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‘Ramadan Mabrook’

by Newsweek Pakistan
Asif Hassan—AFP

Asif Hassan—AFP

The holy month of fasting is upon us.

This year, the official moon-sighting committee, Ruet-e-Hilal, forgot its annual scrap with Mufti Shahabuddin Popalzai, the Peshawar-based rebel cleric who would declare the onset of Ramzan in the tribal areas at least a day ahead of the rest of the country. Each year he has managed to beat the official telescope-equipped committee in sighting the Ramzan and Eid moons with his bare eyes. Popalzai would order his followers to fast while the rest of the nation still ate, and have Eid feasts while the rest of the country still fasted. Rival clerics warned that the nation was committing collective sin through this disconnect. After all, Satan mourns Eid by fasting, our elders have told us. This year, all of Pakistan began Ramzan on the same day.

Popalzai’s declarations had kept Ramzan and Eid in Pakistan’s tribal areas synced with Saudi Arabia’s. This couldn’t have been something disfavored by most Pakistanis. Over the years, our Ramzan and Eid vocabulary has changed. We now use words popularized by expat Pakistanis living in Arab lands. Our forefathers used the greeting “Ramzan Mubarak.” Now, more and more of us use “Ramadan Mabrook” or “Ramadan Karim.” The Arabization of our language is without irony, ask anyone with an “al-Bakistan” license plate in cities like Lahore.

Before you celebrate Eid, you have to fast for a month. It is understandable that on Eid you express your pent-up piety with an eating binge. That wouldn’t be so bad since you let your stomach guide you only on Eid holiday. But if you see how the food market reacts to fasting, you realize that fasting Muslims actually consume more calories and gain weight during Ramzan.

More consumption puts pressure on the supply of food, which means prices go up. But going by the opinion expressed by the fasting population, including a judge of the high court, we believe that economics should suspend its laws and the supply-demand curve should fade away before our food-driven spirituality. So every Ramzan, we indulge in the same self-condemnatory rhetoric when food prices shoot up. This Ramzan will be no different.

Ramadan Mabrook, and may you have peaceful Rodas.

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