Great news: I took one night off from my local mosque to go back to my favorite mosque for iftar and the tarawih prayers. When I returned to my local mosque they had adjusted the speaker in the women’s section and fixed the squeaky smoke detector. I was in the zone in no time. Almost didn’t notice since there were no distractions. Almost forgot to be grateful. Thank you Allah for all wonders: great and small.
Why bother to go to the mosque in the first place, you might ask. According to the Qur’an:
The month of Ramadan is the one in which the Qur’an was revealed, as a guidance and the criterion (of right and wrong). So who ever among you is present, let him fast the month…(2:185)
Since the time of the Prophet Muhammad, the month of Ramadan includes other celebrations or rituals besides the cessation of food and drink. The believer is called to increase the regular worship and to enhance the quality of the day to day living and human to human interactions. If the rest of the year one is sometimes a bit lax about the five times daily worship, Ramadan would be the time to get them back in order.
Other Muslims choose other aspects of their own personal habits they wish to improve and focus on them in this month. Like Lent in Christianity. I remember one year, I decided it was a good occasion to stop using the dreaded four letter words. Well, anyway, I tried. It makes you more aware of these habits when you designate them for eradication. Most of the extra worship is focused on the Qur’an. For some this means to individually read through the entire text. For many English speakers with little or no knowledge of Arabic this means reading through the English translation. So people move about with their Qur’an on hand.
I also try to read through the Arabic every year. I remember the first time I did this, in 1981 when I was studying in Cairo. I was young enough that I could actually read from a pocket-size edition which I carried around with me all the time. Every lull in the day—and in fact even without a lull—I would take it out and read.
The Qur’ans of today have an indicator mark at the beginning of each thirtieth part, called a juz’. So I set it upon myself to reach the next marker each day, to help me keep pace of how much I was reading. Reaching the daily goal soon also became reading a little if at all possible, just in case the nest day was full of distractions or obligations to prevent me from complete the next juz’. As it turned out, I was done before the month was over and the last two or three days I just lingered lovingly over the last few parts. It was a thrilling accomplishment that first time.
Each year, I make different degrees of progress, but nothing like that first time, even if I do finish the reading. This year, I decided intentionally to start off where I left off last year. Last year I had an accident and got 12 stitches over my right eye, which pretty much ended my extra-ritual activities and the fast.
The best time for me to read is in the morning after fajr prayer. I don’t want to sleep with the food of suhur on my stomach anyway, so as long as I can, I just sit and read. I love the Qur’an. This is not as mindless as it might be for some who are not at all familiar with the Arabic of the Qur’an (or of the spoken Arabic language).
It is possible to read through the syllables without figuring out what is being said. Most Muslims in the world fall into this category so it is more plain ritual than contemplation. It should be pointed out that there is a benefit in even this ritual reading, but it is not the same as reading and contemplating the words of revelation, reflecting on their meanings. Reflection can be a distraction from just reading. I cannot simple go from one word to the next, one passage to the next, I am caught out of momentum to say, “hmmm”, “yes, that’s right” or,” oh yeah, I forgot about it that way.”
To assist me in keeping pace with the reading part over the reflection part, I started reading along with an mp3 player that has the whole text recited on it by a famous reciter called al-Qushayri. I like his pace. This was a gift from a friend in the Netherlands and I now find it indispensable to my Ramadan rituals. Can you believe I had never owned nor used an mp3 player before this one with the Qu’ranic recitation on it? Just one more reason I am not intimidated by thinking technology is a distraction from Allah.
I tried to keep this practice of early morning readings when I was married, but eventually there was a competitive edge and not so much spirit. The one not reading would catch the mistakes of the one reading out loud and this was just disruptive. I soon learned to appreciate this as a solitary practice and not a community function.
