However, every year I was bombarded with questions about fasting month. So I would like to take this opportunity to clarify those frequent questions.
"What is Ramadhan all about?"
To be honest, if you were to copy this question and paste it in google, you can easily find out the answer. You could find out more in details. But this is just the surface of what Ramadhan is all about...
Basically, it is to help on individual to grow closer to god. It is a month full of forgiveness and blessing. It teaches us to control and discipline our desires, which is a self restraint for us to stop wanting more than we actually need. Improve our moral characters, which is to refrain from cursing vulgarities and scolding people. It helps in providing us an opportunity for a spiritual renewal. Some also may say that it is for us to experience the thirst and hunger of less fortunate people. Fasting teaches empathy and sympathy, and it takes away some of our selfishness and self-centeredness.
But being hungry or thirsty the whole day is useless if an individual is not conscious of god. It is to do one's best to live by His commands and to avoid His prohibitions, fear of Him, worship Him, sincerity in faith, and avoid the disobedience to Him. To add on, Ramadhan is one of the five pillars of Islam.
"How do you survive being hungry or thirsty all day?"
It would be a lie if I say I am not hungry or thirsty. Food does not only revolves in one's life. ( Although I really love to eat. ) To make myself forget of being hungry or thirsty, I would make myself busy with school work or any other activities during the day. It helps me lost track of me feeling hungry when I am focused on doing something.
I do refrain myself from looking at the clock that often because it makes the time go slower every time I take note of it. Without knowing, in a blink of an eye, it is time for break fast or in arabic term is Iftar.
Maybe it is because I was trained since young, that I have gotten used to it therefore to me, it is not that horrible as you think it is. Yes, at some point in time you feel as though you're going to die out of hunger because you feel super worn out that day but for me it helps to control my desire. My family do buy a lot of foods especially when we visit Geylang, a definite place to visit to get all the delicious foods, hehe. Hence, we need to finish all the foods that we bought first before cooking a new dish. It does take a little longer than normal days but we have this habit of not wasting food. I'm sure most family does, right?
"When do you start fasting?"
If you have read my previous post, I do mention that I came from an almost "Hitler-Like" family, thus I was being trained how to fast since I was young. It started off by fasting half a day then to full day. Since I am the youngest in my family, I particularly was being influenced by all of my family members so there aren't many hiccups for me rebelling not to fast.
I'm not sure if this is a tradition in my family but every fasting month, my parents will never failed to tell how my brother used to steal my ribenna when my parents are not looking and still act as though he was fasting the whole day when he was young and I was still a toddler. It was hilarious how they even acted it out for us. They shared stories of my siblings, including myself, childhood days of embarrassing moments we did during fasting month. At some point, I will be like wondering why did I even do that? haha.
With that I end off with: "We need Modesty. Not only in the way we dress, but Intellectual Modesty."
xoxo,
Emma
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