Muslims across the globe spend the month of Ramadan fasting and for many the month of prayer, almsgiving and fasting is taking place during the hottest time of the year.
Ramadan — the month which commemorates revelations of the Qur’an to Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) — is also a time of gathering for families and communities during Iftar meals to break fasting after sundown.
While it is mandatory for Muslims to fast during Ramadan, many non-Muslim expats have been known to fast in a spirit of brotherhood with their Muslim friends, adding a dimension of inter cultural affinity that makes this holy month, even more remarkable.
For the last six years, as also this year, the Hyatt Plaza Mall has created an opportunity for non-Muslims to join in and share this experience. Each time, for every person who fasts through this programme, the management contributes a donation to a deprived section of society, in some part of the world. Intended only for non-Muslims, offering them an opportunity to experience fasting for one day, the Fast-a-Thon is a charity event that was held on 17th and 18th of June in the Ramadan tent outside the shopping centre. In return, for every person who registered and fasted, Hyatt Plaza and Eid Charity donated QR200 on his/her behalf to encourage education in Somalia. This call to all involved hearts to make a huge difference by a simple gesture and to promote universal values of brotherhood, tolerance and empathy, also provide an opportunity to non-Muslims to understand and experience the spirit of Ramadan.
This social dimension to the observance of Ramadan makes it a propitious time to further inter-religious understanding and non-Muslims approach it from various aspects. For many, it helps them to empathise even more with those less fortunate than themselves and to be able to make a difference in the life of someone with whom their only connection is of, well, humanity.
Community spoke to some such people.
Fifty-six-year-old Alex Chacko, who hails from southern India and has been a long-term resident in the Gulf, has been fasting through Hyatt Plaza’s Fast-a-thon since the programme’s inception six years ago. A regular churchgoer who starts each day with a visit to the church, Chacko sees this as an extension of the same philosophy of compassion and charity.
Asked about his reasons for participating in the Fast-a-thon he says, “If I am asked to give QR200 to somebody, I will have to think twice before I dig into my pocket. But doing it this way, the logistics don’t need much planning. Even though I will be fasting, feeling thirsty and hungry for a day, it is nothing in comparison to the hardship so many people in the world have to go through on a daily basis.”
Chacko has spent the better part of his life living and working in the Gulf and during this period has enjoyed close friendships and amicable relationships with native Muslims. “We spend our lives running around from morning to night, day after day, but at the end of the day, we often forget that when we leave this world, we will not carry any of this along. Occasions like Ramadan and fasting during this time helps to realign our focus on this aspect of our lives,” he says.
“By fasting for a day through this programme, we will be able to contribute a sum of money towards the education of children in Somalia, who we may never meet, but it is enough for me to know we have been able to help them in some way.”
Describing his experience of the challenge of abstinence through the day, Chacko says it is mind over matter. “Once I have mentally prepared myself to abstain from food and drink through the day, then it isn’t very difficult to go through the day without drinking and eating,” he says adding that his better half in life is also sharing this experience with him.
Events such as the Fast-a-Thon provide an opportunity for people of different religious backgrounds to learn from each other’s faith by sharing the experience through this inter-religious exchange.
And perhaps, it also makes one reflect on the profound question of what it means to be religious. Is it something we are born with or born into, is it the various rituals or practices we follow, is it the misconstrued doctrine that those who pray in the same way are blessed and everyone else is doomed, or is being religious being good in some small way, through compassion for those less fortunate than ourselves, regardless of creed, nationality and origin.
Occasions such as these also provide us an opportunity to teach our children about the values we wish for them to adopt. And what better way than to walk the walk.
Football coach, Robert Matthaei, fasted for the very first time this year at the Fast-a-Thon. Robert was inspired by his daughter’s desire to support the Somali school children and hence they both joined over three hundred people from different religious backgrounds for the programme. “This way, we are able to participate in the culture of the country we are living in and at the same time are able support the Somali children. The Dutch people don’t celebrate Ramadan but we have a lot of Muslims living in Holland and I have witnessed many Muslims there fasting during and after work. However the big difference is that here almost the whole country is fasting and in Holland only a small part of the population.”
While many of us take university education for granted, there are people in many impoverished parts of the world where it is considered a luxury. Somalia is one such nation. Lessons in schools are taught in either Somali or Arabic while higher education is mainly in English. Graduates from hundreds of schools across the country have no future upon graduation and end up as street merchants, while many others attempt to enter Europe as refugees by taking overcrowded boats across the Mediterranean Sea in which thousands lose their lives. A number of others, out of desperation, become easy foot soldiers for Shebaab extremists, causing havoc and slaughter in the south of the country.
In previous years, the contribution from this event has helped earthquake victims in Pakistan, civil war victims in Syria as well as orphans and poor in various parts of Africa. Each year people from over 20 countries participate.
And while the contribution made by each expat through abstinence for one day is not going to make a huge difference to the world’s problems, every little drop of water does indeed make the mighty ocean.
MULTI-CULTURAL: People from multiple countries, more than 20 according to the organisers, took part in the Fast-a-Thon.
