RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

rad­hi­ca­s­ookraj@guardian.co.tt

As Mus­lims be­gan the an­nu­al fast for Ra­madan, Agri­cul­ture Min­is­ter Ha­ji Kaz­im Ho­sein is call­ing on cit­i­zens to be pa­tient with one an­oth­er, show com­pas­sion and be more gen­er­ous.

These, he said, are some of the lessons that Mus­lims learn dur­ing the fast of Ra­madan.

In his Ra­madan mes­sage, Ho­sein said: “Ra­madan is a time for Mus­lims to fast, per­form self-re­flec­tion, char­i­ty and spend qual­i­ty time with fam­i­ly and friends.”

He ex­tend­ed Ra­madan greet­ings to his Mus­lim broth­ers and sis­ters in Is­lam both at home and across the world.

“Through the act of fast­ing from dawn to dusk, Mus­lims are taught to im­prove their dis­ci­pline.... and to em­pathise more with the mis­for­tunes of oth­ers,” Ho­sein said.

He added “ Fast is one such im­por­tant pil­lar which is in­stru­men­tal for the at­tain­ment of piety and pur­ga­tion of self.”

“The Holy Qur’an says, “O Be­liev­ers! Fast­ing is pre­scribed for you as it was pre­scribed for the peo­ple be­fore you so that you may be­come pi­ous.” (2:183),” he not­ed.

The min­is­ter ex­plained that the pur­pose of fast­ing was “to il­lu­mi­nate the heart and mind of man aimed at bring­ing about a com­pre­hen­sive rev­o­lu­tion in his in­di­vid­ual and col­lec­tive life.”

 “One month of fast­ing en­ables hu­man be­ings to dis­tin­guish the law­ful from the for­bid­den for the rest of eleven months in a year. In a way, the holy month of Ra­madan is a re­fresh­er course that tight­ens con­trols on one’s self,” he said.

He added: “If a man can fath­om the con­cept of piety, his life will be­come a paragon of virtue guid­ed by Di­vine fear. But it is a mat­ter of great mis­for­tune that the ma­jor­i­ty of us re­main de­prived of fruits of fast­ing be­cause we put the de­mands of fast­ing at the back burn­er and re­duce this great act of keep­ing fast to be­ing emp­ty-stom­ach and thirsty.”

The min­is­ter al­so said that fast­ing cre­ates feel­ings of self­less­ness and sac­ri­fice in a per­son. 

“Thus, he de­vel­ops an acute re­al­i­sa­tion of the suf­fer­ings of the less priv­i­leged and dis­ad­van­taged sec­tions of so­ci­ety through this prac­ti­cal ex­pe­ri­ence,” he added.