THE regulations about Ramazan in Chapter II of the Holy Quran are coupled repeatedly with an emphasis on two aspects: (a) facilities and concessions given in respect of fasting (b) spiritual significance of fasting, without which fasting would be like an empty shell without a kernel.

The verse i.e. II: 187, that follows the ordinance about Ramazan, is of particular significance to the concept of self-denial and offers limitless assurances, to those who fast, “when My servants ask thee concerning Me, I am indeed close (to them). I listen to the prayer of every suppliant when he calleth on Me...”

The sacred month of Ramazan is in fact an annual invitation to the delinquents, to shed evil away and put on garb of humility. The Holy Quran states, “O ye who believe! Fasting is prescribed for you, even as it was prescribed for those before you, that ye may ward off evil” (2:183).

Even before the advent of Islam, it was customary for Arabs to devote a certain period of the year to exclusive worship and prayer. Muhammad Hussein Heykal in his biography of the Prophet has referred to this tradition as, “the Arabs’ annual retreat” and states that much before revelations began to the Prophet (peace be upon him) he would each year spend the whole of Ramazan in the cave of Mt. Hira, devoting himself uninterruptedly to his spiritual pursuits in peace, solitude and tranquillity.

The literal meaning of Saum (fasting) means to be at rest and it implies abstinence. The word Ramazan is derived from the word “Ramz” which means “to burn” and here it applies to the burning of selfish desires.

The institution of fasting was enjoined upon the faithful in the second year of Hijra. Syed Ameer Ali writes: “The institution of fasting in Islam has legitimate object of restraining the passions by abstinence for a limited and definite period, from all gratifications of senses and directing the overflow of animal spirits into a healthy channel.” According to Hadith “when Ramazan commences, the gates of heaven are opened and the gates of hell are closed and the satans are chained.”

Thus, fasting has been enjoined and made incumbent upon every Muslim adult but with the condition that he must be physically fit for it. A sick person, one who is travelling, an old person and the one who finds the severity of fasting hard to bear on account of age or other infirmity are exempt. But for the sick and the traveller this is a temporary exemption, they have to complete the period on other days. “And whosoever of you is sick or on a journey let him fast the same number of other days.”(2:185).

Allama Abdullah Yousuf Ali, in his commentary on the Holy Quran, writes, “Illness and journey must not be interpreted in an elastic sense; they must be such as to cause pain and sufferings.” On the other hand Allah does not wish to burden the man who has permanent infirmity. For such a person the Quran states: “And for those who cannot afford it there is ransom, the feeding of a man in need.” (2.184).

Ramazan is a month of patience. Every Muslim during the course of this holy month has to observe utmost patience against all provocations.” The object of fast is to attain righteousness, patience in adversity, steadfastness in deprivation and to increase one’s power of resistance. Fasting places everybody; the rich and the poor, the high and the low on the same pedestal. Both the well-to-do and the less favoured experience in common the pangs of hunger and privation to an equal degree.

Fasting infuses in man a great degree of determination and trust in Allah, imparts loftiness to his character and personality. There is a tradition the Apostle of Allah once said, “In Paradise there is a gate named ar-Rayyan through which on the Day of Reckoning those who fast will enter, and through which none but they will enter.” It is said that the Prophet during Ramazan was more generous than the rain-ringing wind.

Fasting in Islam is not meant for self-torture. Although it is stricter than other fasts, it also provides alleviations for special circumstances. “It is not merely a temporary abstention from food and drink but this abstention enables the attention to be directed to higher things” writes Yusuf Ali. Fasting enables us to face hardships of life — by renouncing everyday comforts, we give strength to our resolve and increase power of resistance.

It must not be forgotten that the whole purpose of fasting during Ramazan is to promote righteousness, which is a progressive cultivation of spiritual values. The Prophet was very particular and emphatic in drawing attention to this aspect of fasting. He said “He who abstains from food and drink during the period of fasting but does not strive to abstain and safeguard himself against moral lapses, starves to no purpose.”

Commenting on the moral dimension of fasting, Maulana Mohammed Ali Jauhar in his book “The Religion of Islam”, writes: “There is also a moral discipline underlying fasting, for it is the training ground, where man is taught the greatest moral lesson of his life — the lesson that he should be prepared to suffer the greatest privation and undergo the hardest trial than indulge in what is not permitted to him. That lesson is repeated from day to day for a whole month, and just as physical exercise strengthens man physically, moral exercise through fasting, strengthens the moral side of his life.”

