Heart Broken Open

Radical faith in an age of fear

• Publisher: Wild Goose Publications
• Year: 2010
• ISBN:
  9781849521130
• Topic: Teología y religión
• Subtopic: Ecumenismo religioso y cuestiones interconfesionales

A moving and insightful reflection by a Christian minister on his grassroots engagement with Islam - from inner-city parish ministry in Leeds to the streets of Karbala at a time of rising Islamophobia and the 'War on Terror'.

Chapter five

A Ramadan journey

It’s not easy to let Ramadan pass you by if you live and work in close proximity to Muslims. It is not that Muslims go about showing off their fasting during the holy month; it’s more that you notice a different pace of life, a different tempo. It is a month for reflection on God and a conscious compassion and carefulness in your dealings with others; for a deepening of spiritual practice. As one Muslim scholar says:

This month is a feast … not of noise, but silence; not of banquets but restraint; not of forgetfulness but remembrance. This month is a feast for the faith.

Coming into the Parish of St Margaret’s and All Hallows in 1999, I quickly became aware of the presence of Muslims in the area and felt compelled to make friends and visit mosques. One of the things that struck me early on was this communal experience of Ramadan – how gently visible the practice is; and although I was not directly involved I found myself moved by and appreciative of the prayers and the fasting going on around me. Within a couple of years I felt moved to participate. At first I began on my own, quietly fasting for just one day in solidarity with my Muslim neighbours, then the following year for a week, then the year after that for the whole month. Then the next year again I fasted for the month, and also read an English translation of the Qur’an in order to try to understand the way of Islam more deeply. Over the years I began sharing my fast more openly with Muslim friends and regularly attended the special prayers at the mosques in the parish and broke the fast at communal iftars, which are gatherings for prayer and meal sharing. I also talked about my fasting with Christians, and learnt that others in our church had felt similarly moved by Ramadan. Elaine, who for many years ran the church’s playgroup, which was attended by a significant number of Muslim children, told me how she too would often fast for a day during Ramadan. Annie told me of the eight years she had spent teaching in a school with many Muslim children, and how she developed a deep respect for and interest in Islam through the eagerness of the children to share their way of life. Isobel, a solicitor, told me of her discussions with a Muslim work colleague on fasting; and Peter described how he had always wished to write to Muslim friends during Ramadan to express his solidarity and thankfulness for the fast. I learnt how Hannah, who works with local children, would often get invited into family iftars on her rounds of visiting families at this time. As I shared my interest through preaching and discussion, others also opened their hearts, and began to develop their own ways of participating in the fast. Peter, Annie and I met regularly during Ramadan in 2005 to discuss our experiences. During Ramadan 2004 and 2005, Annie and I also developed prayer practices and wrote materials, including a pack, Ramadan for Christians and the Christian Salah, to help others in our church, and beyond, to engage with Islam at Ramadan. Over the years, the intention behind my fasting became clearer to me.

In 2006 – having spent the year developing contacts with Muslims around us and studying and reflecting on the Qu’ran – Annie and I were asked to address an anti-war group in Harehills, Leeds, who were holding a meeting on Ramadan. The group’s main activists were young Muslim women. We simply tried to share our positive spiritual experience of participating in Ramadan, and some of our own Christian understanding of fasting, and were deeply humbled and moved by their joy in response. I thought of how much I had to learn from these women, who daily proclaim their belief in God simply by their dress, and face scorn and even violence for doing so. And that opportunity to share and experience such mutual respect and understanding was only possible because of the previous year’s strong sense of calling simply to go into the fast and experience it in humility and let it speak to me for itself, and then the equally strong desire to learn more and to reflect more deeply on Islam over the following year. There was a great significance for me about that journeying, between Ramadan 2004 and 2006.

During Ramadan 2005, I kept a diary of my reflections, and extracts from this form the remainder of this chapter. I have avoided the temptation of trying to construct a neat in hindsight reflection on my Ramadan experience, instead simply offering my diary extracts. So what follows is a day-by-day account of my thoughts at the time. It does not aim to be ‘theologically sound’ or scholarly. It is simply a record of a spiritual journey; the inner dialogue of a Christian entering into Ramadan.

RAMADAN DIARY, 2005

DAY 1

7am

Well, I managed to get up, and had Serhi¹ of well-soaked muesli and a pear and apple, cup of tea and pint of water. Started reading Farid Esack’s introduction to the Qur’an during meal that I borrowed from the bookshelf of Asim, the young Imam at the Makkah Masjid. Asim was at pains to point out that Esack, who is developing a liberationist understanding of Islam, was not approved of in traditionalist Muslim circles. At the time of Fajr, I attempted to follow the actions of the Muslim prayer, substituting the opening surah of the Qur’an with the Lord’s Prayer and using the Beatitudes in the same way as a Muslim uses the shorter verses of the Qur’an, and using the Gloria at the time of prostration and the Jesus Prayer during the second rakah. Need to work out more of the details of this, including what determines the number of rakahs in a salah.

