Post 55--Some Good Ramadan Habits

Sorry for the lengthy silence. It was due to a hitch in the mechanics of this blog. It simply did not allow me to open a new post. I tried several times and gave up for a while. Today I thought, "Let me try once more." I have a computer savvy guest at home right now--my son-- and planned to ask him to check it out. And you know what? Somehow it works today!  But just wait till this son of mine leaves!  And that will be an hour from now.  What will happen?  Who knows, but for now, here's this new post.  

I am not a Muslim, as you probably know, but this blog is for both Christians and Muslims. So, today's post contains some good advice to Muslims about good Ramadan habits. It is written by Samana Siddiqui and is accessible at: https://www.soundvision.com/article/10-tips-to-help-you-keep-those-ramadan-habits.

As to Christians, it is good for us to understand our Muslim neighbours and friends, including this matter of good habits.  In many cases, good Muslim habits are also good Christian habits and vice versa.  So, enjoy and here's hoping this blog will continue to cooperate with me. If so, you will see the next post within a couple of days.  After that, I will be traveling for at least two weeks. Whether I will have a chance at that time to do a post or two remains to be seen, but I promise to do my utmost.  

Samana Siddiqui

Ramadan was great for Sarah. She actually started praying five times a day on time. But once the blessed month is over she fears the momentum, drive and motivation that kept her going will fade out. Sarah is worried that this good habit might not last.

But it doesn't have to be that way. In fact, a number of psychologists agree that a person needs about three weeks to develop a good habit. If you've been praying regularly, fasting, controlling your temper, trying to be more patient, or keeping any other good habit during Ramadan, you're almost sure, Insha Allah, to keep up with it afterwards.

Nonetheless, we all slip up. As well, the drive that pushes us to do good in Ramadan is usually not as strong the rest of the year. Here are a few things you can do to maintain the good habits you picked during Ramadan:

1. Make Dua

It was Allah who gave you the ability to keep the good habit in Ramadan, and only He can help you maintain it afterwards. Make Dua that Allah helps you not only keep the habit, but that He accepts it and makes it a way for you to grow in closeness to Him.

2. Make it a habit

If you want to keep good habits, you've got to make sure they remain part of your daily schedule. For instance, fasting. Did you know that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) encouraged fasting on Mondays and Thursdays? He said: A man's deeds are reported (to Allah) on Mondays and Thursdays and I prefer that I should be fasting when my deeds are reported (Tirmidhi).

This is a great way of maintaining the habit so you're not rusty by next Ramadan.

Or for example, were you extra generous during Ramadan? Well, maybe you can portion out a set amount of your weekly or monthly paycheck to a charitable cause to maintain the habit of giving.

Make the habit part of your daily and weekly schedule. The point is to keep the action in practice, and of course gain rewards from Allah.

3. Think about your day each night

Evaluating ourselves, our intentions, words and actions, every night is a very good way to maintain good habits (see a sample self-evaluation form).

Self-evaluation doesn't only help you see where you are and where you've got to go. It's also a great reminder of what you were supposed to do and didn't.

Add a question or two (or three or four) about your specific habit into a daily self-evaluation questionnaire. Ask yourself, for instance, how often did I pray today? What was the quality of my prayer? Did I pray on time? etc. These serve to remind you to keep up the habit and do better next time.

4. Evaluate yourself weekly

This helps you see the bigger picture. You'll be able to evaluate on a more long-term level how well you've been keeping your habit in practice. You can do the same thing on a monthly and yearly basis.

For those who are really into the technical aspect of self-evaluation, maybe you can make a graph to help you chart how well (or not so well) you've been keeping up with your good habit.

5. Get a friend to help

What are friends for anyway? If you've got a close friend you feel you can share your new habit with, let them join you in keeping up with it and keeping tabs on you while they're at it. This will not only encourage you, but Insha Allah, it'll deepen your brother/sisterhood as well.