During Ramazan falls the night of al-Qadr on which day the Prophet received his call and first verses of the Holy Quran were revealed at Mt. Hira. “Lo! We revealed it on the Night of Power. (97.1). It is on this night that God’s decree for the year are brought down on the earthly plane. “And Angels and the spirit descend therein, by the permission of their Lord, with all decrees.” (97.4).

“The Night of Power is better than a thousand months.” Yusuf Ali interprets this verse as, “A thousand nights must be taken in a very indefinite sense as denoting a very long period of time. One moment of enlightenment under God’s light is better than thousand of months/years of animal life and such a moment of enlightenment translates into a period of spiritual glory.” The Holy Prophet said about the night of al-Qadr that whosoever rises up for vigil and prayers during the night of al-Qadr with faith, and in hope of recompense, will have all his previous sins forgiven.

Fasting sanctifies the human personality; it cuts the carnal self to its size: brightens and heightens human virtues; reactivates pious resolves, infuses order, obedience, responsibility, enriches the soul and purifies the body thereby influencing the personality of a Muslim.

The most significant aspect of “fasting” is the reformation of the “self” through conscious management of the “self”. It is this process, which is to receive our utmost attention, whilst we engage in fasting. If this objective is not achieved, then fasting would be a ritual without a purpose. The object is to make our behaviour symbolic of the virtues attending to fasting such as mercy, generosity, truthfulness, endurance, patience and fortitude.

We should not defeat and outrage the primary teaching underlying this fundamental injunction of Islam, because in the final analysis, fasting erases from the believing soul every evil, it perfects and liberates the human spirit and directs it towards common welfare, thus helping in the establishment of a righteous and stable society.

CONTRARY to a perception commonly held in Pakistan, Saudi foreign minister, Prince Saud Al Faisal, has expressed the view that the Indian Muslims, because of their sheer number, cannot be regarded as a minority.

He made the observation at a press conference in Islamabad which he addressed jointly with his Pakistani counterpart, Khurshid Mahmood Kasuri. He further pointed out that the number of the Muslims in India was greater than “the entire population of my own country.”

Responding to a question whether Saudi Arabia would consider making the Indian government realize that the Muslims deserved a fair deal, the Saudi foreign minister said that the Indian Muslims were quite capable of looking after their own interests and did not need any support from outside. However, he stressed that Riyadh recognized the Kashmir dispute as the “chief problem” between Pakistan and India and commended President Pervez Musharraf’s “wise”leadership in seeking a peaceful settlement of the issue. He also pledged Saudi Arabia’s full support to these efforts.

Evidently the Saudi foreign minister makes a distinction between the Indian leadership’s handling of the Kashmir problem and the difficulties faced by the Muslims of India as a result of the policies of successive Indian governments.

The Saudis seem to be of the view that the Muslims in India cannot be relegated to the status of a minority: they are instead a significant constituent of the Indian nation. This seems only realistic.

It is important not to view the situation of the Indian Muslims through the prism of the condition of the Muslims in the Indian-held Kashmir. There is a tendency in Pakistan to believe that just as the people of Kashmir have had to contend with constant hostility and even military action at the hands of the various governments in India, New Delhi is perpetually at war with the Muslims within India. This is really a misperception. There are basic historical and political differences between the two situations.

The Kashmir situation has arisen as a result of a haphazard and inconclusive war between India and Pakistan at the time of partition to force the accession of the undivided state of Jammu and Kashmir one way or the other, leaving the state occupied partly by Pakistani-backed elements and partly by the Indian forces.

As the subsequent events have amply demonstrated the Kashmir valley under Indian occupation has all along struggled to come out of New Delhi’s control. Their strong and uncompromising sense of consciousness of their ethnic and cultural identity has kept the Kashmiris unreconciled to the enforced link with India. The Muslims of the rest of India are situated differently. Even though they have had serious grievances against the governments in New Delhi, they have never been involved in any breakaway movement, similar to that of the Kashmiris.

Since 1989 the Kashmiris have taken to arms for their liberation. In the words of an American expert of South Asian affairs the violence stemming from the separatist movement in Indian occupied Kashmir has “turned the state into a bloodstained battleground not only between India and Pakistan but also between Indian security forces and India’s own Kashmiri ‘citizens’. It would be unrealistic to imagine that a comparable situation exists among the Muslims in any part of India.

