What is Ramadan?
How do Muslims observe it?
Ramadan is a special month of the year for over one billion Muslims throughout the world. It is a time for inner reflection, devotion to God, and self-control. Muslims think of it as a kind of tune-up for their spiritual lives. There are as many meanings of Ramadan as there are Muslims.
The third "pillar" or religious obligation of Islam, fasting has many special benefits. Among these, the most important is that it is a means of learning self-control. Due to the lack of preoccupation with the satisfaction of bodily appetites during the daylight hours of fasting, a measure of ascendancy is given to one's spiritual nature, which becomes a means of coming closer to God. Ramadan is also a time of intensive worship, reading of the Qur'an, giving charity, purifying one's behavior, and doing good deeds.
As a secondary goal, fasting is a way of experiencing hunger and developing sympathy for the less fortunate, and learning to thankfulness and appreciation for all of God's bounties. Fasting is also beneficial to the health and provides a break in the cycle of rigid habits or overindulgence.
That sounds very nice, doesn't it?
Reflection, devotion, charity, good deeds, purifying one's behavior, developing sympathy for the less fortunate, growing closer to God -- Wouldn't it be wonderful if the entire world observed Ramadan?
It would be a month of harmony and peace and love and understanding.
But what's written about Ramadan doesn't tell the whole story.
The reality of Ramadan isn't so pleasant. SOME Muslims observe it by killing people.
BAGHDAD, Sept. 23 -- A horrific explosion on Saturday morning in the huge Sadr City district here killed at least 35 people, mostly women and children, when a bomb detonated next to a line of women waiting to receive cooking fuel from a tanker truck, according to residents and officials at nearby hospitals.
Many of the victims were burned to death. Two dozen of the dead were women or girls, as were 26 of the 36 wounded, the hospital officials said. The blast struck at the beginning of the holy month of Ramadan, in which more attacks were expected, given what has happened in past years, according to American and Iraqi officials.
That's about as many people as were killed in Qana.
When that happened there was international outrage and calls for an immediate ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah.
Yesterday's attack in Baghdad is what was expected to happen to mark the beginning of the Muslim holy month.
According to the Associated Press, "Maj. Gen. William B. Caldwell, spokesman for the U.S.-led military coalition, warned earlier of the danger of Iraq's already severe sectarian violence escalating during Ramadan."
He said, "If you historically look at this time period just before and going into Ramadan, there has unfortunately been an increase in violence. That, in fact, is occurring within [Baghdad]."
A resident stands at the scene of a car bomb attack targeting a police patrol outside a Roman Catholic church in Baghdad September 24, 2006. REUTERS/Namir Noor-Eldeen (IRAQ)
Iraqi police secure the scene of a car bomb attack targeting a police patrol, outside a Roman Catholic church in Baghdad September 24, 2006. REUTERS/Namir Noor-Eldeen (IRAQ)
Today in Baghdad, a Roman Catholic church was targeted with a car bomb. Is that an example of "purifying one's behavior," too?
I think it's so odd that SOME Muslims observe the holy month with acts of violence.
During Lent, a time of fasting for Catholics, we aren't sent out on suicide missions. We don't blow stuff up. We don't kill people to grow closer to God.
Ramadan has only begun. The Ramadan violence is just starting. The worst is yet to come.
SOME Muslims like to end the holy month with a bang.
From October, 2005:
Rallies are held as part of annual al-Quds Day protests.
Iranian school boys shoot toy guns at an Israeli flag during an anti-Israeli rally.
This is how some Muslims celebrated the end of the holy month of Ramadan. Millions of the faithful spilled into the streets, united by their hate for Israel.
TEHRAN, Iran -- Iran's ultraconservative president — spurning international outrage over his remarks about Israel — joined more than a million demonstrators who flooded the streets of the capital and other major cities Friday to back his call for the destruction of the Jewish state.
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad stood fast behind his assertion that Israel should be wiped off the map and repeated the call during the nationwide protests Friday, the Muslim day of prayer.
...Marching alongside the protesters, the 47-year-old former mayor of Tehran and one-time Republican Guard commander renewed his criticism of the West.
"They become upset when they hear any voice of truth-seeking. They think they are the absolute rulers of the world," he said during the al-Quds — or Jerusalem — Day protest, which was among the largest since they were first held in 1979 after Shiite Muslim clerics took power in Iran.
His fellow marchers carried placards reading "Death to Israel, death to America."
...Some demonstrators chanted "Israel is approaching its death" and wore white shrouds in a symbolic gesture expressing readiness to die for their cause.
A resolution was read at the end of the rallies backing "the position declared by the president that the Zionist regime must be wiped out."