Alternatively, look for groups where you can maintain the habit. If, for instance, you memorized Quran regularly in Ramadan and want to keep the habit, join an Islamic study circle focused on memorization.

6. Don't fall apart once you make one mistake

The beauty of Tawbah (repentance) in Islam, is that Allah blesses us with this opportunity to return back to Him after doing something wrong. We should remember that we are humans and that we will err. Only Allah is Perfect.

This is why, for instance, if we were able to pray on time all through Ramadan, but become slack afterwards, we must realize it, seek Allah's forgiveness sincerely, and try our best to get back on track, asking Allah to help us.

We should not give up trying to pray on time just because we have missed doing so on a couple of occasions.

7. Ask yourself WHY you kept the habit

Niyyah or intention is a key to Allah's acceptance of our good deeds. If we developed a habit to impress others, for instance, we may be able to keep the momentum for a while, but most probably it'll wear out afterwards.

But if we maintained a habit sincerely for the sake of Allah, Insha Allah, not only will we be rewarded for it, but our intention will help us maintain the necessary motivation to continue to do good.

8. Don't expect the same results

If you were ready to spring out of bed in anticipation for Fajr during many of the days of Ramadan, but find yourself barely waking up for the prayer afterwards, don't be surprised, but don't become slack either.

Good habits are often easy to maintain in Ramadan, the blessed month. The hard part is doing so after the "high" of Ramadan. This is where you'll have to work hard to force yourself to maintain your habit, whether it's waking up for Fajr, not smoking, eating less, being more patient, etc.

Be thankful when you're able to maintain your habit and think about practical things you can do to keep it up on a regular basis.

9. Work your way up slowly

Aisha reported that Rasulullah said: Do good deeds properly, sincerely and moderately, and remember that you shall enter Paradise only through Allah's Mercy, and also remember that the most beloved deed to Allah is that which is regular and constant even if it is little (Bukhari).

The wisdom in this Hadith is tremendous and it is one way of keeping up good habits you have picked up in Ramadan.

For example, let's say you were motivated to read Quran for half-an-hour on a daily basis in Ramadan. But now that it's over, you feel sluggish, lazy and want to give it up. Yet, you had wanted to maintain this habit after the blessed month was over.

Instead of trying to read Quran for the same amount of time, reduce the time period to as much as you are initially able to do, even if it's just five minutes a day.

If you keep up this 'five minutes a day' habit, Insha Allah, you will see the amount of Quran you read will increase slowly but gradually, perhaps even surpassing your Ramadan maximum in the long-term, Insha Allah!

10. Don't give yourself the option

What makes you get up for work in the mornings, no matter how tired you are? What makes you drag yourself out of a warm bed on a cold morning to get ready for school? It's the fact that you have no option, and you know that there are negative consequences to not going to work (you'll be fired) or school (you'll fail).

Use the same kind of psychology on yourself when it comes to maintaining your good habit. Tell yourself, for instance, that Allah will be very angry with you if you do not pray Fajr, no matter how cold your room is on a frosty December morning. That in turn can lead to more bad deeds, which could lead to decreased faith, and a downward spiral in your life. And Allah can punish you in various ways in this world as well as the next for not praying. You could lose your job; you could have a family crisis, etc.

Post 45--Muslim Persecution of Christians

      

Post 44 of this blog talks about whether Muslims want peace or terrorism. I quoted Canadian Muslims who are fiercely opposed to violence and terrorism. I also wrote about some who want both!  Yes, as strange as it seems, terrorists who claim to be Muslims resort to violence as the only way to peace.  They base their definition of peace on a very literal, unhistorical and fundamentalist interpretation of the Qur’an.

