A timeless celebration of Ramzaan: honouring tradition while embracing change

WHEN I think back to Ramzaan as a child, the strongest memory is of the atmosphere ~ a frisson in the air, a feeling of expectation, of preparation and, curiously, of excitement.

- RAEESA SORAYA MAHOMED

RIGHT: The writer says she uses the word 'Ramzaan' instead of 'Ramadaan', because this was the word everyone used when she was a child.

(Meta AI)

Why would a child be excited at the prospect of adults fasting around them to the extent that she wanted desperately to join them? (It is only compulsory to fast from puberty onwards). It is perhaps because Ramzaan was not taught to us as a time purely of abstaining from food and drink from dawn to dusk.

It was a revered, auspicious time, a time to cherish and make the most of, a time of spirituality and an opportunity to get closer to the Creator.

I remember my parents teaching me that it was not about hunger and thirst, but the lessons to be learnt instead: empathy for the hunger of the poor; discipline of thought, word and deed; and the restraining of one's baser instincts.