Voice of British Muslim Women

Nooresahar Ahmad, Hampshire 

Like many, I find myself entering Ramadan wondering how to deal with the knowledge that, in Gaza, the Palestinian people continue to face horrors beyond comprehension. I wonder what it means to fast knowing that in the Gaza strip, at least 576,000 people are facing catastrophic levels of food insecurity. One in six children under the age of two are suffering from acute malnutrition.  

This knowledge is paradoxically combined with a complete absence of knowledge on other matters. For example, not knowing what to do. Not knowing how to help. Not knowing how to reconcile the comfort and privileges of one’s own life with what is happening in Palestine.  

In the Quran it states, regarding Ramadan, ‘O ye who believe! fasting is prescribed for you, as it was prescribed for those before you, so that you may become righteous.’ [2:184] In the next verse, it goes on to state, ‘The prescribed fasting is for a fixed number of days, but whoso among you is sick or is on a journey shall fast the same number of other days; and for those who are able to fast only with great difficulty is an expiation — the feeding of a poor man. And whoso performs a good work with willing obedience, it is better for him. And fasting is good for you, if you only knew.’ The key principles of Ramadan are encapsulated in these verses: the purpose of fasting is achieving righteousness, the sick and the travellers are exempted from fasting, there is a strong emphasis on caring for the vulnerable and the need to do good acts. And yet, I find myself dwelling on the final words of the verse: ‘…if you only knew…’  

There is something in those words which seems to me, in my present frame of mind, to epitomise mankind’s fateful lack of knowledge. It is almost painful to think of the choices we would have made, of the good we would have enabled for ourselves and others if we really knew, if we truly understood what was good for us. In an age where information is easier to access than ever before, it seems we have only strayed further and further from understanding what is right. 

In a lecture given in the months before October 7^th, British-Palestinian writer Isabella Hammad described the strange feeling of existing in a time of crisis. Though we are unsure of what the future holds for us, we try to look for a coherent narrative even in the midst of chaos. We try to know how things are going to turn out, using the familiar rhythms of stories as our guide: ‘the crisis should suggest the encroachment of the end, even if, in real life, the end is a receding horizon. The flow of history always exceeds the narrative frames we impose on it. Generations continue to be born, and we experience neither total apocalypse nor a happily-ever-after with any collective meaning beyond the endings of individual lives.’  

In other words, when disaster occurs, we expect a complete ending of one kind or another. Instead, we experience continuation. Life goes on. Those who have no idea how to go about living anymore, continue to wake up. As witnesses to the disaster, we are acutely aware of our own cluelessness and confusion. And somehow — another Ramadan has arrived. It remains a blessing to be able to partake in it. Our obligations remain the same, too: striving for righteousness, feeding the hungry, performing good works. All this is good for us. If we only knew.