Most Muslims reject that interpretation as well as the attitudes and actions that result from it. One of its results is the death of thousands of Muslims at the hands of those militant “Muslims” throughout the regions where militancy has a hold, especially those claimed by ISIS in the “Middle East” and Boko Haram in the north-east of Nigeria and neighbouring countries. Probably more Muslims are killed than Christians and others. Most of the global Muslim community strongly resist and resent any suggestions that Islam and the Muslim community are violent or approve of terrorism. They wonder why Westerners associate Muslims with violence and terrorism. Why, Islam is a religion of peace and tolerance, they will argue up and down. Those militants do not represent Islam.

Well, that may be true, but that does not take Muslims off the hook. There is another form of violence that may not be described as “terrorist” but is violent none the less. I am talking about persecution. Persecution of other religions is rife within the Muslim community, even within the most liberal or secular Muslim countries. 

There are various Christian organizations that monitor situations of such persecution. One of them has been introduced to you in the past and I’m going to resort to them again: Barnabas Aid.  Their international headquarters is in the UK, while they have regional offices in Australia, New Zealand, Germany, Northern Ireland & Republic of Ireland, Singapore and the USA.  They publish both a bi-monthly magazine and a prayer bulletin.  I am going to simply quote a few random reports of theirs from the May/June 2016 prayer bulletin.

My stories will zero in on ordinary Muslims, their governments and their agencies in Muslim-majority countries. There are many other fronts where there is serious persecution, but I hope to address them sometime in the near future. These could include reports of ISIS atrocities that will be addressed one day under the rubric of “genocide.” There is also persecution of Christians at the hands of Muslim minority communities in the West. Then there are Hindu persecution of Christians, Chinese persecution, Buddhist persecution,Secular persecution in the West, etc., etc.  One of the most puzzling forms of persecution is that of Christians by Muslims in Christian-majority countries, mostly in Africa! I reserve all of that for future blogs. In all of this, I am aware that there are also situations where Muslims are persecuted. Perhaps that subject will be treated as well in due time.

But for today, persecution of Christians by ordinary Muslims in Muslim-majority countries:

May 1—“Iraqi Christians in Baghdad have recently lost their homes, businesses, cultural sites and church buildings when they were seized by Iranian-backed militias, forcing the owners to leave.” “They are being targeted in a type of ethnic cleansing designed to rid the Iraqi capital of all Christians.”

May 16—“A Pakistani Christian was beaten to death by police in January 2016, after having been stripped naked and hung up until his shoulders were dislocated. Liaquat Masih had worked as a driver for 18 years for a Muslim politician when he was accused by his employer’s wife of stealing jewelry. The police also beat Gull Khatab, a former employee of the politician, to try to pressure him into accusing Liaqat, but Gull refused. When local Christians staged a peaceful protest the following day outside the police station at which it all happened, police used batons against them, injuring six women and four men.”

May 18—“Tahira (21) and her sister Reema (20), both Christians, were kidnapped by Muslims towards the end of last year, forcibly converted to Islam and forced to marry their kidnappers in Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan. Tahira has managed to escape but dares not return to her family, who are now in grave danger because the kidnappers have filed a police complaint against them. The police typically take the side of the Muslim husbands in such cases. Pray that Reema may also find a way to escape and that both sisters may find a hope and future in a culture where their reputations are now ruined and they and their relatives are in danger of physical attack by the Muslim family or arrest by the police.”

May 19—“There are estimated to be around 700 cases like Tahira and Reema (see above) every year in Pakistan. Pray for the courageous Christian lawyers…who put their own lives at risk to give legal assistance to the victims and their families. As the Lord to grant them favour as they argue their cases before the authorities and to protect them from the many enemies they make as they speak up in defense of poor and vulnerable believers.”    

June 6—A fifth-century underground cave church has been discovered in Turkey’s Cappadocia region, a place where some of the earliest Christians lived (Acts 2:9; 1 Peter 1:1 in New Testament).  As Christians in Turkey today face pressures of many kinds, particularly with regard to their buildings, and are made to feel unwanted in their own country, pray that this tangible reminder of their historic roots may bring them encouragement and hope. Pray that the Muslim population (99% according to government figures) will recognize that Christians are not foreigners or traitors, but have a rightful place in society.  