However, it would perhaps be equally misleading to believe that the Indian Muslims have had a smooth or tension-free relationship with governments in New Delhi. On the contrary, they are constantly under pressure mainly on account of the extreme communal frenzy of a section of the Indians. With the Bharatiya Janata Party-led government in power for the past several years the communal situation has aggravated and been officially encouraged. This is what prompts the Pakistanis every now and then to call for support to the Indian Muslims from outside.

The question of a fair deal for the Indian Muslims has become particularly relevant in the context of India’s current domestic politics, with the hardening of New Delhi’s attitude towards Pakistan and Islamabad finding it increasingly difficult to get the Indian leaders to enter into a substantive dialogue over the outstanding bilateral disputes.

Elections to Delhi’s legislative body and to the legislatures in four Indian states are due later this year. The Indian prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee finds a strong uncompromising stance in its relations with Pakistan a good election strategy. He has consistently turned down all Pakistani suggestions for the resumption of bilateral negotiations even though he himself extended a hand of friendship to Pakistan while addressing a public meeting in Srinagar in April.

President Pervez Musharraf’s statement at the end of the OIC summit in Putrajaya calling upon India once again to enter into a dialogue clearly reflected his anxiety over the growing threat to peace and stability in the region. However, some recent Indian statements about Kashmir have been even more intransigent than before. Informed observers rule out the possibility of any bilateral negotiations in the foreseeable future.

The communique issued at the conclusion of the OIC summit also expressed support for Pakistan’s efforts for peace especially for defusing tensions over Kashmir. It noted Pakistan’s offer of a ceasefire along the Line of Control (LoC) where exchange of fire between the troops of the two countries has been taking a substantial toll of life. Unfortunately, Pakistan’s offer to encourage a general cessation of violence within Kashmir and a reciprocal show of restraint by Indian troops and the Kashmiri freedom fighters has been perversely distorted by a section of Indian leaders as an evidence of Pakistan’s “sponsorship” of the Kashmiris’ militancy.

There has been a note of urgency in Gen Musharraf’s recent pleas for the resumption of dialogue with India. This could be on account of the re-emergence of the threat to the security of the Muslims in India arising from the Hindu militants’ renewed attempt to build a Rama temple at the site of the demolished Babri masjid in Ayodhya.

Although shortly before the threatened assault on the site of the masjid on October 17 the authorities arrested about 1000 activists and the fanatical Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) leader, Ashok Singhal, and the trouble for the present seemed to have subsided. However, the crisis by no means appears to have been averted and the Hindutva fanatics continue to be encamped in large numbers barely 1.5 kilometres from where the historic Babri masjid once stood.

AN age of reform is what the world of Islam needs in order to have a place in the sun that has arisen over the modern, indeed post-modern, 21st century. The bill to enact the Protection and Empowerment of Women Act 2003 (the Bill), introduced in the National Assembly by Sherry Rahman, MNA, is a reform act which calls for a debate within and outside parliament.

The provision which proposes the repeal of the Hudood Ordinance as proposed by the majority of the National Commission for Status of Women presided over by Justice (retd) Majida Razvi has attracted comment while this discussion is devoted to many of the other important provisions for the better protection and empowerment of the women of Pakistan.

The preamble to the Act provides that gender discrimination is prohibited by the Constitution of Pakistan and further that it is necessary to make provisions for the protection and empowerment of the women of Pakistan so that they can enjoy the right to live with dignity as equal citizens of Pakistan which is necessary for the emancipation and upliftment of the whole nation.

The fact that the participation of women in the socio-economic and political life of a country is a necessary condition of an advanced political society is borne out by the economic history of the last century. At the beginning of the 20th century women did not even enjoy the right to vote in England and most of Europe. The 20th century commenced with the swan song of the Victorian Age. It was during the Edwardian period that England bid goodbye to the puritan shackles which bound women to their hearths and homes. Women entered the work force in significant numbers during the First World War (1914 to 1918) as a whole generation was mowed down in the killing fields of the valley of the Somme.

Suffrage being the birth right of women was only accorded in the wake of the First World War though Victorian values continued to prevail and the redoubtable Dr. Marie Stopes had to face arrest for propagating birth control to save women from the strain of excessive child bearing.

The emancipation of women was thus a slow process. The real change took place after the Second World War, which witnessed a quantum leap in the number of economically active women. The increased participation of women in economic activity along with increases in productivity, led to the great surge in prosperity in Europe and North America during the second half of the 20th century and the consequent widening of the gap between the rich and poor countries despite the end of imperialism and the dawn of national independence for the latter. It is not the dawn we hoped for, lamented the greatest poet of Pakistan.

