Muslims in Pakistan and Indonesia share fasting faith

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.