Ramadan is a Difficult Test For

A Muslim’s Patience and Endurance

Dr. Hoffman : “Fasting is an opportunity for a person

to Test himself and for kindling social feelings”

We are still learning about the faith journey that led Dr. Murad Hoffman, former German ambassador, to embrace Islam about which he says : “Some months after I embraced Islam, the Holy Month of Ramadan, which is the 9th month of the Hegira year, started. I had been expecting its beginning with some anxiety and fear because it is a difficult test of a Muslim’s patience and endurance, and embodies the height of his awareness and state of consciousness. During Ramadan I have to abstain, for 29 or 30 days from dawn to sunset, from eating, drinking, smoking and having sexual intercourse with my wife, while continuing to practice my job as usual.

I first knew about Ramadan in 1977 on board a Yugoslavian airline (JAT) plane flying from Belgrade to Istanbul. I noticed that the passenger sitting next to me in the economic class did not touch his food till all the trays of the other passengers had been removed, and the time of breaking his fast, which he was waiting for by looking at his watch now and then, finally came. During our stay in Belgrade, we often invited Ramadani Ramadan -our gardener- to eat with us at the end of his fasting day because he arose our sympathy as a result of his firm determination to fast Ramadan, for he abstained from eating as soon as you could tell the white thread from the black one at dawn. Actually, I fasted a whole week out of sympathy for him ; however, a person does not know how the fasting of 30 days feels except by actually fasting them.

In Bonn, one of my duties was to organize banquets for foreign guests. My abstention from eating with them caused a lot of embarrassment : was I suffering from a stomach ache ? Or was the food I ordered for them below my standards ? On these occasions, I remembered the ease with which I found an excuse for not drinking the juice or Turkish coffee offered to me in the Yugoslavian foreign ministry during the month of Ramadan. As a matter of fact, fasting Ramadan becomes an occasion that makes one happy throughout the year only when it is done in an Islamic environment, where it is a month full of spiritualism… a month of internal peace and fraternity.

Like all rituals in Islam, Ramadan includes both material and moral components that cannot be separated. Physical privation starts with the abstention from drinking coffee and tea in the morning ; the level of sugar in blood drops during the day till the fasting person is on the point of losing consciousness. But, the person can easily learn how his biological system functions. For me, for instance, I have two periods of full vitality during the day, namely 11 a.m. and 4 p.m. I benefited from this in accordance with my system by organizing my daily work into : what is required, what is permissible and what can be done.

The first set of my activities consisted of what I could perform while my blood pressure benefited from the planned biological peak ; thus, I tried to drive my car for 13 km from the NATO headquarters to our home in Axel, while I was at the peak of my vitality. I used to be more cautious so as not to cause danger, neither to myself, nor to anybody else. For, in Ramadan, traffic accidents increase, particularly when heads of families try to be on time for the end of the fasting day meal in their homes. Five of our compatriots from former East Germany were killed near Kénitra in Morocco on February 25, 1993, the third day of Ramadan, when a taxi-driver tried to overtake the bus they were riding. He hit the bus which turned upside down ; the cause of the accident was blamed on the driver’s lack of concentration as a result of fasting.

The third day of Ramadan is very difficult, indeed ; the fasting person is in his worst state on this day, for he has a bad headache which gets worse when he lies down to relax. However, the body starts, with its big capacity for adjustment, to adapt, from this moment onward, to the new conditions. Thus, the acuteness of the headache and the feeling of hunger diminish, and the person can see someone else eating without envying him. Though I often feel that I am weak in the late afternoon, I cannot read and I unwillingly spend time watching TV, I don’t feel like eating food, particularly meat.”

Hoffman goes on in his description of the Holy Month of Ramadan, saying: “The end of the fasting day is announced in the Islamic World by firing a cannon, at this moment the fasting person drinks some water or juice, eats an uneven number of dates or olives, and performs the Maghrib prayer, thanking Allah who has helped him fast the day. In Morocco and Algeria, the first meal after the end of the fasting day, starts with drinking mint tea and a dark – coloured soup, namely the Algerian ‘Frik’ soup and the Moroccan ‘Harira’ soup whose taste differs to a certain extent from one house to another, in addition to eating one boiled egg and dates with honey which was the favourite food of the Messenger (PBHU). Immediately after, the body starts to regain its vitality once again. A short time later, the person eats a whole meal of meat ; in Morocco, it consists of chicken, roasted mutton, couscous with beef, sweet pastry and fruits. Unfortunately, this takes place very quickly so much so that I went back home at 9 p.m. from invitations to Ramadan evening meals starting at 7.30 p.m.

My conception of Ramadan, which is based on my belief in the Sunnah, is different from the way this religious ritual is practiced in some Islamic countries, among which is Morocco, where people try to compensate for what they have not done during the day. Thus, they watch TV, play cards till midnight when they eat a third meal (As-Suhur). Consequently, many Algerians and Moroccans do not get enough sleep ; more than that, they do not sleep well during the very few hours they go to bed as a result of an overstuffed stomach. Therefore, some of them do not perform Al-Fajr prayer, particularly in Ramadan. They are also useless in the following day’s morning. Such behaviour may encourage the strange tendency of replacing the night by the day in Ramadan.