June 7—A church building in Bursa, Turkey, dating from the 1880s, is currently used by four different denominations. When the Christians made a routine application to renew their permission to use the building, they were refused and ordered to leave the premises by February 26.  When this became known, local residents and the Turkish media reacted in support of the Christians—a very unusual occurrence in Turkey, where the Muslim majority and media are generally negative towards Christians. Perhaps even more surprising was the response of the Turkish authorities on February 23 withdrawing the eviction order.            

In closing this post, I think it only fair to tell you that this very day my wife and I were brunch guests at the home of a Turkish Muslim family who are our friends and who are the most cultured, gentle and kind people you can imagine. It almost seems ungrateful to publish this report today. I apologize to them, but the truth must be told. By no means all Turkish Muslims fit that description when it comes to Christians, but the percentage is too high, high enough to dub such events as “common place,” while resistance to them is considered “unusual” and “surprising.”  The end result after centuries of Muslim domination of these early Christian regions is a greatly reduced Christian community. 

Eco-Islam

Post 36--:    
                               
We’re not done with Islamic banking, but events keep getting in the way of completing the series. In my estimation it’s better to flow with current events than to stick dogmatically to a series. You can’t just ignore the end of Ramadan in a blog like this one. I will, of course, get back to the banking issue, probably in the next blog or so, if no other events intervene again.  I can already see that current renewed violence in my former home town, Jos, Nigeria, needs attention. 

Todd on Ramadan Greening
  
Some of these posts address both Muslims and Christians; some, either one but not primarily both, though both are of course always welcome to sit in.  This one is especially to inform Christian readers of developments within the Muslim community, while my Muslims friends should feel free to read and participate in the discussion.  In fact, at the end of this post they are invited to join Christians in joint ecological efforts.
One new emphasis in Ramadan observance this year is increasing awareness of the need to apply eco-friendly measures to the entire month.  Muslims are not immune to changes taking place around them.  They face the same eco problems the rest of us face.  Douglas Todd of the Vancouver Sun wrote an article entitled “The Greening of Ramadan, the Reducing of Waste” (August 29, 2011),  in which he wrote the following:  “During an era in which humans are growing more concerned about over-using the planet’s resources, more and more Muslims are reframing Ramadan as a time of eco-responsibility, guided by the Muslim principles of moderation and ethical treatment of animals.” Again, “Environmentalism is becoming big in many Muslim circles.”   

The Christian Record

Muslims are undergoing the same eco-transformation that started stirring Christians some decades ago.  Though the Christian Bible contains much that should have led them to environmental concerns much, much earlier, like so many religionists, their vision was shaped more by the culture of which they were a part than by the Bible.  But when the destructive forces the culture unleashed became too severe to ignore any longer, Christians, along with their fellow citizens, became aware of what was/is happening. At that time, their spiritual eyes also opened to the eco messages embedded in Scripture, messages they should have recognized much earlier, and they began to participate in the eco movement, sometimes together with others, sometimes within the church context.  They began to preach and teach eco issues; they published books and magazine articles; they conducted classes in their churches and developed environmental departments in their colleges and universities.  One of my own pastors got her undergraduate degree in ecology.  In short, Christians jumped on the eco bandwagon, eventually with considerable vigour.  So, along with everyone else, they participated in the destruction and now, along with everyone else, they participate in eco-saving movements. It would be interesting to explore why they were so blind before.  Those who know me well from my books or from my other blogs, can probably already guess where I would go with this (see post 44 in my blog < Worldly Christianity.blogspot.com >), but that’s for another post. 

