Tuesday 30 / April / 2024
We are concluding the last days of Ramadan but did we do the right thing in the past few weeks?
As we are about to welcome the first day of Eid, we can look back and retract our actions towards humanity and ask ourselves if we helped those who needed us most. No doubt that it was all about divine sanctity.
No doubt again there were many who struggled through the month and if we were there to open our wallets to help them then we did the right thing. That means we went to stay in touch with the flow of mercifulness without reservations. But then it is all about our faith and how weak or strong it is. But Ramadan was not about the flow of cash.
As we are approaching Eid, we may go on to recall how Ramadan has been a sanctuary of generosity while at the same time a defender of justice. In the same breath of argument, Ramadan, as it ends, may reveal that no problem is an inescapable prison. There were opening routes of reprieve for those we stayed in the beam of faith.
We may now realise that Ramadan has been an impregnable fortress of mercy that protected our good intentions against the evil that lurked in the dark corners of faithlessness. Hopefully, we triumphed these “evil acts” not by fighting them but staying right on course of our deep beliefs in God. And if we did all that then the Eid holidays will shine through to light up the way beyond.
For those in the right frame of mind, Eid is not just a day of celebration but a divine pedestal where winners would stand proud knowing they passed with honours the tests of the holy month of Ramadan. They would know, too, that they went through a conglomerate of goodness through a series of act of devotions. Having said that, those who would experience a touch of guilt on the day of Eid, they would also know then they had not really allowed themselves to fall on the path of mercy.
In these last two days before the curtain of Ramadan falls, we can see the rush to the shopping malls to prepare for the Eid. It is all in good faith provided we deliver enough good deeds to show our gratitude to God. In a well-worded sermon in the weekend at a mosque in Muscat, the Imam questioned how we measure “goodness on a scale of virtue” to know what we did was enough during the month of Ramadan.
Fasting was not enough, he said, but a mandatory prerequisite for a series of steps that follow it. He went on to say “it is like filling water on a bucket that has a hole in the bottom “ that would never last reach it destination. What he meant to say is that the journey of Ramadan towards Eid would never find its target if we do not consider each other even in the smallest ways.
I am not sure how many members of the congregation were really listening to him. The body language around me in that spacious hall was not encouraging. Nevertheless, as we all look forward for the bounties of Eid, our hopes and prayers that the auspicious day will be an extension of blessings for all of us, no matter where we are or what we do.
