Sad Picture

The image to the left is of a child laying in the streets of Warsaw sometime in the 1940s, dying. It is the picture I promised to show you last time. I have borrowed it from a fellow named Martin Frost who has it here. I highly doubt he has the sole rights to it and cannot bother to track the owner. I need to use it for this post. Anyway, I learned of Jewish ghettos, a good example of which is the Warsaw Ghetto apparently pictured here, in my Jewish Studies 101 class with Sarah Hammerschlag during my senior year at Williams. When I was writing a paper for the class, I went online to read a bit more about the conditions under which Jews lived in 1940s Europe. I came across this picture of this little girl laying on the streets dying. It is one of the saddest images I have ever seen. For one, I adore children. I think children are wonderful little creatures that deserve all the love and affection any society can lavish upon them. Nothing makes me happier than to see a happy child, and nothing enrages me more than to see a child being abused. Secondly, I have this weird thing about death. I think that people deserve some form of company in their final hours, and think it extremely sad for someone to die alone. So when I came across this picture of this tiny child curled up, dying, alone, you can imagine that it made me very sad.

I think the image represents a powerful lesson for what can happen when we as a society begin to dehumanize people. When I was young, one of my cousins decided she'd major in history in high school. I thought, what a strange choice. Why would anyone major in history? She tried to explain how important history is, and how mankind has always repeated history, over and over, and if we cannot learn from the past, the future would be a dark place. I didn't buy it at the time, but as I grew older, I began to understand what she was talking about.

When the Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and others hold their conferences denying the Holocaust, they're in effect shooting themselves in the foot. More and more when I read the papers and listen to the news, I am realizing that there is a growing distrust of Muslims and Arabs here in the West. As a matter of fact, Obama's Muslim connection, albeit very weak (his father, who left the family early in his childhood was a Muslim before leaving the religion) has been used against him publicly. Of the dozens of times I've heard the topic addressed, only once did I hear anyone say, "so what if he's a Muslim?" It's becoming increasingly acceptable to publicly scorn anything Islamic in America. And if we as a society are not careful, maybe images like this one may not be a thing of the past, but, Allah forbid, a thing of the future.

Oh Ramadhan, How You Complete Me...

I received a letter from Islamic Relief USA a few days ago. The organization is part of a worldwide agency that seeks to alleviate poverty in various parts of the world. I usually send my zakaat (obligatory annual Islamic tax on savings which goes to needy causes) to them, so they have me on their mailing list. In it, Anwar Khan, the general manager, writes:

"I remember while on assignment in Mali, the children sat quietly in over 100 degree heat with no coverings over their heads. When they ate, they ate quietly, 10 children sharing one bowl of oatmeal and two pieces of meat. No child fought with another for food. Each child licked their fingers, making sure they ate every grain of oatmeal from that bowl. These children were lucky to get a meal that day. Thinking of how children here bicker over food while these poor children in Mali ate with grace and dignity had a profound effect on me."

I think that for about 335 days of the year, it is easy for me to take for granted the things I have. I tend to take basic things for granted like clean, fresh water, a comfortable place to sleep; breakfast, lunch and dinner and how many ever in-between snacks my heart desires. This may sound like a somewhat cheesy cliche, but for most of the year, I really don't think about these things. However, for 30 days each year, when bound by religious tradition, I cease to eat or drink (or, dreadfully, curse and gossip) from sunrise to sunset, I become a lot more aware of what it is like to go without these things. So when I do break my fast in the evening, it is with great humility and gratitude that I look at my plate of food and my glass of water and think, "wow, I am lucky." It has also helped me to become more sympathetic to the hungry person. I personally would never say no to a hungry person requesting food. I deny people money all the time; I don't think it's necessarily wise to give a street dweller cash because you never know what they're going to do with it. But I'm very likely to buy anyone who asks a sandwich, or a piece of fruit or something, because I know what it feels like to be truly hungry, or thirsty. I've put a link to the charity in my links section, so hopefully when this bloggie makes it big, people will go and see what it's about.

