What comes to mind when you think of Ramadan?
Maybe you’ve noticed dedicated aisles in your local supermarket, catering for everything Muslims might need to get them through the next month. You might know someone who’s preparing to fast. If they’re a colleague, they may even have decided to take the month off. Muslim charities will be upping their advertising, encouraging Muslims to give generously especially during Ramadan.
Muslims will observe Ramadan to varying degrees, but at its heart, the end game of the next thirty days for every Muslim is same – forgiveness.
The belief is that more than any other time of the year, Muslims can atone for their sins, not just through fasting from dawn till dusk – but through giving and reading the whole of the Qur’an. Their efforts during Ramadan count more than the rest of the year – up to 700 times more according to the Qur’an. This is the big opportunity to make things right with Allah and secure your place in paradise for eternity. The gates of hell are believed to be closed throughout Ramadan, giving the believer a clearer mind and a purer soul to come before him.
The really big opportunity comes in the last ten days of Ramadan, on The Night of Power, known in Arabic as Laylat al-Qadr. The blessings of praying on the night of Laylat ul-Qadr is believed to be better than that of a thousand months of worship and devotion.
Growing up in Pakistan, even my most liberal Muslim friends became very religious during Ramadan.
And this wasn’t just because you could be sent to jail or fined for eating or drinking in public during the month.
There’s a big communal aspect to it – you’re fasting in solidarity with your friends and family. And at the end of the month you’re celebrating and partying with the same friends and family during the Eid al-fitr celebration. It’s a bit like Christmas in that respect.
Perhaps even more so in London, there’s a social stigma around not observing Ramadan. If you’re not fasting, you’re an atheist who doesn’t have respect for your religion.
But I believe it goes deeper than this. Even if you don’t observe the teaching of Islam for the rest of the year, as a Muslim it’s embedded in your psyche… “Yeah, I’m a bad Muslim, but here is my chance for forgiveness.”
And so even for more nominal Muslims that I meet, there is an underlying belief that they need to prove themselves, and Ramadan offers a way of doing that.
But it’s precarious. There’s no guarantee that even with the extra points you can score over Ramadan, that it will be enough to secure your place in paradise, and to avoid hell.
Looking from the outside in, I wonder what our reaction is to all this. It’s tempting to be judgmental of Muslims for following this strange system of works-righteousness. Or we might be tempted to admire this devotion to prayer and fasting, especially when we compare it to our own spiritual disciplines.
But as Christians, I want to encourage us to consider this underlying burden which so many Muslims live with not just during Ramadan but every day. And to respond with compassion.
As we all know, trying to earn your salvation – whether it’s through money, through being nice, through good deeds or obedience – is exhausting. As Christians, it’s a trap we can still so easily fall into. It’s the human condition and it’s something that everyone has in common.
It’s for this reason that Jesus invited “all you who are weary and burdened” to come to him so that he might give them rest.
Jesus promises to break this enslavement to works-righteousness. “If the son sets you free, you will be free indeed”.
This is the distinction – freedom.
During Lent, you might be fasting. But although the practice might look similar from the outside, as Christians, the difference is night and day. Our place in God’s family has been secured, as sons and daughters, we belong to it forever. And so, we fast not to earn God’s mercy, but because of it.
This is why the gospel is such good news for Muslims – especially during Ramadan.
So, you have this precious, timely news. But how do I even begin to share this with a Muslim friend, neighbour or colleague?
So often as Christians, we’d like to speak with our Muslim friends and neighbours about our faith, but we lack confidence. The prospect can feel overwhelming – we worry we won’t have the answers we need and so we often avoid the conversations altogether.
Author Fouad Masri has been training Christians to share their faith with Muslims for over thirty years – and he’ll be speaking at our Muslim Engagement Conference in June.
He says one of the biggest barriers is that we tell ourselves, ‘They won’t be interested in talking about Jesus, or they’ll be offended’.
“We make that judgement on their behalf”, says Fouad. “But it’s not true. More often than not they are very open to talking about life’s bigger questions. There’s not the sense of taboo or discomfort that people from other backgrounds might react with.”
Especially during Ramadan, we have a lot to talk about with Muslims. Let’s not assume they won’t want to talk.
LCM shares the gospel alongside the local church of London, equipping everyday Christians to lovingly bring a message of hope in Christ to those least likely to hear it.
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