...Protests attracted at least 100,000 in each of Iran's eight largest cities, according to AP reporters. State television said millions of people assembled throughout the country. Major rallies also were held in other Middle Eastern countries.
...Iran's seven state-run TV stations devoted coverage Friday to programs condemning the Jewish state and praising the Palestinian resistance since the 1948 creation of Israel.
...After Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini toppled the pro-Western Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi in 1979, he declared the last Friday of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan as an international day of struggle against Israel and for the liberation of Jerusalem. The founder of the Islamic regime had also called for Israel's destruction.
The last day of the "holy" month of Ramadan is devoted to rallies calling for the annihilation of Israel.
How holy!
What a message!
Love and Peace!
Hundreds of thousands gathered with placards saying "Death to Israel, death to America."
Very nice.
From the BBC:
Tens of thousands of Iranians took part in the rally in Tehran which Iran organises every year on the last Friday of the fasting month of Ramadan to show solidarity with the Palestinian struggle.
Shouting "Death to Israel, death to the Zionists", the protesters dragged Israeli flags along the ground and then set them on fire.
Many carried posters and placards sporting the slogan "Israel should be wiped off the map".
Joining the protest, Mr Ahmadinejad said: "My words were the Iranian nation's words.
"Westerners are free to comment, but their reactions are invalid," Mr Ahmadinejad told the official Irna news agency.
..."Ahmadinejad talks on behalf of all Iranians. We are ready to die for Palestine," Mohammad Mirzayi, a member of a volunteer Shia militia group, told the Reuters news agency.
So, Ahmadinejad is the voice of Iran; and Iran wants to crush Israel and the United States.
This guy is talking right out of his axis of evil.
He disregards the admonishment he has received from around the world by saying Western condemnation is invalid.
How should world leaders deal with someone like Ahmadinejad?
FIRST, there should be unconditional denouncement of Ahmadinejad's remarks. No wishy-washy, Dr. Phil-type analysis. None of that "Let's understand what makes them hate Israel and the U.S." stuff.
Ahmadinejad is a thug. Those buying into his philosophy are thugs. There should be zero-tolerance for Ahmadinejad's comments.
ZERO.
SECOND, any world leader or group who sympathizes with Ahmadinejad is as dangerous as he is.
The civilized world cannot look the other way while the ideology of hate and war that Ahmadinejad and like-minded thugs promote gains momentum.
They are evil. There should be no hesitation to designate them as such.
THIRD, absolutely no nukes can be allowed to get in the hands of unstable warmongers like Ahmadinejad.
The photo of the little Iranian boys pointing guns at the Israeli flag breaks my heart.
Children have to be taught to hate. Ahmadinejad, with his intolerance for Israel, is blackening the hearts of the children of Iran.
What a horrible lesson they are learning!
Peace-loving Muslims must be outraged by these displays from the radical fundamentalist groups. If I were a Muslim, I would be telling anyone willing to listen that these thugs do not represent me or my beliefs.
I don't understand the Iranians or any others willing to align with a version of a religion that concludes its holiest month with rallies calling for murder.
But hey, that's just me.
________________________________
A bit of perspective:
The Pope delivers a LECTURE and radical Muslims threaten his life. They assert that they will not rest until they take over the entire world, making it an Islamic utopia. Millions demand that Pope Benedict make an apology.
Meanwhile, the Islamic extremists observe Ramadan 2006 with bloodshed, by wiping out women and children, and targeting a Roman Catholic church.
Why aren't millions of people and the media demanding that the faithful Ramadan "observers" apologize for MURDERING INNOCENTS?
On this weekend's The McLaughlin Group, John McLaughlin asked the question: Should Pope Benedict abdicate?
None of the panelists thought that was appropriate, but Eleanor Clift ripped the Pope for his remarks, describing them as sinister in nature. She said the Pope had destroyed all the progress Pope John Paul II had made in creating positive relations between the faiths. Clift screeched that Pope Benedict was showing what a radical right-winger he really is.
Mort Zuckerman also condemned the Pope.
I think a little more, make that a lot more condemnation for the radical Muslim clerics is in order.
As a result of the Pope's LECTURE, did Catholics detonate car bombs at mosques?
How many Muslims have been gunned down, shot in the back, for their faith?
Happy Ramadan!
Palestinian children attend a class at the Koran house (Dar Al-Koran), in Ali-Bakaa mosque in the West Bank city of Hebron, on the second day of the holiest month of Ramadan September 24, 2006. REUTERS/Nayef Hashlamoun (WEST BANK)
A man cleans up blood from the pavement after a car bomb attack targeting a police patrol outside a Roman Catholic church in Baghdad September 24, 2006. The attack killed two people, one of them a policeman, and wounded 17 others, police said. REUTERS/Namir Noor-Eldeen (IRAQ)
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