One of the causes of our continued backwardness and economic stagnation is our continued failure to emancipate the women of Pakistan from the shackles of inhuman conditions which are only a little better than that of chattels. There is incontestable force in the premise, as stated in the preamble to the Bill, that the enforcement of the fundamental equal rights for women be guaranteed by the Constitution.

Professional economists ought to join the debate and help elucidate to what extent the higher rates of growth experienced in China and the East Asian economies are due to the greater percentage of economically active women in that booming region. It is of course self-evident that if half the population is not empowered, the country is not walking on two legs but limping on one.

The first section of the Bill describes the title of the Act and provides that it will come into force at once, which is more than half a century too late since the Indian Independence Act of 1947.

Section 2 of the Bill, if enacted and enforced, would indeed be the harbinger of an age of reform. Section 2 unequivocally envisages a duty on the state and the parents to send every child to school within one month of the enactment of the Bill. The sub-sections to section 2 provide that each and every district government is bound to provide primary education to every child under ten, each union council is enjoined to maintain a register of every child under ten and to furnish a monthly return containing the names and addresses of children under ten, the school where each child is studying as well as the names and addresses of children under ten, the school where each child is studying as well as the names and addresses of children under ten who are not attending school.

The district government is bound to provide a school within two miles radius of the home of every child and to prosecute the father or guardian who does not comply with a show cause notice calling upon the father or guardian to enrol the child. The nazim of the union council and the nazim of the district who fails to comply with this section would be disqualified for election. These severe legislative sanctions would be a wake-up call for guardians and law enforcers. The enforcement of this provision would be a giant leap forward in the emancipation of the nation from dark ignorance. it calls for a bipartisan approach.

Section 2 of the bill ought to be passed unanimously by a Parliament of privileged graduates while the vast majority is mired in illiteracy. It is a fitting and timely response that the Parliament of Pakistan could make to the calls of the recently concluded OIC summit for a Muslim Renaissance best reflected in the speech of the prime minister of the host state.

Section 3 of the Bill directs the state to take concrete measures to ensure the participation of women in all walks of life by all administrative and statutory means. Once again bipartisan consensus exists and the provisions of the LFO as well as ingredients of the devolution measures which have restored and enhanced the representation of women in elective bodies have received universal acclaim. More needs to be done to protect women from discrimination and harassment.

Section 4 of the Bill further prohibits discrimination in pay on the basis of gender and punishment of the chief executives who violate the principle for equal pay. Perhaps a high-powered tribunal consisting of Asma Jehangir, Justice (retd) Majida Razvi, Rashida Patel, Shehla Zia and representatives of women rights bodies could be charged with the enforcement of this Section. This is for Parliament to debate and enact.

Domestic violence against women and children is a curse. Section 5 of the bill makes domestic violence punishable. As for the so-called honour killing the Bill provides for it to be treated as culpable homicide. In enacting this provision, the members of parliament may make “honour killing” non-compoundable. Section 5 further provides that each High Court should assign a judge to try offences under the Act.

Section 6 contains two important provisions which have a bearing on the life of every married woman or mother: the first sub-section states that the husband or, in his absence, the eldest male resident of a household will be held responsible in all cases of stove burning, while the second sub-section provides that the mother of minor shall be presumed to be the natural guardian of the child unless otherwise decreed by a court.

Section 7 of the Bill recognizes the right of every woman to marry the person of her choice. The Section further enjoins the nikah registrar to counsel the bride on the importance of the right of divorce in Clause 18 of the nikahnama and to have a dower commensurate with the income and wealth of the husband.

The inhuman, indeed brutal, conditions of our jails are known to all. At a recent seminar sponsored by Dr Haroon Ahmed, a leading psychiatrist of Pakistan, the participants were informed that most of the inmates of jails acquire depression and other forms of mental illness while incarcerated. Section 8 of the bill makes provisions for separate jails for women supervised by officers with the rank of additional inspector-general of Prisons. This provision also merits bipartisan approval.

As a step towards the empowerment of women, Section 9 provides that at least one-third of the positions on the Planning Commission, board of directors of autonomous bodies, including PIA and the university grants commission, be occupied by women. Section 10 provides that the inheritance cases of widows and orphans be decided within six months. This is again a provision the nation expects the parliament to pass.

(To be concluded)