Now fasting isn't only about feeling hungry and sympathizing with those that are. The main idea of fasting is to develop self-restraint. I can easily fake a fast; no one would know if, when I come home during the day, I shovel down a meal and head back to work. Or if I woke up at 9 and had a huge breakfast. So the point of the process really becomes a personal one; between you and your maker. Or for atheists who find some good in fasting, between you and nothing. Either way, it fine tunes the self discipline and the self restraint. Yesterday I almost got into a huge shouting match with my coworker again, but I said, yo, I am fasting. I might as well go over to the break room and drink me a good big glass of water than yell obscenities at you. So in the end, we were able to discuss our issue in a civilized manner. Lucky for her, because the last time I just cussed and yelled a lot. So I'm learning to curb that kind of gangsterness and ignorance as well, which is good. And I feel much better resolving a problem than resorting to simply overpowering her with my loudness/lewdness.

So these are the gains I make from fasting in Ramadhan. As a matter of fact, I think they are so universally useful, that (Allah forbid) if I should ever cease to be a Muslim, I would probably still fast a bit now and again. It makes sense that Ramadhan happens every year though, because as with all good lessons, one tends to forget... a reminder every now and then works well.

Next time: a horrible image that has stuck with me forever and why I don't ever want to forget it.

Fasting is hard, yo

Ramadhan started September 1 for me this year, and I've been less inclined to write than ever. I say it started "for me" because, like everything else in the Muslim world, there is a great degree of difficulty in choosing one day and abiding by it. I chose Monday, but my mosque chose Tuesday. This is a very difficult thing to explain to a non-Muslim reader, but it has to do with tradition versus, well, reality. Tradition says to look for the new crescent moon on the 29th of Shabaan, the month that precedes Ramadhan. If you see the crescent, the next day is Ramadhan 1; this is how a lunar, rather than solar, calendar works. If you don't see the crescent, then the next day is Shabaan 30, and since Shabaan can only have a maximum of 30 days, that means the following day is Ramadhan 1. But reality says that in America, your Judeo-Christian boss does not give a shit whether you see a moon or not. They want to know, will you be at work or not? And they don't want to know at 7:30pm on Sunday that you won't be there Monday because of a religious holiday, as happens at the end of Ramadhan. So you have to plan things ahead. Some wise Muslim scholars, realizing that it does not conflict with core Islamic principles, have decided to fix the calendar ahead of time based on astronomical data. But other scholars do not like this "innovation." These scholars also like to wipe their asses with sand when they shit. Given my penchant for toilet paper, I also predictably enjoy the convenience of the fixed calendar, so Ramadhan for me began on Monday. Whatevs. Allah knows best.

Anyway, so it turns out that having to wake up for breakfast at 4:00am and then not eat or drink (or curse!) again until close to 7:30pm is more draining on me than I thought. First of all, I never realized what a HUGE bitch I can be when deprived of caffeine. Luckily, after a week of no caffeine whatsoever, my body has adjusted to not enjoying its usual two cups of coffee per day. My body has however not adjusted to the fact that Gunjan still exists, making caffeine deprivation the second hardest challenge of Ramadhan thus far.

In reality though, I thought fasting would help me be more productive, but this has not exactly panned out. Massa predicted this; that smart neuroscientist that he is! He told me he didn't see how it would be possible to concentrate while fasting. The brain needs glucose, he said. I assured him all would be well. I figured that with no lunch break, and no time to waste preparing coffee, drinking coffee, cleaning my mug after coffee, and thinking about how good it feels to have had the coffee, I would have much more time for work. Instead, I think of preparing coffee. I think of drinking coffee. I think of looking at my mug when there is just a small ring of milk around the inner base, where coffee once flooded. And I think of how coffee used to feel in my tumtum, as I listen to my tumtum growl and say, "feed me; why are you doing this to me." So I guess I was wrong and Massa was right. This is not the first time this has happened.

The next time I get on here, I shall educate you a bit about fasting in Ramadhan and what it's all about. Also, we'll discuss whether I, an otherwise irreverent and somewhat "bad" Muslim, have gained anything from fasting. What's there to gain? Stay tuned and you'll find out...