In the community, there are the tarawih prayers. During the prayers each night, the one leading the prayer, the imam, will recite one thirtieth of the Qur’an. This juz’ is divided into twenty separate rak’at or units of prayer, two by twos. That is, we stand for one unit, and then follow through with the middle steps of the prayer performance, including the bow and the double prostration. Then we stand for more recitation, before repeating the bow and double prostration and finally finishing off with the taslim or saying salaams. We complete ten sets of two while one thirtieth of the Qur’an is recited. It takes at least an hour, depending on other factors.
This is a pretty intense worship practice. There is not much in between each of the two rakat units, so with a little supplication (or none as the case is in my local mosque) we resume standing for the next two. According to tradition, there is a minimum requirement of two sets of four or 8 units. I’m a minimalist this year.
The first time I was able to perform the tarawih was the year before I started graduate school at a summer program for Islamic studies at the University of Michigan. I had come to Ann Arbor that year while my children were with their father since we had already processed for a divorce. This meant I had no family schedule. I lived in a dormitory and besides going to class and a small part time job, I was a free bird. In Ramadan a free bird, flies high on the rituals of the month. I stood for 20 units or tarawih every night that I was fasting. Like the first time reading through the Qu’ran in Arabic on my own this was exhilarating. Somewhere around 12 or 14 units, I lost track of everything outside of the recitation and the ritual performance—the zone.
It was even more intense because Michigan had a summertime fast-breaking that was well after 9 p.m. Tarawih prayers did not start until 11 and were not over until after midnight. Then before 4 a.m. the morning meal or suhur had to be completed. Since that time, I have studied about the affects and effects of ritual performance for the human creature. I can say for certain that it is the removal, if only for a brief while, from the everyday ordinary that is the benefit of these practices. The Qur’an calls it a dhikr, a reminder, of Allah. Sure Allah is in everything but some times in the midst of our “everything,” we think more about the thing and not about its Creator, or the Creator of us all.
Those moments of awe affirm what we say we believe in. They bring us back to the Source and gently push us forward for the rest of the ordinary mundane which is the bulk of our lives in the first place. There is sweetness in this repose. For those who fulfill these ritual duties in Islam without the experience of this sweetness Islam becomes but a harsh and ugly set of necessary requirements. It is this sweetness I crave each Ramadan and that I still pray I can experience at least a few fleeting moments of while on the hajj.
Oh Allah let me taste of the sweetness of worshiping You, here at my house and there at Your house. Amin
Some mosques do not have a hafiz, person who has memorized the whole Qur’an, to recite and lead the tarawih prayers. These are still only men, as far as I know in most mosques with women and men. At these mosques then they perform the minimum eight units while reciting the portions of the Qur’an the imam has memorized. Again this is a communal function. It brings that community together and in these cases, it does not limit their desire for this practice by making it dependent upon a hafiz.
So, I go to the mosque to be amongst the community for this collective worship. At my age and with my arthritis at a very bad way, it won’t be long before I cannot follow through with all the steps of the worship and I must take to a chair. So staying for 8 units is a good thing for me now. It’s also a good time to get my hajj done, I may not be physically able to do all those rites in the near future, and at least once I want to run where Hajar ran, but let me not get ahead of myself just yet.
Islam is more of a communal religion than people sometimes think. Just because we do have such a high level of individual ritual responsibility, each person obligated to pray five times a day every day, does not mean there are not explicit and significant community rituals, like the hajj that can only be performed with others. In one way battling the challenges of my local mosque is preparation: practicing, trying to be in the zone whether or not I have intimate relations with the members of the community or a chance to address its mosque politics.
When I got the local mosque I notice all the signs of the community iftar. It is my intention to venture out when I cannot shroud myself with the cloaking garments of prayer worship. When I must make eye contact and even hold conversation with others, next week. After all, Allah resides every where, even in the gender-apartheid mosques, so why not share it with Her followers?
Before the blogging is over I will discuss how the Qur’an can both come down in one month, Ramadan and at the same time take 23 years…
Editor’s Note: To follow all of Amina Wadud’s daily posts, as she blogs from Ramadan through her first hajj, check here.