Muslim Eco Developments
 

Canadian Muslims participate in Canadian life and are influenced by it.  Perhaps more than some people would expect. They, too, are worried about the environment and are beginning to recognize and apply Qur’anic passages that, like Christians, they should have recognized long ago, but were too embedded in their culture to notice. But they’re now coming aboard and applying them to Ramadan observances.  They are beginning to object to “the mountains of styrofoam food containers” that are produced by their “giant communal potluck feasts” at Ramadan celebrations.  Todd gives various examples of how Muslims and their institutions are starting to pay attention and making arrangements for reduced wasteful consumption as well as for reduced mountains of Styrofoam.  They are now creating websites dealing with the issues, many of them, according to Todd. There is < Khalafa: A Sacred Trust > run by Muaz Nazir, a conservation officer with the city of Toronto, and < BeyondHalal > that teaches greater compassion for animals and reduced eating of meat.

Congratulations and Invitation
 
Now that Muslims have completed another Ramadan celebration, it is fitting for their Christian neighbours to congratulate them for this strenuous achievement and to invite them aboard in joint ecological efforts so that we can all respond together to God’s call for responsible living and stop the spiral of destruction we have together unleashed. 

 Todd, thank you.  Muslims, God bless.

Women in Islam: Standard and Practice

Post 23--:

I continue the series that originally started in Post 19. Please check out the context of this material there.

The questions I was to answer were:
(a) How does the Qur’an say women should be treated?
(b) How does the above conform to or contradict what is practiced in many
Muslim countries or cultures?

Here is my response to those questions:

I interpret the questions as intended to evoke a discussion about Muslim suppression of women, since that is such a major Christian concern.

If you ask the same question about the Bible, you will get a wide variety of (contradictory) answers. There are OT texts about women from which pretty well all Christians distantiate themselves. For one thing, they are written from a male point of view—what the male should do for, with or to women. They were subject to men and valued mainly as wives and mothers. A father could sell his daughter into slavery. A father could annul his daughter’s vows or pledge, as could a husband his wife’s. Adultery could lead to stoning, but for both partners. The husband had various unilateral rights over his wife. A woman was worth half a man. Women could be taken as booty after victorious battles. They could become ceremonially unclean. Etc., etc. In the NT, women were restricted in their leadership roles. Christians have long rejected all or most of these ideas for sound Biblical and theological reasons, somewhat parallel to the Islamic doctrine of abrogation.

You find similar situations in the Qur’an and in the Muslim community. There is a wide range of interpretations from the literal to contextual-historical. Just as Christians have largely rejected the OT perspectives on women, especially those they see as oppressive, so do many educated Muslims argue their way out of similar Qur’anic texts. Most Muslim men tend to agree that women are honourable but fragile creatures that need to be protected from other men. Hence, the elaborate precautions to which some are subjected in terms of movement and dress code, while others dress and move about as they please. Most men regard women as too emotional and therefore insist that they, the men, should do the thinking and make decisions for them. They are seen as powerful when they play their legitimate role as mothers and wives who bring up and teach the next generation. They are allowed to conduct business and own property, but not at the expense of their primary role in the family. There is currently a dynamic at work in many Muslim communities that tends to restrict women more than was the case in the past, especially with respect to dress. One American female Muslim medical doctor practicing in Saudi was absolutely amazed at the restrictions placed on women in Saudi and condemned it outrightly as a retrograde form of Islam.

At the levels of militant fundamentalism and folk Islam, the literal interpretation tends to hold sway. Folk Islam is intimately mixed up with local pre-Islamic cultures. Its adherents often identify these foreign accretions as part of core Islam, with the result that anyone critiquing some cultural tradition may be accused of attacking Islam itself. In Saudi, public amputations constitute public entertainment after Friday prayers, but many educated Muslims are horrified.

The reality is that there is hardly any consistent pattern around the Muslim world. In many Muslim communities, women play a much larger role than the above would lead us to expect, while in most countries stoning and amputation form only a distant memory. And yet there have been several female Muslim heads of state in the largest Muslim countries! If Islam or the Qur’an were really as reprehensible and violent in its core as we witness today in some quarters, then the high civilization and culture they once reached would hardly have been possible.

