29 days of Ramazan ought to be enough for Muslims.
We work hard all month long, fasting, praying, reciting, holding back, what not. By 29 days we are so exhausted and so desparate to return to “normal” lifestyle that the news of another day of fasting drops like a nuclear bomb.
The 30th day of Ramzan is just a formality. The enthusiasm is not there any more.
The crescent, if appears after 30 days of Ramazan, gets no attention. Everyone takes it for granted. It gets all the attention on 29th day, when the starved Muslims, desparate to celebrate Eid, gaze onto the skies to get a glimpse of the nascent moon.
None of that happens the next day should the moon decide not to show up.
Hey Omar,
Hi! I’m a blogger living in Delhi. Other than living books and music, I want to portray the real face of Pakistan – my neighboring nation – which I fear many non-Pakistanis are not familiar with. I think you may help me out in this mission. Please visit my blog – Pakistan Paindabad.
pakistanpaindabad.blogspot.com
If you think I’m doing some good, please get in touch with me at mayankaz@yahoo.com.
Thanks,
Mayank Austen Soofi
Before starting, I would like to wish you, yours, and all Muslims in Karachi, a “Eedan Mubarak”
I, by happenstance, came by your blog posting in April “Dear Mr. Terrorist”. I was intrigued to read your opinion to such heinous crimes. Those who commit such crime believe that they are doing so in the name of the Almighty Allah and His Quran, in exchange for earthly pleasures of man (not readily available when in flesh) to be bestowed on him in Paradise.
Maybe you are able to enlighten me. Although I am a non-Muslim, I have lived amongst my Muslim Arab brethren since my birth. Brethren, they were to me. During the past two decades, I began to question if my Muslim brethren hid their sincerity of respect to my religion, and demonstrated their love to me as a camouflage for me to gain their trust. I loved them as any brother would his brothers and sisters; I respected their beliefs, I ate at their homes and they ate in mine (with their spouses and children). I rejoiced with them at their marriages, and the births of their children. I shared their grief of the departed, and was at the graveside to hold them in their sorrow. My Muslim brothers and sisters reciprocated. It is very difficult for me to suspect that those, whom I so much loved, did really hate my religion, my standing for it, and that they would be rewarded in Paradise if they were to kill family, my fellow believers, and me.
My question is why current day Islam calling for the elimination of all “Kuffar”, take their land, and wealth; to claim all their property, and fly the ‘Flag of Islam’ in Washington, London, Paris and so on? Why the misinformation regarding 9/11 (that the culprits were Jews) was so readily believed, despite all persons involved were Muslims (in planning and execution)? Why was it permissible to orphan children, widow women, and inflict grief upon parents? The same question I ask for the attacks on USA embassies, the blood letting of innocents in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, London, Madrid, Bali, Gujarat, Kashmir; burning places of worship of Sunnis, Shiites, Jews, Hindus, and Christians. Why the pitch of the cries from Muslim leaders, clerics, and the Muslim populace against such injustices are so deafening by their absence?
We, in the west or the east of you (depending which way you look at it from your prospective), hear the perpetual calls for death and destruction coming, which the Islamic world claim to be, from ‘a small group of fanatic Muslims’, and our leaders are telling us to believe that. We did. We were patiently accepting the pain, thinking it is probably our fault. However, our tax money is going to aid the same people who are vowing to kill men, women, and children. We no longer understand the anomaly; we feed the hungry in Eritrea, Somalia, The Sudan, Pakistan, Indonesia, Afghanistan, Palestine, Egypt, Lebanon, the Fur in Darfur (Sudan), Bangladesh, Chad plus many other countries who asked for help, and surely others who will ask for the same. Alas, we are refered to as the devil and cursed as we extend our arm to the alleviate suffering. Hardly any thanks do we hear. Those who make claim to fighting for Islam kidnap, and slaughter our people on video in the name of Allah.
In Shakespearian fashion, we wonder ‘to aid or not aid’; we think in Biblical idiom ‘do unto them before they do unto us’, or maybe, apply the Hebrew law “eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth”.
Assalamalaikum Umar..How are you? Heard you have a blog so I thought I would check it out. I see you on MSN but never bother you thinking you would be busy. Anyway, IM me sometime and we will catch up.
Allah Hafiz
As Salamualaikum
Eid Mubarak. May Allah accept our prayers and fasting and strengthen us in his Deen for the rest of the year, too.
Remember me in your Du’as.
Wa Salam
http://truelife200iv.blogspot.com/