Seeking Ease

11 Ramadhan 1433

Here's Pickthall's rendering of the second part of Surah 185, from Al Baqarah, extending the description of the purpose of the fasting month: Allah desires for you ease; He desires not hardship for you;  and (He desires) that you should complete the period, and that you should magnify Allah for having guided you, and that peradventure you may be thankful. My guess is that a non-Muslim would find this very puzzling, yet the extraordinary thing is that I'm pretty sure anyone who has completed the fast would recognise the simple accuracy of what we are being told.

The translation of hardship into ease seems utterly counter-intuitive, yet it works every time for me. At least I hope and pray it does this time. (But part of that translation is the understanding that the mild discomfort one may suffer at this time doesn't come close to real hardship.)

I take particular delight, by the way, in the fact that the notion of controlling the appetites runs counter to the religion of consumerism in such a radically powerful manner as to constitute a major and necessary challenge to modernity. This is the real radical Islam.