Making meaningful the holy rituals of Ramadaan
Month of mercy and reflections unites global Muslim faithful
ALIGHT goes on in a Homestead Park home in Joburg West. The dim glow ends sleep for Ferhana Akoob. It’s not quite 4am, it’s 2ºC outside, but her day must begin.
It’s Ramadaan, the holiest month on the Muslim calendar, and the Akoob family are observing the fast. Ferhana’s early start is to prepare for suhoor, the daily Ramadaan fast that starts after a pre-dawn meal.
She puts on the kettle, pops bread into the toaster. She spices fried eggs and opens up boxes of cereal. The whirr of appliances and sizzle of fat in a pan stir her family from their sleep. Soon her daughters, Fehmeeda, a psychologist, and Nazeerah, a University of Johannesburg BCom student, are up too. Last out of bed is Ferhana’s husband, Ahmed.
“We eat at about 4.45am, because our fast begins at 5.34am this morning,” says Ahmed, his fingers tracing a calendar behind the kitchen door showing the shifting sunrise and sunset times.
The dining table is laid, but Nazeerah says most mornings their suhoor meal consists of a cup of tea and cereal.
“The suhoor is not about eating as much as you can to fill up, it’s about having just enough so you know what people who have nothing are going through,” she says.
She spoons cereal into her mouth, manages a smile and nods in agreement to a comment that it seems way too early to be eating at all.
Ahmed says suhoor is prescribed in the Qur’an. It’s a ritual of fasting, fasting being one of five pillars of Islam revealed to Muhammad 1 400 years ago. It’s a meal that can’t be missed.
“It’s not like you can just have a big midnight meal and sleep through until 5.34am,” Ahmed says.
“Real jihad (struggle) in this month begins with the discipline to get out of bed, to prepare a meal, to eat together as a family, then to brush your teeth and begin the fast.”
“Eat now,” Ferhana interrupts gently, rushing her husband to finish suhoor as the clock ticks past 5.15am. He takes one more sip of Ferhana’s tea – a mouthful of fragrance and spice, thanks to additions of cinnamon and cardamom.
Each family member says their silent prayer – it states the intention to fast as offering and is a plea for forgiveness. Minutes later the day’s first call to prayer, the azaan, pierces the silence.
Ahmed turns his head in the direction of the melodic recitation. He says this azaan includes a fitting line for the pre-dawn faithful: “Prayer is better than sleep.”
“It shows Allah has a sense of humour, He knows us best,” says Ahmed.
With the azaan the quiet ritual of this family has intertwined with that of thousands of other Muslims in the city who have done the same to greet the morning; the same rituals about two billion people across the globe have observed during Ramadaan.
The Akoob women clear the dishes. They catch a few more winks before the waking day begins. Ahmed, however, drives over the Langlaagte railway track, to the Sultan Bahu Masjid (or mosque) in Mayfair, where he prays with his community.
Shoes of all kinds crowd the mosque entrance by the time Ahmed sheds his pair.
“You always put the right shoe on first, then the left, like you eat with your right hand,” he remarks.
It’s comes from how prayers are concluded: a greeting of peace first to the angel on your right shoulder who records your good deeds, then a greeting to the angel on the left shoulder who records your bad deeds. The blessing is extended to everyone in the universe to the left and the right of your angels.
At first light, the interior of the mosque is dark. Men line up shoulder to shoulder in an unbroken bond of faith and brotherhood as Imam Moulana Mohammed Aslam Suliman leads prayers. The women’s section is empty; the glassed and veiled gallery fills up only for the last evening prayers.
Those in the mosque include men who have observed fasts for more than 70 years, without skipping a single one. Others are children, their pyjamas peeking out from beneath their kurtas. Also in the mosque is Sheikh Faqir Sayed Ally, who founded the Sultan Bahu Centre in 1979 and the mosque in 1990.
This year marks the 25th Ramadaan at this mosque, which started out as a Dutch Reformed Church before it was bought in 1990 and transformed.
“I was here when the first mosque brick went up and the church bell came down – we preserved the church bell because it too is sacred,” says Ahmed.
Today there can be more than 1 000 people who come for prayers throughout the day. The mosque is open at all hours, every day, and the centre has come to play a responsive roles in relation to the needs of the community. There are a dialysis foundation, drug rehabilitation support and community outreach.
The sheikh’s vision and teachings are humble. “Serve those in need, be kind, be just,” he says, as congregants greet him, kissing his hand in deference. He maintains a lightness, not confusing piety and sacredness with rules and decrees. It draws people from across Gauteng to the centre.
And people come, especially on Saturdays during Ramadaan. During the month of prayerful reflection and mercy, the centre steps up its outreach projects. A key project is the preparation of haleem, a soup, lovingly coaxed into a hearty meal with which to observe iftar, the breaking of the fast.
Iqbal Yunus is one of a team of about 10 volunteers who starts slowcooking the soup of barley, oats, chicken and an array of spices shortly after first prayers end at 6am. This is no ordinary cook-up, it’s an operation!
Coal pits line a courtyard and 19 huge degs – traditional Indian cooking pots holding 100 litres each – are placed on the coals.
“You have to control the heat and add ingredients at the right time. We guess the quantities of everything,” says Yunus, adding that they don’t taste a drop of haleem until they break their fast with everyone else.
But the recipe is tasty enough to have queues of people wrapping around the entrance to the mosque from 3pm each Saturday.
“The haleem is for everyone – rich, poor, Muslims, non-Muslims. We never know how many people will come. But people keep coming and we’ve never run out, it’s quite magical,” says Yunus.
People in the queue fill old margarine tubs and lunch boxes with haleem. It’s also spooned out for those who will arrive at the centre for iftar. Sometimes about 300 people arrive.
There’s no time for head counts. By 5.32pm the voice of the centre’s muezzin, Muhsin Louw, a Zulu man who became a Muslim in 1997, gives the call to prayer that also signals iftar.
There’s a muted, reflective mood in the dining hall. Ahmed calls iftar “a moment of personal dialogue with God”. Dates are passed round and faluda, a milk drink fragranced with rosewater, is poured into cups. There are other eats, too, and, of course, the haleem.
The fast is broken and marks the end of the 12-hour Ramadaan day in the southern hemisphere winter. Ramadaan will last 29, perhaps 30 days, depending on the sighting of the July new moon. The exact date is not known. What is certain is that another Ramadaan day starts tomorrow when the azaan sounds declaring that “the white thread of dawn appears distinct from its black thread” - as it says in the Qur’an.