By TwoCircles.net News Desk,
New Delhi: Bangalore-based journalist Biju Abdul Qadir’s article on Ramadan has been selected for the top three international awards for the best writings on Ramadan this year by Sheikh Yusuf al-Qardawi’s IslamOnline website.
Qadir’s article has originally been published in the October 2009 issue of the Young Muslim Digest — an Islamic monthly published from Bangalore since the past 30 years. Qadir is Executive Editor of the periodical. Biju Abdul Qadir is also Managing Editor of IQRA Publications, Bangalore.
A graduate in Mechanical Engineering from Karnataka University, Qadir’s interest in Islamic Studies has generated several English translations of popular Islamic literature since 1999. He was conferred a special award for his poem, ‘Mercy for Mankind,’ at the Islamic Writers Alliance International Poetry Awards (USA, 2006) for defending the character of the Prophet, at a time when the Danish ‘Jylland Posten’ cartoons controversy had reached fever-pitch. Earlier, his story-essay, ‘Madrassa-e-Yusufiye,’ dealing with issues of freedom of expression, the nature of law, and the abuse of human rights, as relevant to the contemporary Muslim world won two international awards (2005, Writers Pro, Canada & 2007, MEMEFEST ’07 International Festival of Radical Communication, Slovenia).
Qadir’s award-winning article on Ramadan:
Our consciences, Our complexes
By Biju Abdul Qadir
Life, in many ways, is a vast combination of myriad experiences. Some of these remain with us for years together, touching our lives in innumerable, indeed, indecipherable ways, at times subtle, at times explicit, but touching us, moving us, all the same. Others are quickly forgotten, replaced, as they are, by the newer and newer scenarios that time and existence have to offer.
Doubtless, for those who care enough to take it seriously, Ramadan – the ninth month of the Islamic calendar – offers an experience of the former category which leaves its lasting imprint not just during its period of operation but even afterwards, when the days and nights of that blessed month begin to fade into the mists of our memories of another year of life gone by.
Hallowed amongst the months of the year for all eternity by the first verses of the Last Revelation, Ramadan stands apart as a veritable landmark in the story of man’s salvation after his fall. But the honor of divine revelation aside, Ramadan remains a beacon of light for the nature of its days – and nights – in the life of the believer.
A time of deep introspection, and constructive, forceful change, Ramadan is also an opportunity for a tragic study in contrasts.
A sad study in opposites.
A poignant study in irony.
A dispiriting study in ‘what is’ and ‘what ought to be.’
For, in a way, Ramadan is that time of the year when the Muslims of our time exhibit, through their deep devotion, how far they have strayed from what Islam really prescribed for them in their capacity as ‘the Best of Communities raised up for Mankind.’
True.
Mosques fill up with rows upon rows of worshippers during the days and nights of Ramadan, charitable people giving generously fill living hearts with joy and wonder, the poor are attended to, the orphans have their expenses paid for, and restraint and patience are the bywords in this period of rigorous fasts.
God-consciousness or Taqwa is, indeed, on a high.
All true enough.
But what of the periods that precede and succeed Ramadan? Compare these with that of Ramadan. Such a comparison, as is easily known in hearts not blinded by the affairs of the world, offers but an ironic sense of the pathetic failure of the Muslim world today. If, to some, Ramadan implies a month of great self-restraint and devotion, to others given to such a poignant comparison, the Month of Fasts is the grim herald of the next eleven months when the mosques would be emptied of worshippers, all restraints kept aside, and the sense of brotherhood and fraternity almost completely forgotten until the approach of the next Ramadan.
The Qur’an has a remarkable way of interrogating our consciousness.
Our consciences.
Our complexes.
It asks us at one place, for instance, about the one who falsified his deen, his religion – a serious crime, indeed. The Qur’an brackets those Muslims who neglect the poor and the downtrodden, the widows and the orphans, in this category of people who have made their religion a lie.
The same is true of Ramadan and non-Ramadan months in the life of the Muslims today. Ramadan – like the Qur’an – tells us ‘what ought to be,’ the rest tells us ‘what is,’ and how we fail the model for the rest of the year.
Ramadan – like the Qur’an – tells us of the Hereafter, the then and the there, while the rest of the months, through our own actions in them, tells us of this world, the here and the now.
Ramadan reveals, in our souls, an inkling of the extents of Jannah, the rest confines us to the prison of our longings after this world.
The only comment on this paradox, at once, appeals and saddens: the ideal and the distant; the model and the attempts to attain it. Human life, in its manifest symbolism, is replete with models in science, history and man’s efforts at moral perfection. In that search for the perfect model alone will we find where constants like Ramadan, Hajj and even the weekly Jum’uah congregation stand in the divine scheme of things prepared for man’s earthly training and heavenly salvation.
Link for this award winning article on Ramadan on IslamOnline:
http://www.islamonline.net/servlet/Satellite?c=Article_C&cid=1254573299401&pagename=Zone-English-ArtCulture%2FACELayout