The holy month of Ramadan has arrived and Muslims all over the world are welcoming this month with fervor and piety. It is the month of good deeds, it is the month of forgiving, it is the month of feeling for the poor and needy, it is the month where people take advantage to reflect about themselves, to account for their actions, to improve themselves and to take the opportunity to visit relatives and love ones to extend familial ties. However, now the case is different with the true meaning of Ramadan slowly fading. Ramadan is now becoming different year after year. But is it for the better! It is slowly turning into a month of not really feeling what the poor people feel. It is turning into a month of feeding frenzy. Also it is turning into a month to see who can devour as much quantity of food as possible. It is getting to be a month where people compete as to who has the longest food table with all varieties of food. Giant stores advertise for discount of food products. Ramadan should be a month which should teach people the value of hunger. But that's not the case now… for what is evident that people only think of food during this month and not the relevance of hunger. A person shopping two days before Ramadan or on the same day Ramadan is announced will be expecting the unbelievable sight of streets being jammed with people rushing to buy food as if there has been a natural disaster and people want to store food just in case. They also witness a number of fights that erupt between people. But that's another story on how we welcome this holy month. Ramadan is now becoming a month of serial TV shows. I am surprised that throughout the year, we hardly see any new serial being aired, but more than 20 of them are kept for the month of Ramadan. In one TV channel, there are new serial TV shows every hour — right after Iftar at 8:00 p.m. until 3:00 a.m. Why does it happen only in Ramadan? Is this how we greet this month? Youth these days have a different understanding of this holy month, as it is the month of staying awake all night and sleep throughout the day. A person will wake up early if he/she woke up one hour before Iftar. Then what is the purpose of this month? Other people blame Ramadan for less productivity at work. When someone shows up late at office, his excuse is he is fasting. When someone fails to deliver his task at work, the excuse is he is fasting. When someone curses at another person, his excuse is that he is fasting. Is this really true? Are we seriously using Ramadan as an excuse for all these bad deeds? Enough please. We are destroying the true value and image of this holy month. During this month, the companions of the Prophet and Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, were going on Jihad and made this month a month of full productivity and worship and getting closer to God. Of course they did not have any air-condition at that time. These bad habits we have started seeing during the month of Ramadan. However, we also still see good habits during the month of Ramadan. There are people who take advantage of this holy month to watch their diet and lose weight. There are others who use this month to exercise more after Iftar or before it. There are those who use this holy month to get rid of the habit of smoking. I read recently in a local daily that 50 percent of people who succeed in quitting smoking do it during the month of Ramadan. There are people who take advantage of this month to make peace with people or relatives with whom they had a fight with in the past in order to bury the hatchet. These are the good things that we need to see during this holy month. All the more so, we need to stop making excuses about our shortcomings and blame it on Ramadan. We need to teach our children the true value of Ramadan and it is not the month of staying up late and being less productive and the month of eating. Slowly we are destroying the meaning of Ramadan with our irresponsible actions. We need to take a stand and eliminate the bad habits that have started to creep in as part of Ramadan. If we fail to do that, then we might get used to seeing swimsuit fashion shows or latest movies released especially for Ramadan. — The writer can be contacted at [email protected].