I then read the 1st Juz² of the Qur’an, which includes the first surah, considered the essence of the Qur’an, and a large part of the second surah, which is considered to be a summary of the Qur’an. It is considered to be a Medinah surah, and is concerned, it seems, with setting Islam in the context of the other Abrahamic faiths. I was pleasantly surprised that, although highly critical of Jews and Christians, it is in a rather defensive posture, in response to what seem like attacks from Christians and Jews:

Never will the Jews
Or the Christians be satisfied
With thee unless thou follow
Their form of religion.

Surah 2 v120 ³

There are also some verses with powerful universalist (in relationship to Abrahamic traditions at least) sentiments. For instance:

Those who believe in the Qur’an.
And those who follow the Jewish Scriptures.
And the Christians and the Sabians.
Any who believe in Allah
And the last day,
And work righteousness,
Shall have their reward
With their Lord; on them
Shall be no fear, nor shall they grieve.

Surah 2 v62

My aim is to read a portion of the Qur’an each morning following Serhi and Fajr. I will do my Morning Prayer sometime between 8.00–9.30am, as usual, and then Midday Prayer and Evening Prayer before iftar and see if I have the energy to re-read the day’s portion of the Qur’an in the evening again. I also hope to attend some communal iftars at the Grand Mosque and some of the recitations at Makkah Masjid at 8.30 in the evening. We’ll see!

For me the purpose of participating is to step into the experience of Ramadan, concentrating not so much on the experience of fasting as a spiritual discipline, but upon Ramadan as a Muslim practice to explore the Qur’an and its meaning in Islam, whilst also obviously using the fast as a focus for prayer on world events and as a way of revealing and challenging my daily addictions, consumption and self-indulgence.

I have been struck in my recent readings by how Muslim writers make the (right in my view) point that the Bible and Qur’an are not comparable documents and are different types of scripture, in the sense that the Bible is not revelation for Christians – Jesus Christ is. So in entering Ramadan, a time for Muslims of remembering and giving thanks for the Revelation of the Qur’an, I find myself wanting to look more deeply at devotional practices in the Christian tradition that focus on Jesus. I was just thinking of how the material we wrote last year emphasised getting into scripture – maybe a Ramadan for Christians should be more about concentrating on devotional practices in relation to Jesus? … Getting closer to Christ …?

2pm

Just spent some time in the café. Muhammad, an Afghan refugee whom I have known for the last couple of years, was in. His stomach is giving him trouble again. I say trouble but that is putting it mildly. He has a doctor’s appointment tonight but he feels he will get no joy – he is really frustrated and upset: sometimes he can’t eat for days as it makes him ill, but he still feels hungry. He was almost in tears describing how frustrated he gets feeling hungry but knowing that eating will make him ill. I am sitting here feeling hungry and a little tired, imagining foods, figs, fruit of all sorts and a cooked meal; I can feel my frustration bubbling under the surface, and I have a choice! Muhammad has a doctor’s appointment tonight at 5.10. I can’t go with him. I pray that the doctor will take time to listen to him and hear how upset he is, listen to his fears and try to alleviate his suffering. Muhammad fears he will just refer him to hospital for tests that could take months. He says he has felt suicidal at times but has agreed to ring me if he feels like that again.

4.45pm

Met R at 3pm, came round for a cuppa and a chat; I was feeling tired and hungry. He had so much to tell me and was quite angry about some of the things that have happened to him lately. As I was sitting with him I prayed the Jesus Prayer in my heart and found myself focussing less on my hunger and being drawn towards him. I felt able to give him more space and my concern with my hunger subsided. It felt a little like we ended up doing the Jesus Prayer together. He said how nice it was to just come and sit in the peace of each other’s presence. He moved from anger to tears, tears of lamentation, which apparently happens after practising the Jesus Prayer for a while. There was a calm stillness between us. I prayed for him before he left. I felt blessed by the hour we had spent together.

8pm

Broke fast at appointed time with a glass of water, and remembered Jesus’s words in John’s Gospel that we use in the Baptism service:

The water that I give you will become in you a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.

I could certainly feel the instant benefits physically. I sipped the water slowly and felt it work in my body; as I felt it quench my bodily thirst I gave thanks to Jesus for quenching our thirst for salvation, for a vision of love, truth, hope and beauty.

I was also conscious of Tariq Ramadan’s reflection that I read yesterday, drawing on some words of the Prophet Muhammad:

The Prophet of Islam (peace be upon him) had warned, ‘Some people only gain from their fast the fact that they are hungry and thirsty.’ He was speaking of those who fast as mechanicall...