Yesterday, I found a post by one enemy to Islam mocking our Ramadan habits. I knew he was speaking just to agitate us, but I thought if his words were really true. If we made a mistake, it doesn't matter who let us know about it as long as we fix it.
The guy said something along the line of "Imagine having two HUGE Meals per day, and imagine calling that fasting."
That made me think of our Iftar (sunset) and Suhoor (before dawn) meals in Ramadan. There's a truth to that statement. Most people in the middle east spend more on food in Ramadan. That's not following Islam correctly, though. I'm sure some people eat a lot in these meals, but Islamically, both should be light meals, especially the one before the fasting starts.
Prophet Muhammad ﷺ used to break his fast with Water and 3 or 5 Date fruits.The Iftar is traditionally very light. It's just that people's generosity usin Ramadan made the meal bigger and bigger over time...
In our household, we eat less in Ramadan but we do spend more money on food. In this month we reward ourselves with stuff we don't usually buy. We buy higher quality dates, and have better balance in our meals than we normally do. Still, the size of the Iftar meal is comparable to normal-day meal in terms of quantity. It's the quality that's more expensive.
Our Suhoor, (the meal before fasting starts,) is usually compromised of leftovers from Iftar, and we usually eat much less. Sometimes the Suhoor of our household is just Milk and a few Dates. Only light stuff.
Finally, I want to say that the size of meals isn't the point of fasting. The point of it all is the mindfulness of God during the fasting hours. It's avoiding temptation to eat food in respect to God when he tells us to not eat even though it's normally allowed. The meals we eat outside of fasting hours are there as a reward for the patience we had, and as help to be able to do the same another day.
I hope this post was a valuable insight for my non-muslim readers. Thanks for reading.
What do you think?
Posted Using InLeo Alpha