It’s a very special event and a very special month for every Muslim. It’s the month of joy for pious hearts, a chance to repent and get closer to Allah and to recharge the battery of Iman.
Ramadan is the month of gatherings. Families and friends gather at the time of maghreb to break fasting: an overwhelming feeling of joy creeps into the hearts and definitely to the thirsty mouths too. Neighbors compete to exchange dishes of the most delicious kinds of foods and sweets as a beautiful gesture of love and generosity.
Children have their joy also in this month. They go knocking on doors collecting money to buy Ramadan decorations so that the streets look ornamented with Ramadan lanterns (Fanous Ramadan). Approaching the time of maghreb, streets get full with tables of food for the needy and the poor but also for those who got caught up in the car jams in the busy and full streets of Cairo and who did not have the chance to break fasting with their families.
Now imagine with me if all these manifestations of Ramadan do no exist and you had to be this year in a place where you were the only Muslim there! How would you feel?
Salma was feeling very lonely this Ramadan. She is seemingly the only Muslim in the area where she is. With her little daughter, they make the sum of two Muslims! But really the only two Muslims in the neighborhood! No mosques, no athan – except the recorded one on her laptop- , nobody around sharing in fast-breaking, no ornamented streets or sharing delicious food, no tawareeh!
Isn’t this horrible for a Muslim?
Salma was feeling really sad not only because nobody shares with her all the beautiful moments of Ramadan, but also because of imagining how happy are her people back there home in Egypt. And she? She is just deprived of all that.
People around her are practicing the normality of everyday life. Meals are being served three times aday as usual. The bells of the nearby church are striking … nothing special around her. But inside her is this time very special. She was fasting all alone, and breaking it also all alone. Lonely was she praying taraweeh every evening in her room. Alone was she getting up at the middle of night to pray qiyamu el layl and all the time she was remembering how beautiful it was praying behind the imam in the mosque at home. Even athan, she was calling it herself quietly in her room.
It was a very tough situation for her. However, she decided to think positively about it. She thought that Allah has definitely chosen her to be the person in that place just like a white spot on a colored piece of cloth. The white spot will stand out and catch the eye. It will shine and so would she also in front of Allah. Her room, where she was reading Quran, will appear from the sky like a twinkling star.
This inspiration comforted her a lot and every time she prayed or read Quran, she imagined angels around her. So all her ebada was expressed with warmth, coming from the very depth of her heart.
It is true that Ramadan this year was a very different one for her: she is sad and lonely. However, she thought life does not always bring what one wishes. Circumstances have put her through a very tough situation. Either she makes the best out of it or she surrenders and fails. Salma has made the best out of this Ramadan and she feels really proud and strong. She is now ready for the time after Ramadan.
