ABSTINENCE BREEDS ETHICS
Desertification ruins the earth’s biomes. However, another and more aggressive erosion is afflicting our spirits.
Most of the year, we suffer from the parched deserts of our consumption. Thankfully, the annual life-giving force of Ramadan comes along, sweeping us into a spiritual oasis.
Allah has set taqwa—God-consciousness—as the goal for the sā´im (the fasting observer) and provided the supreme system to attain it: Ramadan.
For taqwa to mingle with our flesh and blood and perpetually settle means becoming ethically astute. We do so by purging our passions and harnessing the energy toward the higher self. If we don’t, the energy descends towards the lower self, animating our animality.
When we redirect and funnel the present energy toward God’s Will, the power becomes atomic. Over time, this practice carves a channel to the higher self. If we maintain the practice, it will cut deeper and deeper, making the energy flow almost automatically in that direction. So, when energy is present, there exists a high probability that it will follow the ethical canyon.
We edify our lives when we cultivate virtue and purge vice. Ramadan provides fertile ground annually for the husbandry of a virtuous and ethical life. Fasting frees us up by shutting down all the base vices: food, sex and vain talk, allowing us to focus on our higher spiritual purpose. This dual system of purging vice and growing virtue, which Ramadan supplies, accelerates our spiritual transformation.
There exists an interconnection between the vices and the virtues. They are like keys. One opens the door to the next. It’s not just doing one good thing but the promise that one thing can grow into the next good thing and the next. It compounds, and over time, its potential grows even more. Every action drives behaviour, and one action will often trigger another. No behaviour happens in isolation. This natural momentum makes Ramadan incredibly successful at behavioural change because it creates a super cycle of positive triggers.
Vices operate similarly and can become an avalanche of negative triggers driving our base desires. When this happens, and compulsion consumes us, we act, as Thomas Aquinas said, “as if reason is fast asleep at the helm.”
The spirit of abstinence nurtured by Ramadan extends far beyond the bounds of the rules, which, if broken, would nullify the fast. Two critical structures it sets up are thrift living and living with God.
Augustine of Hippo taught that we must only enjoy God and use everything else to pursue our end, which is God: ‘It is to God that you will all return, and He has power over everything’ [11:4].
His teaching emphasises that God should be the ultimate object of enjoyment, while everything else is only to support that divine relationship. It reflects his belief that true happiness and fulfilment come from a relationship with God rather than material possessions or earthly pleasures.
Hippo’s opinion is what it means to live with God, which īmān instantiates, taqwa maintains, and Ramadan enculturates.
Regarding living thriftily, Henry David Thoreau, the American philosopher best known for his book Walden, a reflection upon simple living in natural surroundings, said, “A man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone.”
Thoreau wrote Walden while taking a two-year sabbatical practising unadorned living in a ten by fifteen-foot cabin: “I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life.”
One can’t help but get the sense from his deliberate lifestyle that wealth is not just what you own but one’s contentment with the absence of life’s comforts and luxuries. The more one continues to disinvest from this world, the richer one becomes by connecting to that which is utility and truth. This idea returns us to Ramadan and taqwa, which are about shedding the things distracting us from God and manifesting the things which foster that essential relationship.
Ramadan creates the Spartan-like environment necessary for becoming more and, through its rigours, forges higher ethics within and breaks us open to the joy of living with God.
TO BE GENTEEL
Gentleness is pound-for-pound stronger than harshness, and the Beloved of God was the most genteel.
Once, the Prophet (s) invited his beloved wife, `Ā´isha (ra), to calm and gentleness after she venomously defended him from his detractor’s biting remarks.
The Mother of the Believers narrated the following story: “The Jews used to greet the Prophet (s) by saying, “As-Samu ‘Alaika (i.e., death be upon you), so I understood what they said, and I said to them, “As-Samu ‘alaikum wal-la’na (i.e. Death and Allah’s Curse be upon you).” The Prophet (s) said, “Be gentle and calm, O `Ā´isha, as Allah likes gentleness in all affairs.” I said, “O Allah’s Prophet! Didn’t you hear what they said?” He said, “Didn’t you hear me respond by saying, ‘Alaikum (i.e., the same be upon you)?” [Bukhariy 3695]
The Prophet (s) practised forbearance using wisdom and wit in the face of the vilest remarks and taught the sā´im how to do the same: “Fasting is a shield (or a screen or a shelter). So, the person observing fasting should not behave foolishly and impudently. And if somebody fights with him or abuses him, he should say twice, ‘Allāhumma innī sā´im, Allāhumma innī sā´im (I am fasting, I am fasting).” [Bukhariy 1894]
Everyone needs a little more gentleness. We can do our bit and cultivate a genteel comportment during Ramadan. Gentleness holds the potential to calm many hearts, most importantly our own.
Begin with yourself and let its ripples gently wash over your family, your circle of influence, and even your fiercest critics.
Advertising is the engine driving the hedonic treadmill. It is parasitic upon temperance. Thus, it is a danger to the fasting observer.
Once the domain of the corporate elite, now everyone with a mobile phone can be an advertiser. Ads are so omnipresent that they saturate our brains. Every moment, there’s a tug and a pull at our consciousness to abide.
With adverts occupying every inch of physical and digital real estate, how does one become a conscious consumer with all this insidiousness?
We must rein in our world and sideline the advertisers.
To proactively guard against their onslaught, creating an environment devoid of these triggers is crucial. Prevention is better than cure, and Ramadan is an opportune time to design ad-free architecture for our spaces because our resolve is generally higher.
We can put our phones away for parts of the day to reduce digital ad consumption. This practice will also massively increase our productivity. Even permanently setting our phones to silent will help us gravitate toward it less. Turn off all notifications and only search for an item if you are confident you need it. Curtail mall excursions, and don’t buy magazines to inhabit your home and mind. Don’t turn on your TV during Ramadan. Unsubscribe from newsletters and keep only two to three meaningful ones.
There is so much to hate about modern advertising: titillation, sexual exploitation, vulgarity, lies, lies, lies, and more lies. They are well-crafted psychological hooks to get you permanently on the road to hedonism.
Muslim advertisers, too, can practice moderation by reducing ad flights.
The exploitation of humans as billboards curdles my blood.
I detest businesses that use the most marginalised to don weighty A-frames with advertisements and stand on street corners.
These people are desperate. However, I fail to understand why people willfully advertise for free. Not only that, but they also pay for the billboards: Nike, Adidas, Abercrombie & Finch, and a million other iterations splashed in large, crafted typeface across their attire.
Our fascination with brands is not because of the intrinsic value of the product but the flaunting thereof to a public who has bought into the gimmick, too.
Did we ever read a hadith of the Prophet (s) where he wore a garment advertising: ‘Eat Ajwa dates’?
Ramadan Karim to you and your family
Until next week, InshaAllah
Zaahied Sallie
Author of The Beloved Prophet – An Illustrated Biography in Rhyme
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