20 Ramadhan, 1445
It seems a long time since we started fasting, yet at the same time it might have been only yesterday.
Every fasting month is the same. Time slows down and you come to recognise its value just in waiting for it to pass. But when it's gone it seems so fleeting, and everything seems so rushed.
19 Ramadhan, 1445
My reading for the Holy Month hasn't gone quite as smoothly as I expected, but it has proved very rewarding. I estimated that I would complete Gai Eaton's Islam and the Destiny of Man by the halfway point and move on to the Martin Lings's tome I had lined up, but I'll be surprised if I finish it tomorrow, though the end is in sight. Because I've read it before and remembered it as eminently readable I thought I'd probably race through it, but this has been far from the case.
It is very readable indeed, with never a dull moment, but that's the sort of problem. It's dense with ideas, powerful, worthwhile ideas. When I first read it the exciting quality of the ideas spurred me to read at speed with, I suppose, the notion in my mind that one day I would re-visit the text. Well, the re-visiting is upon me and I have to slow down in order to do Eaton the justice his efforts deserve.
I'm now in the third and final part of the book, in the third chapter from the end, The Human Paradox, and the treatment of the question of human suffering in the chapter is one of the best I've ever read. Completely convincing on an issue that it's extremely difficult to ever feel completely convinced about (as John Milton surely knew, deep in his bones.) I feel like starting the chapter again to ensure that I've not just fallen for the rhetorical power of the text; but I won't because I'm so keen to get on to the final two chapters, which I intend to slowly digest.
18 Ramadhan, 1445
I rarely feel actually hungry during the fasting month. Going without eating anything between roughly 6.00 am to 7.15 pm isn't terribly difficult for me. In fact, in some ways it's a bit of a relief, simplifying the day. But going without anything to drink during that time is a different matter. So it's always images of glasses of water and cups of tea that haunt me in the early days of the month. Now, not so much.
But even then it's difficult to pin down moments of actual distinct thirst. It's more a case of the irritation of not being able to fulfil one's habits. Except, that is, for when real thirst hits which it does for me if I exercise ahead of the breaking of the fast. I did that again today and the last ten minutes before the time to buka were filled with a keen physical sense of yearning. Which made that first sip of water all the more meaningful and fulfilling.
I reckon I'm becoming a little bit addicted to working out in the hour or so prior to the breaking of the fast. That feeling of thirst is worth experiencing, even if only to slake it. But I suspect its value lies more simply as a reminder of how vulnerable to our appetites we are.
17 Ramadhan, 1445
Noi and I broke our fast in the company of some of my Muslim colleagues in what has become a happy annual tradition. It felt good to be going out into the world as we so often find ourselves doing in the later stages of the month.
16 Ramadhan, 1445
There's always a day in the fasting month when it suddenly occurs to me, usually in the late afternoon, that I'm really enjoying the process of fasting. Today was that day. Yet, paradoxically, I was far thirstier than usual when actually breaking the fast (basically because I'd been enjoying shouting a lot at a basketball game.)
I'd like to understand where the enjoyment comes from, but I'm reluctant to push the analysis too far. There's something about the experience of fasting that seems designed to defy analysis. The Holy Qur'an is simple and clear as to the rewards involved and that's enough.
(By the way, this is not to say that I won't find myself struggling tomorrow and sort of wishing the month had reached its end.)
15 Ramadhan, 1445
As the lunar month pivots on its axis, a gorgeous full moon lit the way to work early this morning. There are signs everywhere and we can learn to read them. But we are in peril of failing to read the first, natural world to which we owe all.
14 Ramadhan, 1445
Gai Eaton provides a particularly incisive account of the life of The Prophet (Peace Be Upon Him) and his early successors in Islam and the Destiny of Man. Reading it served as a poignant reminder of the impossibly large footsteps we seek to follow in. Of course, such emulation is essentially beyond us, but that doesn't make the attempt to follow misguided. Quite the opposite, I think.
But another description of a kind of ideal from Eaton's tome powerfully resonated with me. This is his account of The hero of pre-Islamic Arab poetry who was always the Bedouin 'knight', standing upright, true to himself, in a world reduced, as it were, to the bare bones of sun, sky, sand and rock, proud even in poverty and seeking joy in self-mastery, scornful of security and all the ambiguities of wealth, and ready to look death in the face without flinching. Gosh, isn't that fine!
It put me in mind of the fallen Samurai who feature in some of Kurosawa's great movies. I'm not sure that I actually aspire to what this represents, except possibly in a mock-heroic Bloomian fashion. But at some deep level - possibly a childish one - I know I'm stirred.
13 Ramadhan, 1445
Got to the gym for the fourth time in this Fasting Month, again repeating the experiment of working out before actually breaking the fast, again with reasonable success. For the first ten minutes or so I could find next to no energy at all and seriously wondered whether this time the experiment would prove an ignominious failure. But then I seemed to break through to the hidden reserves lying below the surface. It wasn't that it all suddenly felt easy; but it did all feel do-able at a reasonable pace. And proved so - to the extent that I considered adding another five to ten minutes on. But I didn't, reckoning that that might come later when I'd built the foundation for working out in Ramadhan.
My aim now is to complete at least eight sessions during the fast, possibly even ten. And, more importantly, integrate these into the experience of fasting as a whole such that they gain a meaning in themselves as part of that experience.
12 Ramadhan, 1445
18.30
Looking forward to breaking the fast with all the folks up at Woodlands in less than an hour. Not exactly great expectations, since we've done it all before, but happy expectations none the less.
23.50
All happy expectations happily fulfilled. Lots of laughter. No tears. Good food. A fine teh tarik. And all is very well, thank you. It all came together.