Actually, the consumption of food increases too much in these countries in Ramadan, instead of dropping. But what certainly falls is work productivity, for Ramadan has an impact on the national production of these countries, as if it were a holiday period. However, what I consider futile was my invitation by very high dignitaries to eat the Iftar meal, using gold utensils, as well as the fact that a Muslim starts eating by saying : ‘Bon Appetit’ (i.e. Have a nice meal !) instead of Bismillah (In the Name of Allah) before dishes filled with sea bounties, and before performing the Maghrib prayer. I always deem it illogical that someone who does not pray fasts. But such kind of behaviour reveals the fact that the fasting of Ramadan is practiced in some parts of the Islamic World in a manner that deprives it of its religious signification, turning it into a free aspect of civilisation. This also explains the strange behaviour of some Muslims who abstain from drinking alcohol during the month of Ramadan, considering it a month of Islam opposite eleven months of a break away from Islam !

Between 1987 and 1994, I spent my fasting day in a very different manner. I used to go to bed after `Icha prayer, i.e. around 11 p.m. I set the alarm clock at 3.30 or 4 a.m. so as to get up 40 mn before the beginning of fast and eat my Suhur while drinking a lot of water. After this, I spent the remaining time before Al-Fajr (dawn) in reading the Qur’an. After Al-Fajr prayer, I went back to sleep for two hours. Work at my embassy started one hour later than usual ; actually, I used to accomplish more than I did on normal days ; especially that work helps forget about the empty stomach. In Ramadan, I used to sit during the periodical working-lunch banquets organized by colleagues from the European Union before an empty plate. My French colleague in Rabat, M De Cognac, used to behave like me, “out of solidarity” with the “host country inhabitants”, as he used to say, which was a very skilful political act.

My work-day in Ramadan usually ended with my attendance of a religious lecture, namely the “Hassanian Lectures” at the Royal Palace in Rabat. The whole Moroccan government, the general military corps, Muslim scholars, and the ambassadors of Islamic countries used to gather daily at the Moroccan Royal Place starting from 5 p.m. We listened to the reading of the Holy Qur’an till the coming of the late Moroccan King Hassan II and the Princes. The lecturers were invited from all parts of the Islamic World ; among them were American Muslims and outstanding scholars such as Sheik Muhamad Tantawi from Cairo (the current Sheik of Al-Azhar). They sat on the traditional Mimbar (pulpit) while King Hassan II, and everybody else, sat directly on the carpeted floor in a square around the speaker.

My Muslim colleagues and I used to take turns in inviting each other to the Iftar meal (the first meal after the end of the fasting day) around 7 p.m. When my turn came, the hall of my residence in Souissi District, which was located between the living room and the dining room, served as a mosque, for its soil was covered with prayer carpets. The relationships, I built during these occasions with some government members and counsellors of the late king Hassan II were of a lasting character and got stronger with the passing of time. I, usually, lost 5 to 8 Kilogramme of my weight after Ramadan, in other words, I was nearer to my ideal weight.

In addition to its material dimension, fasting involves a spiritual dimension without which it is reduced to mere starving out acrobatics. The month of Ramadan is a holy month on account of its importance in world history. Ramadan not only witnessed the Battle of Badr (622 .A.D) which had decisive impact on the survival and strengthening of the first Muslims, but most importantly is that it also includes the Night of Revelation on which the revelation of the Holy Qur’an started. Allah says in Surat Al Qadr about this number-one night, which occurs among the last nights of Ramadan : “We have indeed revealed this (Message) in the Night of Power : And what will explain to thee what the Night of Power is ? The Night of Power is better than a thousand months. There in come down the angels and the Spirit by Allah’s permission, on every errand : Peace !… This until the rise of Morn !” This is a passage that is suitable for interpretation and remembrance.

It has become customary to consider the 27th night of Ramadan as the Night of Revelation. This night and that of the Messenger’s birthday share, though far from each other, a common characteristic, in that Muslims make donations on them (c.f. Zakat Al-Fitr, the obligatory donation of foodstuffs required at the end of Ramadan). Moreover, like the other nights of Ramadan, Tarawih prayer is performed on this night, and the reading of the Qur’an as well as religious poems and invocations abound on this night ; thus, if anyone does not understand the signification of the Message and Revelation on this night, when could he possibly do ?

The fasting of Ramadan is a religious duty for Muslims, who consider it as a form of worship in that it is one of the Five Pillars of Islam which do not require persuasive arguments. As a servant of his God, the Muslim fasts because Allah has ordered him so. Obedience here is obligatory. A Muslim can easily discover that this obligation was not imposed for the sake of Allah, but imposed by Allah on people.

Since slimness has become a fashion, women follow a diet that is reminiscent of fasting, which can lead to pathological thinness. With the recent talk about the harms of cholesterol and obesity, there have appeared various propositions of weight-loss programs. As to the Islamic fasting, it satisfies this purpose and more, since it leads, for instance, to kindling social feeling in that the fasting person experiences, at least once a year, what other people who are forced to fast all year round experience due to the lack of food or money.

As far as I am concerned, it seems that the main side-effect of Ramadan is my ability -during this month- to test whether I am still the master of myself or I have become a slave of trivial customs, and whether I am still capable of controlling myself or not. I hope that I am happy and not vainglorious when, after the end of the last day of Ramadan (i.e. at the Maghrib prayer time), I feel that I have been able, with Allah’s assistance, to fast it.