Level: National/International—Peace Principle: Community

This week’s featured story came in from Virginia, USA:

It comes upon all Muslims annually and yet each year it feels new to me – Ramadan, the holy month of fasting. Ramadan is considered the most blessed of months in the Islamic calendar. During these 30 days, Muslims around the world unite around the shared tasking of abstaining from food, drink, and medicine from sunrise to sunset. More than that, it’s a period for reflection, for personal growth, and for the giving of alms (zakat).

Ramadan allows me to get closer to God and closer to my fellow Muslims. Groggy-eyed, I stumble down to the kitchen to eat before dawn, joining my mother and sister. We amble around the stove-top island, picking and choosing what to eat to sustain us for the day, and as we do this we chat. It is nice. Moments like that bring home to me the special nature of the month of Ramadan. I get to connect with my family through a mutual spiritual journey.  It’s a mutual spiritual journey shared by all Muslims. I know that at the moment I’m feeling hunger pains, a girl my age is having hunger pains in Indonesia, Pakistan, England, or Canada. This nameless girl and I share a bond, through the divine power of God. It is because of Him that we do this fasting, and by doing this I understand the nature of the hardships other humans go through.

It’s not without its difficulties. Come 4pm I’m often found salivating over food pictures on the internet. But Ramadan is more about the whole than the pieces, and I’m grateful to God for Him allowing me the opportunity, every year, to heighten my awareness of the path of devotion, to better myself and the world I live in.

~Ubah Pathan, Virginia, USA