The Month of Ramadhan

For those of you who don’t know, we are now in the month of Ramadhan, a month which is celebrated by all Muslims around the world. People commonly know it as the month where we fast from sunrise to sunset, refraining from food/drink (no, not even water), but also from things like swearing, losing our patience and arguing. For Muslims though, it is a lot more than that.

(There’s a wonderful article “9 questions about the Muslim holy month you were too embarrassed to ask” addressing some common questions people have about the month so I won’t really go into any of that). 

The month of Ramadhan contains Laylatul Qadr (The Night of Power), when the Holy Quran was revealed. It is thought that this is the night when our fate for the next year is decided, and any act of prayer or worship during this night is equal to that of a thousand. Shi’a Muslims also commemorate the martyrdom of Ali ibn Abi Talib (peace be upon him) – the cousin and son-in-law of Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) – on the 19th and 21st nights of Ramadhan, engaging in special prayers and supplications to God. So even more than the month of fasting, Ramadhan is the month of the Quran. We are encouraged to turn to the Holy Book, read it, study it and try to understand it, to gain closeness to God.

While the physical act of fasting is that which raises the most discussion, Ramadhan is more about spirituality for Muslims. As I mentioned, we do not just refrain from food and drink, but also from more social things. Now some people (not gonna lie, myself included sometimes) try to sleep in for as long as possible, to avoid an unpleasant feeling of hunger or tiredness, but this is actually something we are strongly encouraged to not do. Fasting is about detachment from the material world around us, including laziness, giving us more space in our hearts to worship, gain closeness to and serve God. Many Muslims do this by trying to give more away to charity in the month, or volunteer to help others. Basically, if you need anything, ask your Muslim friend in the month of Ramadhan and they’ll almost definitely try to help (as long as you don’t try to push your luck by asking for a car or something).

I think the major struggle with Ramadhan this year is going to be COVID-19 (just like it is with everything else, love that). See, one of the biggest and most loved parts of this month is the community spirit. We gather together in our mosques or homes for collective prayers and supplications – we read the Holy Quran together, say our prayers together, we eat together, mourn and celebrate together. We learn from and encourage each other to gain the most we can. At the end of the month, we celebrate Eid ul Fitr (the Festival of Breaking the Fast) with our families and friends, enjoying the fact that we can drink coffee (or tea – I don’t know if it’s just my community but I swear Muslims go mad over tea) and have breakfast in the morning again.

Engaging in this month amidst a global pandemic is going to be a challenge to say the least. I’m not going to lie and say the physical act of fasting is easy because it isn’t, but I am truly excited and ready to try to make the most out of such a beautiful month even without the physical presence of people that I love. I’ll try to keep you posted.

“O you who believe! Fasting is prescribed for you as it was prescribed for those before you, that you may observe self-restraint (al-Taqwa)” Holy Quran, 2:183.

Collective Resilience

I revisited one of my modules from my MSc the other day – disaster response and prevention. I remember picking it because it seemed so obscure in comparison to my usual interests and it ended up being my favourite module. It was basically all about how people respond to disasters (natural disasters e.g. Hurricane Katrina, but also attacks e.g. 9/11 and pandemics/outbreaks e.g. SARS), public health, government crisis communication etc.

My favourite lecture was on the idea of “panic” and how actually, mass panic is very rare. In fact, what usually happens is the very opposite – people coming together to support each other and form communities out of a difficult situation. This is put nicely in the social identity model of collective resilience (Drury et al, 2009). It talks about how during or after a disaster, a common identity emerges in response to a shared threat – the idea of “we’re all in this together” emerges (pause for a high school musical singing break). What is commonly found is that people show orderly and altruistic behaviour and are more likely to be cooperative rather than selfish. In fact, after many disasters, such as Hurricane Katrina, we see remarkable communities forming and coming together (you can read about this in “A Paradise Built in Hell” by Rebecca Solnit – highly recommend).

I love this idea. Sometimes in difficult situations, it is important to focus on the positives rather than negatives of human behaviour – resilience over vulnerability. We have seen a lot at the moment about people stockpiling, arguing over toilet roll and pasta and displaying selfish behaviour but research has shown that the media tends to exaggerate this wildly (like everything else). I think our focus should be more on the wonderful displays of communities coming together – clapping for NHS staff and key workers, demonstrations of appreciation, people volunteering with the NHS or shopping for the elderly and vulnerable. This is a scary and stressful situation, but as we have before, we can come out of it stronger than ever.

“We cannot welcome disaster, but we can value the responses, both practical and psychological” – Rebecca Solnit (2010).

Productivity (Or Lack Thereof)

I’ve had a conversation on productivity with several different people over the last few weeks. The consensus is that no one feels as though they are being productive enough whilst in lockdown, myself included, which I thought was interesting given that we are in a pandemic.

Life is so fast paced. We are constantly working, planning and striving to achieve in restricted time frames. It’s interesting how this is still the case now – we are in a crisis yet still feeling pressure to accomplish things despite lacking our usual resources and routines. I spoke to my supervisor a few days ago and explained that on the days I work from home, I sometimes feel like I am not doing enough, especially because I don’t have as big of a caseload as most people in the team (perks [disadvantages?] of being an assistant psychologist). She was amazingly reassuring and gave me some advice about bits of work I could do if I needed to, but also let me know that it’s okay to not be as productive as I usually would be.

That really is something we all need to hear right now I think. Sometimes it is okay to just do what you can in the situation, rather than be part of some ambiguous competition of who can be the most productive in a global pandemic? I think it is so important to still be stimulated and have things to focus on, which is why I really valued my supervisor telling me about work I could do which I wouldn’t usually have to. But it is equally as important to allow yourself the luxury of not forcing yourself to be as productive as usual, or feeling guilty when you are not able to be.

Take it easy guys, hopefully we’ll get through this soon.

“Do what you can, with what you have, where you are” – Theodore Roosevelt.

 

Loyalty

Having more time than usual on my hands, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking. Just to put it out there – this is not a good thing. I’ve been spiralling a lot when it comes to thinking about past relationships (mainly friendships) and their breakdowns (usually for one reason, but let’s not open up that can of worms today), and I have come to the major realisation that in the aftermath of these breakdowns, there is one thing I look for in a friend – loyalty.

To be clear, I’m not talking about blind loyalty. If I’m wrong about something, or acting stupidly (which I often am), I value people I trust telling me this. While there is a part of me that wants my close friends to not maintain relationships with people who have hurt me, I know this is not always reasonable and that I cannot and should not control who they are close to. What happens way too often though, is that I continue to hear about these people, how great they are and how much my close friends love and value them, even whilst knowing how much they hurt me.

I know that I sometimes expect too much of people which is something I need to work on, but I don’t think loyalty is too much to ask for in a close friendship. I know that I am fiercely protective over my friends and when they get hurt, all I feel is anger towards whoever hurt them. I also know that not every situation is the same, and sometimes this is not always rational or feasible, which is fine. What I do expect from my friends though, is for them to show me loyalty and give me a reason for trusting them to have my back when someone has caused me a lot of pain.

Is that too much to ask?

“The only people to which I owe my loyalty are those who never made me question theirs” – Unknown.