The month of Ramadaan is welcomed by Muslims all over the world as an opportunity to wash away the sins committed over the past year. This holy month has an added significance for me, for it was in the month of Ramadaan — 15 years ago — that I accepted Islam.

In the months preceding Ramadaan, I had read several books on Islam and attended lectures hosted by my university's Islamic Society. I was pretty much convinced that Islam was the true religion. All that held me back from accepting Islam was my family. On a brief visit home I'd made a tentative attempt to discuss the similarities between Islam and Christianity with them. It had erupted in a blazing row. I resolved to keep my interest in Islam a secret for the time-being. Living away from home, in student accommodation, this wasn't too hard to achieve.

As the month of Ramadaan drew closer, I decided to give fasting a test-run. Initially I was apprehensive that I might faint whilst abstaining from food and drink from dawn until sunset. In those days, dawn began at 5:30 AM and sunset was at 5:00 PM. Unlike the 'fasting' done on Good Friday, this was serious. The Catholic fast on that day consists of breakfast (hot cross buns), abstaining from food (drinks are allowed) until lunch (a fish dish) and then doing without dinner.

Yet millions of Muslims managed to fast, including the elderly and the young. Surely it couldn't be that hard? Even my non-observant Muslim friends were promising to fast all thirty days and abstain from marijuana, dating and clubbing. And for most Uni students, that takes some doing!

I remember my first fast quite clearly. I'd woken early enough to have a cup of tea and some biscuits and felt very excited as I began the day of abstinence. I discovered that fasting was actually much easier than I'd anticipated. When something is done collectively, there's a sense of unity and somehow it didn't seem nearly as difficult as I'd imagined.

"God, I'm starving," I sighed mid-morning, even though I wasn't. I just wanted everyone to know that I really was serious about becoming Muslim.
"Why?"
"Because…. I'm fasting!" In those days I had yet to learn about the virtues of doing good deeds in private.
"This is nothing. In the summer the fasts are much longer."
I didn't know that the Islamic calendar is shorter than the Gregorian one, thus the month of Ramadaan comes approximately 10 days earlier every year. It was a mercy from Allah that my first fasts were during the winter (February) and thus among the shortest in length. Immediately I felt ashamed. I recalled a Biblical reference to fasting and the instruction not to look gloomy so as to make your fasting known to mankind. Millions of people were starving around the world and here I was complaining about doing without food and drink for a few hours. And wasn't I was supposed to be fasting as a form of commitment towards my intended religion?

1 2 3 4