Ramadan illustrations
Spiritual Sunday – Ramadan
Ramadan, when Islam celebrates Muhammad’s first Quran revelation with a month of fasting, begins Tuesday evening. Daniel Abdal-Hayy Moore, sometimes known as American Islam’s Poet Laureate, wrote a fascinating series of “Ramadan Sonnets” while fasting, a couple of which I share today. As a non-Muslim, I have difficulty imagining undergoing Ramadam fasting, but Moore gives us a glimpse into its power.
“Ramadan House Guest” begins as follows:
Ramadan has come to live with us.
It is God’s private apartments
moved into our house
and taking over.
Where the doors were
are now entranceways into His Garden.
Where windows were are
continuous waterfalls. Abundance in the
dryness. Hidden in the dust:
clusters of roses. Sprung from our
footsteps: ascents.
In “Jealousy,” meanwhile, worshippers are jealous lovers who are so in love with God that they forget to eat:
The fast is also like
being so wracked with love
you can’t eat. Tossed and
wrenched and high and dry with
single-minded devotion and expectation that no single
bite or sip can pass our lips, our
eyes are parched, throat dry,
head gone elsewhere almost entirely, and
only with extreme concentration can we
perform our usual tasks with anything
like normality.
It sweeps us off our feet. It’s
bigger than we are. It goes
off with all our thoughts.
It’s a jealous lover.
