An Early Start

22 Ramadhan 1434

One of the reasons I seem to have a lot more time on my hands in this month is the very early start to the working day involved. Basically once the prayer is done, and this follows immediately upon the azan, there's not much else to do except go to work, adding a clear fifty minutes to the day. And it's odd how productive that time seems to be when there's hardly anyone else around in the staffroom.

Unfortunately there's also a downside to this. I've reached the point when I'm beginning to feel a kind of drudgery in the passing of days - and this has little to do with fasting, and much to do with the loss of sleeping time. In fact, I suspect this is the reason for those moments of intense yet brief weariness which are apt to assail me, usually when I'm climbing a flight of stairs.

Of course this is not a problem at the weekend when the prospect of going back to bed and enjoying a couple of hours of shut-eye after the dawn prayer is beguiling, indeed, a kind of delight in itself. And on the odd occasions when I get back from work early enough to indulge in a deep nap the drudgery magically evaporates.

The azan for the dawn prayer tells us that Prayer is better than sleep - and it is. But there's still a lot to be said for sleep as a wonderful gift in itself.