Muslims in Pakistan and Indonesia share fasting faith

Mehru Jaffer, Contributor, Jakarta

The first revelations of the Koran were received by Prophet Muhammad in the heart of the Arabian desert some 1400 years ago and, until today, his followers around the world refrain from taking food or drink between dawn and dusk during the holy month of Ramadhan.

Unlike those religions which evolved slowly from legendary origins, Islam seemed to appear suddenly and spread as if with hurricane speed not only throughout the entire Middle East, but from Gibraltar to the river Ganges in the heartland of the Indian sub-continent.

Though he did not institute either an organized priesthood nor sacraments, Muhammad did prescribe a number of ritualistic observances known as the Five Pillars of Islam. They include the belief in one God, prayer five times a day, the giving of alms, fasting during the entire ninth month of the Islamic calendar, and the pilgrimage to Mecca.

Today, a quarter of the world's population has embraced Islam and wherever they may be, Muslims practice the rituals along with a lot of color thrown in, drawn from local customs older than the advent of Islam.

It was the merchants and wandering mystics who first brought the message of Islam eastward into India and the combined strength of Muslims in both India and Pakistan is numerically the largest in the world.

While Indian Muslims remain the world's single largest minority community, all of Pakistan follows Islam.

Like Christianity and Judaism, Islam did begin among the predominantly Semitic peoples at the south eastern corner of the Mediterranean basin. Today though, most Muslims are from countless other ethnic groups with three quarters living in Asia and most of the remainder in Africa.

According to Zarina Husain, wife of the Pakistan Ambassador to Indonesia Mustafa Anwar, Indonesians seem to practice Islam with a sanctity that is similar to her own country. However, she does find the mass exodus back to one's village every year at Ramadhan and Idul Fitri, the festival that follows the last day of fasting, very unique to Indonesia.

Zarina first came to Indonesia more than 30 years ago when her husband was a junior army officer at an institute in Bandung. Their third daughter was born here and Zarina remembers from those years how she had enjoyed the even climate of Java.

"There was so much raw beauty then. Indonesia is still beautiful but it is all spruced up and chic now," Zarina told The Jakarta Post.

In Pakistan, when Ramadhan falls in the middle of the blazing heat of the summer months, Muslims can end up fasting up to 14 hours each day.

But it is extremely pleasant in the winter, when lower temperatures make fasting more tolerable. In winter, the table at the predawn meal and the meal that breaks the fast at sunset is laden with food and drinks that warm the body, like tea and kebabs made from goat's meat.

When it is warmer, people consume plenty of lemon juice, and drinks made from crushed petals of roses and sugar, instead. The mixture is concentrated and sold in bottles labeled with the brand name Rooh Afzah (soothing to the soul).

To beat the heat, many foods are prepared with a yogurt base and plenty of fruits are encouraged to prevent people from getting dehydrated.

At the moment, it is winter in Pakistan and in the evenings most homes probably have a cauldron parked on the stove brewing an endless supply of tea that is shared practically throughout the night as people try to keep themselves warm while they pray or talk to each other.

Obviously, work during the day slows down considerably throughout the month, just like in this country, and some tempers tend to flare up over the flimsiest of reasons.

Zarina has lived and observed Ramadhan in different parts of Pakistan, which is divided into the four provinces of the plains of Lahore, Peshawar and Quetta on the northwest frontier bordering Afghanistan and the desert area of Karachi in Sind.

In the cities most upper class, urban families break the fast with a date in imitation of the Prophet even though dates do not grow natively in most parts of Pakistan.

In her home town of Lahore, Zarina recalls people swallowing a pinch of salt to break the fast before they go on to eat other delicacies like gram lentils soaked in water, lightly boiled dry and sprinkled with salt and ground red chilies, chopped ginger and roasted and ground cumin seeds.

During the winter months the tradition is to garnish the dish with mint leaves and in the summer time with green coriander leaves. The high level of protein found in the grams is said to provide instant energy to the hungry.

Most households pray after breaking the fast and, later, the women lay out a dinner with warm home made bread, rice, curries cooked with chicken or goat's meat and vegetables. The men visit the local mosque only with other men. It is not a tradition in Pakistan for women to accompany men to the public mosque.

Much of the day is often spent, especially by women, to shop for new clothes and accessories like shoes and glass bangles that are worn at the end of the fasting month of Ramadhan during the joyous festival of Idul Fitri.