Thursday, October 11, 2007

Ramadhan's End

From Pakistan to Palestine, MMP to MPP's, there's been a lot on my mind recently. . .

I didn't title this post "Eid Mubarak" because sadly, it isn't Eid for all the Muslims. It isn't quite Eid for me - my conscience wants it to be on Saturday, as the Fiqh Council said, but then my conscience wants a lot of things that it can't get, for the time being. The Muslim world is back to its usual vice of the unpredictable calendar. Today at the Masjid a proponent of today's Eid-by-Meccan-moonsighting and apparent expert on all the "scientific wonders" of Islam told me that he wished the Muslim world could find some unity, and that if we could only agree on the calendar, then we would be a force to be reckoned with.

I think we are already a force to be reckoned with, we just haven't yet reckoned with ourselves. I replied by saying that in order to have a calendar, you need to know what the dates are going to be in advance. "With modern technology. . . ." he began. Sigh. How can you hope to achieve all that storied grandeur if you can't schedule a meeting for Wednesday the 15th of Shawwal, because you don't know whether it will be a Wednesday or not? With modern technology indeed. . . A complex, resource-intensive solution to an artificial problem. Not that I think we need any more grandeur. It's a love of grandeur that's gotten us into this mess to begin with. . . but that's another story.

I miss Ramzaan already. I know that a few weeks from now, the days will feel . . . normal, mundane. I have a couple of fasts to make-up, but they aren't the same. They won't have the same potential. They will be a punctuation in the rhythm of daily life - not a new rhythm unto themselves. There will be no more standing at length at night, letting my mind expand and contract as the sound of the Qur'an hits the chords of my soul, wandering away and then focusing sharply on the task at hand once it realizes the gravity of what I'm doing, and Whom I stand before.

And so, here we are at Eid. We've made it one more year. Was I forgiven? Was my failure over the last year to control my selfish desires forgiven? Were they even tamed? Will Ramzaan be just a platitude, a lip service to the ideals of Islam, which justifies and excuses the failings of another year? Will I remember that on an average Ramadan day, my food intake is what some people consider a feast? But then again, I am asking these questions as if I have no control over the outcome, as if it were environment that controls my actions, as if God had given me no say in the matter.

Was I angry when I heard that so many Masjids here in Canada had declared today as Eid? No, but I was disappointed. Disappointed about Eid. Astaghfirullah. I'm not disappointed about Eid anymore - practicality forces me to embrace it, and I also have to be sure that my ego is subjugated to my faith. With Ramzaan, with fasting, with Eid, and with everything else, next year, we will try to do better.

If we are still here next year, that is.

So if you're celebrating, Eid Mubarak! If you went with the FCNA's courageous decision, then mubarak to you too!

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