Of The Month Of Ramazan Just Gone By
By
Prof. M. A. Sofi, New Age Islam
24 April
2023
The Good Deed Being Performed Voluntarily Ought
To Fall Within The Ambit Of Duties Towards Fellow Beings (As Part Of Haqooq-Ul-Ibad)
And Has To Be Distinguished From The Mandatory Ones Involving Duties And Rights
Towards Allah (Haqooq U Allah) Which Are A Binding On The Faithful Like
Five Times Prayers, Haj Or Zakat Etc.
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With the
holy month of Ramazan of 2023 just gone by, it’s intended to share certain
personal experiences based on how people look at and conduct their lives while
following the obligation of fasting and prayers during Ramadhan. The need for
sharing my thoughts is motivated by the vice-like grip of the Pesh Imams, aka
priests, on the masses and how almost everything being uttered by them finds
instant traction with those in attendance in the mosques. These are my
observations as much as a casual observer of things would notice them, and so
no originality of the contents is claimed of what follows in the lines below,
other than to suggest what could possibly be a way out, in my limited
understanding, to impart a semblance of sanity to the proceedings.
We are told
that apart from fasting, the act of virtue like prayers or charity in the shape
of zakat being performed during Ramadhan is supposed to fetch "seventy
times" as much reward in the hereafter as it would otherwise if performed
outside the month of Ramadhan. That is the kind of stuff that has been fed to
Muslims all over the world who have been made to accept that as an inviolable
act of faith. To put into perspective the logic of the "70- times"
divine windfall, it’s important to note that the idea of the reward being promised
to the faithful in return for good deeds being performed within the holy month
is to be understood in the sense of the unlimited bounty and kindness that God
has promised to shower upon those among the faithful who are sincere while
performing such good deeds, regardless of whether such deeds are performed
during or outside the month of Ramadhan. A scholar friend who has a deep
insight into Quran and Ahadees endorses that point of view.
In an
effort to corroborate this viewpoint, let us to ponder the logic of the 70-
times benefit as decreed in various interpretations of the divine text. To
begin, this over-emphasised insistence on doling out charity as part of zakat
during Ramadhan arises from a ubiquitous
disposition to quantify reward and punishment as one would normally do
with material goods, gains and losses. Of the many less desirable consequences
of such an approach towards the issue is this unwholesome spectacle of most of
the Muslims giving away almost the entire amount due to them as zakat
necessarily during the holy month of Ramadhan, thus leaving little or no money
and other resources with them to be paid to the poor and the needy who may need
that during the rest of the year. As a consequence, a whole lot of the
destitute and of the sick and those in heavy debt among them would be left high
and dry for want of timely assistance by those who have the resources and the
wherewithal but who had chosen to give that away exclusively during Ramadhan.
As opposed to the spirit of these injunctions which is primarily to engender
virtue and piety in the believers, such unreasonable allegiance to the letter
involving the "material arithmetic" of reward and punishment would
defeat the very purpose of zakat which combines self-sacrifice with compassion
and fellow feeling. To ensure the institution of zakat being used to good
effect, this diehard allegiance to the obsession of earning "good
grades" on individual actions has to give way to rational distribution of
wealth and other resources as part of zakat’s being ensured to be spread over
the entire year if it is to be hoped
that those beset with hunger, need and poverty do not remain deprived as a
result an exclusive emphasis on the quantification of returns.
In the same
vein, the sheer size of congregation of the 'faithful' thronging the mosques
and other places of worship for prayers at least five times a day during
Ramadhan and then thinning out and subsequently staying out during the rest of
the year is again a result of the same thinking involving the factor of 70
being forced into the equation! A plausible, commonsensical interpretation to
tease out a sense of the 70-multiplier thing would be to postulate that the
“70-multiplier offer’ is not automatic, unless the good deed intended to fetch
seventy times the promised reward is part of the set of exhortations that are
not mandatory from the Islamic jurisprudential point of view but are undertaken
of one's own volition, on voluntary basis that is. Further, the good deed being
performed voluntarily ought to fall within the ambit of duties towards fellow
beings (as part of Haqooq-ul-Ibad) and has to be distinguished from the
mandatory ones involving duties and rights towards Allah (Haqooq u Allah)
which are a binding on the faithful like five times prayers, Haj or zakat etc.
In short, the point is that the scale and magnitude of the reward in lieu of
the latter deeds (based on Haqooq-ul-Ibad) shall remain the same
irrespective of the time of the year, whereas such epistemic virtues as
truthfulness, kindness and good behaviour towards fellow beings or even a
kindly word to a beggar as acts of charity are the good deeds (as part of Haqooq-ul-Ibad)
being non-obligatory would reasonably fetch seventy times the promised reward
if these acts were performed during the
month of Ramadhan.
Yet another
side of the picture and involving such good deeds as mentioned above being
exhorted to be practiced to attain to spirituality of the individual, the buck
is seen to stop right at the door of the mosque. This is so because it's rarely
the case that the sheer majority of those seeking proximity to the Almighty
through the rigorous regime of prayer and good deeds as prescribed for the holy
month are seen to translate into piety, morality and good behaviour of the
individual towards fellow beings. It's a sad reflection of the moral depravity
of the Muslim community that the rigorous discipline exhorted to be inculcated
towards self-purification and edification of the soul as ordained as divine
injunctions happen to make no difference in terms of such habits as dishonesty,
corrupt practices and bad manners among the practicing Muslims which are seen
to witness no worthwhile decline even during the holy month of Ramadhan, other
than in the rarest of rare cases. That should serve to underscore the
redundancy of the "70-times-reward" inanity being attached to an
obligatory act of virtue if performed necessarily during the month of Ramadhan.
Of a piece
with what has been said above is this display of raucous, haranguing sermons by
those occupying the pulpits of mosques especially in the subcontinent which
provide a telling example of how a sense of mortal fear of God as a supreme
dispenser of punishment is instilled in the minds of the people regarding the
consequences of foregoing one's religious obligations. On the contrary, the
need for highlighting the mercy and compassion of God towards those who may
unintentionally err or deviate from the path of righteousness seems to be
completely lost on these demagogues whose shrill rhetoric on a myriad inanities
being passed for as being central to the Islamic faith gets carried as the main
take away from their outpourings. Of course, it’s reasonable to understand and
infer that those who are insincere and in grave error as a result of their
arrogance, rebelliousness and a wilful denial of the word of God shall not be
entitled to His forgiveness and mercy.
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Prof. M. A. Sofi is currently NBHM Visiting Professor at JK Institute of
Mathematical Sciences, Srinagar He previously taught at AMU, Aligarh, Central
University of Kashmir, Srinagar and University of Kashmir, Srinagar Did
Master’s from AMU, Aligarh (1978) and Ph. D Mathematics at IIT Kanpur(1982)
Presently living in Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir.
URL: https://newageislam.com/debating-islam/ramadhan-ramazan-ramadan/d/129624