Ramadan Increases and Decreases

Editor

With the onset of Ramadan our eating and drinking, and even our sleep decrease. Our vivaciousness and our gallivanting stop; instead a tranquility and a sobriety take over us. We have a month-long experience of eating little, sleeping little, and speaking little, which are the three conditions for becoming a spiritually mature human being. Maybe this is the reason why we are given the good news that a believer will have a different state at the end of Ramadan than the one he/she had at the beginning of it.

Ramadan naturally increases certain things in response to the things it has decreased. We pray more, spend more time with the Quran, share our food and the other blessings bestowed upon us with the others more. Thus Ramadan decreases all those things we consume for our lower self, while it increases our devotion to our Lord and our sharing with the rest of the world. It gives us the joy of giving and not that of taking. By blunting our animal side, it makes us feel even more “human”. Maybe this state of mind and soul is one of the reasons why we love Ramadan so much.