Eid-ul-Fitr reinforces hope for better future
EID-ul-Fitr comes once again with its message of remembrance of the Almighty and caring for those who are less privileged than us. With the end of the holy month of Ramadan, it becomes our particular responsibility to go for self-assessment on what we have endeavoured to do during the period and what we could yet have done to bind our spirit with the higher calling of faith. Ramadan is a testing time for all Muslims. In this month, it is questions of how we have fared as a society, of how the gap between rich and poor keeps us pinioned to disappointment that we deal with. Ramadan is also a reminder that Islam is a religion of peace and abjures all forms of extremism. Exploitation of faith for the purpose of attaining ulterior motives is an idea abhorrent to Islam. Ramadan is also a message about the higher moral quality we need to bring to life and a necessary lesson that life lived on earth is but a preparation for the world hereafter.
That preparation, we need hardly emphasise, is of course based on the deeds we do throughout the course of our corporeal lives in this world. In Ramadan, matters relating to a proper observance of the Islamic faith come especially to the fore. Zakat, fitra and all those duties ordained by faith are what we strenuously need to practise. When we add to these the essentiality of fasting, we remind ourselves once again of the fact that Islam goes much beyond an observance of abstractions. It is a code of life that underlies it; and central to that core is a set of values laid out by the Prophet of Islam (peace be upon him) fourteen centuries ago. It becomes our particular job at this time, as Ramadan is about to draw to a conclusion, to ask ourselves as to how far we have been able to uphold the spirit of the religion in this holy month as well as in those outside it. Islam does not anywhere call for a severance of the individual from the realities of the world of which he is a part. It simply expects him to relate his worldly activities with his spiritual responsibilities. Which is when we busy ourselves with the question of how our citizens may have suffered in this Ramadan season through the manipulation of prices by dishonest traders, how workers in industrial units may yet be going through pain owing to a non-payment of their legitimate dues.
On Eid-ul-Fitr, therefore, it is self-questioning that we will go into. And we will hope that our experience of Ramadan this season has left us with a better, wider understanding of ourselves and of our responsibilities toward our families, our neighbours, indeed to everyone around and beyond us.
We wish everyone a happy Eid-ul-Fitr.
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