Ramadan 2024 WK4

In the previous weeks, I have looked at my daily routines during Ramadan, the social and communal elements, and then at the physical benefits of fasting for 30 days. This week, I want to focus on spirituality.

Spirituality is difficult to quantify or qualify as its intangible and speaks of an inner life. Nobody can say in any measurable way how spiritual they really are. In fact, those who are spiritually strong are unlikely to go advertise the fact to the rest of us. So, instead of wasting your time talking about abstract concepts, I will instead focus on what it is that I’m doing to develop my spirituality in the last days of Ramadan 2024.

Two essential ingredients for increased spirituality are increased physical discomfort and solitude. To this effect, it is a prophetic tradition to seclude oneself during the last 10 days of Ramadan. Men tend to observe this tradition by leaving the comforts and company of home and instead take up residence in a corner of their local mosque. Women can achieve similar reward by secluding themselves in a single room of their homes.

The aim of this seclusion is to take you away from the daily distractions of life and family and instead to focus you on developing that inner life. This is expressed through increased recitation of the Qur’an, engaging in additional prayers, supplicating to God, spending time in rememberance of God, seeking forgiveness for past transgressions, and engaging in religious study.

My day currently looks like this. I wake up at 4am and eat a simple breakfast of muesli and coffee. I then brush my teeth and perform ablution. If there is time, I will offer some optional prayers. Around 5am is the morning prayer. After the prayer concludes, I sit and read the Qur’an for an hour. Then, I will walk around the mosque for 5 minutes before returning to my sleeping bag. One of the blessings of seclusion in the mosque is that every minute you spend sleeping and awake is considered an act of worship.

I wake again at 10am, go to the toilet, brush my teeth with a miswak and perform ablution again. I spend 10 minutes reading from a book of supplications (Hizbul-e-Azam). After this, I get my laptop out and work on my thesis for a couple of hours. I then rest for a short while before freshening up in preparation for the afternoon prayer. After the prayer, I recite from the Qur’an again for an hour and then engage in some religious study for half an hour (currently Ibn Khuldun’s Science of Human Culture). Then it’s time for another nap.

At 5pm, I rise again and prepare for the midafternoon prayer. The prayer is a short one. After, I open the Qur’an again and spend up to an hour in recitation. That leaves another half hour to recite durood (salutations on the Prophet pbuh) and supplicate to God, the Most Merciful and Most Forgiving.

At around 8pm, those of us in seclusion join other members of the community for the communal iftar. We have 5 minutes to eat dates and whatever gifts of food people have brought to share (usually pakoras and other fried finger food) before the call to prayer is given for the sunset prayer.

Afterwards, I eat whatever food my wife has sent with my son. I am finding that my appetite for food is diminishing the further we get into the month. There is time for a coffee, and then it’s time to prepare for the night prayer. This is followed immediately by the Taraweeh prayers, which lasts an hour and 15 minutes. One of the imams reads from a book of Hadith (prophetic traditions) and explains the meaning. Then, after most of the public has left, we engage in Zikr, the rememberance of God, the Most Magnificent and All Mighty.

By the time we finish, it is 11.15pm. I sit a while with my fellows, drink water, and eat a little fruit. Then, around midnight, I brush my teeth and head to bed. This is more or less the pattern of my days for the last ten days of Ramadan.

The question is, how do I know if my spirituality has increased by the end of Ramadan? I will know if I keep up with some of those practices of worship and observation that I have engaged in during Ramadan. I will know if I feel a bit more disengaged from materialistic and leisurely pursuits and feel a deeper joy when engaging in prayers, recitation, and rememberance of God. I don’t have to have become an overnight saint, I  just need to have deepened and widened my connection to God and disentangled myself from the temporary attractions of the world.

Let me know in the comments section how your Ramadan has been so far. How have you developed your spirituality and what practices do you hope to continue beyond Ramadan?