer means) is what counts. Ive seen it in otherwise lax , beer drinking, smoking, Europeancultured muslims -Ramadan brings them back.
That basis is, insofar as human, Godgiven, and it's one of the losses of the "clericalizations we' Catholics have fallen into. We started as Jews, ecclesia domestica, Fr Ray has a good post of faith handed down in the family, much more could be said, about formalizing catholic family living.
(There is no way it won't mean persecution of some sort.Yes.Be different, get stoned, your little kids will suffer.)
Yes, Mike, we say that we had Lent for 6 centuries before Islam but many Muslims refute that. Historical facts mean little to them. Blind belief is all.
DeleteA history of Lent (and Fasting) can be found here;
ReplyDeletehttp://www.liturgialatina.org/lityear/index.htm
you will need to click on the link to 'Lent', and then 'History of Lent' direct links do not seem to work.
Here are some quotes:
"The Forty Days’ Fast, which we call Lent [In most languages the name given to this Fast expresses the number of the day, Forty. But our word Lent signifies the Spring-Fast; for Lenten-Tide, in the ancient English-Saxon language, was the season of Spring. Translator.], is the Church’s preparation for Easter, and was instituted at the very commencement of Christianity."
AND
"It was the custom with the Jews, in the Old Law, not to take the one meal, allowed on fasting days, till sun-set. The Christian Church adopted the same custom. It was scrupulously practised, for many centuries, even in our Western countries. But, about the 9th century, some relaxation began to be introduced in the Latin Church."
The sorry tale of the relaxation of our Laws then follows...