A major difference between Christianity and Islam is that the former has experienced the philosophical developments from the Renaissance on—initially spurred on by Cordovan Islam—up to the current climate in the West. Before those developments, Christian individuals, religious leaders and nations were cruel and intolerant in ways hard to believe today, even though we already had the Bible. The change towards more civilized relationships is due as much to those philosophical developments as to our reading of the Bible. Most Muslims have not gone through this development.

How should women be treated according to the Qur’an? Your answer will be determined by the approach you prefer, literal or contextual-historical. Does the practice of some countries reflect the Qur’an correctly? To the extent that it is the result of a literal interpretation and mixed up with traditional cultural accretions, in agreement with more liberal Muslims, I would say “No.” But those who practice various forms of suppression of women, will, of course, answer “Yes!” They are the literalists. So, how and on what basis do I, a non-Muslim, answer these questions? Which is the true Islam or the right interpretation of the Qur’an?

I will interrupt my series and continue the subject of the treatment of women in the next post by reproducing an article on the subject by Dr. Asghar Ali Engineer, an Indian moderate Muslim scholar.

Violence in/and Religion (2)

Post 3

First, a note. You may notice that these first posts have the same date. The reason is that they have been transferred from another newish blog whose name was giving troubles. So, I opened this new blog and transferred the posts to this one. Originally written on different dates, they are being transferred on one date. Hence, the same date for the first blogs.

I want to pursue the violence issue a bit further. First of all, it is hardly a new question. Already a century ago, a Dutch jurist Verkouteren, discussing the same issue, acknowledged that Christians have all too often been involved in violence of one kind or another. But he argued that such violence can be attributed to religion—in this case, Christianity—only if you can prove that the violence in question has its origin in the teaching of the religion. You would have to prove that this violence logically flows out of the religion, that it is a natural consequence of its principles and that it necessarily had to happen. It was Verkouteren’s strong opinion that “Christians” involved in violence in fact did not apply their religion but denied it. They did not adhere to the laws of Christianity but trampled upon them. None of it derived naturally from the religion itself. It happened in spite of the religion.

The question is once again at the top of the agenda, especially with respect to Islam. Westerners, both Christians and secularists, are all too ready to point an accusing finger at Islam anytime some Muslim (group) has perpetrated an act of violence. All of Islam is blamed for it. True, often lip service will be paid via a quickie acknowledgement that the perpetrator was Islamist or terrorist, but from there on the discussion tends to ignore that distinction and leaves us with the impression that the violence was the direct result of Islam.

That Islamist terrorists are Muslims and claim to be guided by the Qur’an is not the issue. That these are dangerous people and need to be stopped in their tracks is the need of the hour. But are they truly Muslim? They may call themselves “Islamist,” but are they Islamic? There are any number of Muslim scholars who deny them that status. In my book Christians and Muslims: Parameters for Living Together I discuss this issue and quote many Muslim scholars, both from the 2/3W and from the West, who convincingly demonstrate that the violence we are witnessing today is a false application of the Qur’an. Its perpetrators are ignorant of the Islamic rules for interpreting the Qur’an. Though they may be called Fundamentalists, they have wandered far from the Islamic fundamentals. It would be similar to Christians basing their violence on the Old Testament. Both religions have certain established rules by which they interpret their holy books. Ignoring these rules leads to misinterpretation and heresy—and often to violence.

So, here, too, we may have an occasion for applying Verkouteren’s test. Joseph Lumbard, an American Muslim, edited a collection of essays written mainly by Western Muslims under the title Islam, Fundamentalism, and the Betrayal of Tradition. In his introduction, Lumbard writes that the fundamentalist militants “represent a complete break with traditional Islamic teachings—not a conscious development from them or of them. Of all the possible ‘Islams’ one could choose from, these are the least representative of its traditional teachings and classical heritage, for they have no scriptural, historical, or intellectual foundations.”