Ramadhan: An All You Can Eat Buffet?

Qasim Choudhary, U.S.A.

With Ramadhan right around the corner, here’s some food for thought (pun intended).

Notice how your social media feed is being bombarded with posts related to #Ramadhan2021. Motivational quotes, Quranic verses, and of course the creative makeshift mosques at home. However, when Ramadhan commences, there will be another swarm of posts that are sure to stimulate your taste buds. We will be helplessly scrolling through hundreds of lavish and mouth-watering iftar dinners beautifully laid out buffet-style on the dinner table.

 I get it, after a 15 hour fast, it can be tempting to devour everything on the dinner table. But what If I told you, Ramadhan wasn’t meant to be an all-you-can-eat buffet.

Consider the following, 

‘As a society, we have made it a tradition that we must certainly eat something special during the morning and evening meals of Ramadhan. We unnecessarily end up increasing expenditure. On the one hand, food expenditure increases unnecessarily and on the other hand, your stomach also becomes discomforted and the entire day you spend feeling lazy. The true enjoyment of the fast is when you maintain your normal diet, and you begin and break your fast in a simple way, and the money you save by not eating lavish foods should be donated to charity’. [1]

Perhaps this Ramadhan, we can lessen the food on our tables so others can have more on theirs. Perhaps this Ramadhan we can focus on the spiritual buffet rather than the dinner buffet. 

About the Author: Qasim Choudhary is a recent graduate from the Ahmadiyya Institute of Languages and Theology in Canada, and serves as an Imam of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community in the United States of America.

ENDNOTES

[1] Hazrat Mirza Masroor Ahmad(aba), 21st March 2021, Nasirat-ul-Ahmadiyya Australia virtual meeting