Welcome to This Month of Ramadan
Dr. Tariq Ramadan
Dr. Tariq Ramadan is a well-respected professor of philosophy at the College of Geneva and Professor of Islamic Studies at the University of Fribourg. He is a leading Islamic thinker and was Named by Time magazine one of the 100 most important innovators of the 21st century.
Ramadan has written more than twenty books including Western Muslims and the Future of Islam (Oxford University Press, 2003), Islam, the West, and the Challenges of Modernity (The Islamic Foundation, 2000), To Be a European Muslim (The Islamic Foundation, 1998), and Jihad, Violence, War and Peace in Islam (in French only, Tawhid, 2002).
Welcome to this Month of Ramadan
by Tariq Ramadan
A Palestinian Muslim girl prays in the men’s mosque before the evening prayer called “tarawih”, during the holy fasting month of Ramadan in the West Bank city of Ramallah, Wednesday, Sept. 17, 2008. (AP Photo/Muhammed Muheisen) #
Once again we welcome it, once again it welcomes us. This month will be, for each of us, what we shall make of it. A month of return, introspection, meditation, brotherhood and love. The month of the Qur’an. Or a month of mechanical fast, almost unaware, that hurries to turn upside down nights and days ending up living the nights to forget the fast of the day…
This month is a feast… not of noise, but silence; not of banquets but restraint; not of forgetfulness but remembrance. This month is a feast for the faith.
We wish everyone a beautiful month of Ramadan. May it be a month of teaching where gift wins over avarice, generosity over selfishness, love over hatred. Be it a month where everyone tries to master one’s anger: the Prophet advised once to respond to adversity during these days of meditation : “I am fasting”…. and to pass over. Be it a month where everyone of us cares more than usual for the needy people in her/his nearest environment.
Happy Ramadan to all of you! May your fast be accepted and blessed. May the Most-High and His Light go along with you, protect you and love you.
I’m living in Sweden where Fajr is at 2.50 in the morning and maghrib is at 8.35 at night.
I’m wondering if there is a limit to the hours one should fast and can we follow the times of Mekka instead?
As-salamu alaykum sister Maryam. I have just published an article on this website that answers this question. You can find it in the Ramadan Articles section of this website.
If you just want the briefest answer, here is an excerpt:
“Whoever lives in a land in which the sun does not set during the summer and does not rise during the winter, or who lives in a land in which the day lasts for six months and the night lasts for six months, for example, has to perform the five daily prayers in each twenty-four hour period. They should estimate their times based on the nearest country in which the times of the five daily prayers can be distinguished from one another.”
“Similarly they also have to fast Ramadaan. They can set the time for their fast and determine the beginning and end of Ramadaan and the times of starting and breaking the fast each day by the dawn and sunset each day in the closest country in which night can be distinguished from day. The total period must add up to twenty-four hours…”