Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

Mus­lims across T&T have joined mil­lions around the world in ob­serv­ing the Holy Month of Ra­madan, a pe­ri­od ded­i­cat­ed to fast­ing, char­i­ty, and re­flec­tion.

As fam­i­lies gath­er for night­ly prayers and the break­ing of fast or if­tar, sev­er­al mosques have ex­pe­ri­enced an in­crease in at­ten­dance.

Imam Raf­fa­ic Mo­hammed of the Ma­coon Street Masjid said the month was a deeply spir­i­tu­al pe­ri­od for the Mus­lim com­mu­ni­ty, marked by fast­ing from dawn to sun­set and en­gag­ing in acts of char­i­ty and kind­ness and deep­en­ing faith.

“The month con­tains a lot of virtues. This month, it helps you to re­fur­bish your­self and face the chal­lenges of life go­ing for­ward be­cause you are be­com­ing more God-con­scious. So this month of Ra­madan, the first part of it is mer­cy. The sec­ond part is for­give­ness, and the last part is sal­va­tion. The month comes as a month of train­ing that will take you for the rest of the year as you go along in your life.”

If Mus­lims con­sci­en­tious­ly ob­serve this month sin­cere­ly, he said, they would de­vel­op virtues such as hon­esty and com­pas­sion.

Ra­madan is be­ing ob­served at the same time as the Lenten pe­ri­od, but ac­cord­ing to Imam Atif Ma­jeed Su­laimani of the San Fer­nan­do Ja­ma Masjid, this was not un­usu­al.

He said Ra­madan held great im­por­tance in the heart, mind and life of every Mus­lim be­cause in this pe­ri­od they were able to con­nect their heart, soul, spir­it and mind to God.

Imam Su­laimani al­so em­pha­sised the im­por­tance of ex­er­cis­ing for­give­ness dur­ing this month.

“In the month of Ra­madan, we ex­pect our God to for­give us. When we ex­pect the for­give­ness from Our Lord at the same time, we need to spread the for­give­ness among the cre­ation of the Lord as well. It is im­por­tant that we de­vel­op a sense of for­give­ness, a sense of pa­tience for oth­ers as well.”

While there has been the ex­pect­ed in­crease in the num­ber of wor­ship­pers at the mosque for Ra­madan, he urged Mus­lims to con­tin­ue this trend even af­ter Ra­madan.

“God is not on­ly for one month; rather, he is for 12 months. We be­lieve the month of Ra­madan is a train­ing ses­sion where we train emo­tion­al­ly, spir­i­tu­al­ly, phys­i­cal­ly,” he said.

Mus­lims ex­pect to cel­e­brate Eid-ul-Fitr at the end of the month, but the date will de­pend on when the moon is sight­ed.