[RAMADAN NOTES] Almsgiving in Ramadan

Kerim Balcı

Muslims all over the world greet Ramadan with wishes of generosity and abundance in the grace of God. This may sound like a paradox since Ramadan is also the month of abstaining from eating and drinking, the prime worldly needs we cannot fully abandon.

Arabs say “Ramadan kareem” -- May you have a generous Ramadan -- whereas Turks and Urdu-speaking Muslims prefer to say Ramazan mubarek (olsun) -- May your Ramadan be fruitful and abundant in the grace of Allah. The paradox between eating less and asking for more can only be explained by altruism and giving. Ramadan is a month of giving for Muslims and the scope of giving can include “giving your time” and “giving a free meal.”

The link between fasting and giving is apparent in the established global Muslim custom of increased Ramadan hospitality -- we invite more and more people to our homes and are more ready to visit others. To think of a Muslim eating all his fast-breaking dinners on his own, without inviting others or being invited by others, is almost an oxymoron in the Muslim understanding. If fasting is about waiting for the trumpeter of God for the start of a universally set eating festival, then it should be shared with others.

I remember my mother being proud of not having a single iftar dinner at home without a visitor. Giving from what Allah gave to us is in fact a Quranic description of what being a true Muslim is. Many Muslims learn this not from the Quran but from the oral tradition. At a very early age I was taught stories of Abraham the Patriarch, who was such a generous person that he wouldn’t have his meal if there were no visitors to invite. My grandmother used to tell us -- possibly with some level of exaggeration -- that Abraham used to wait for days at the crossroads in front of his house in order to find a passerby to invite to his table. “If nobody passed by the road, he would ask that the table be cleaned without touching the food,” she used to say.

In this modern age we don’t wait for people to pass by. We make our plans beforehand and try to fill all 30 (some years 29) iftar dinners, either as hosts or as guests, but never alone. While I was a student at university I was involved in the Hizmet activities -- the volunteer movement many people today know as the Gülen movement. The people of Hizmet were modern representations of Abrahamic generosity; businessmen wanted to invite students to iftar dinners; however, there were too few of us to respond to all of their invitations. I remember evenings on which I had to go to two different places to eat. I went to some houses late at night to have the sahur meal, the night meal unique to fasting. Without the background of Abrahamic generosity, one cannot understand waking up in the middle of the night and receiving guests for a meal.

The link between fasting and giving becomes even more obvious at expiation payments for broken fasts. If a fasting Muslim breaks his fast before the evening with the full intention to do so, he is supposed to either free a slave, fast 60 consecutive days or feed 60 poor men for a day. We don’t have slaves today. The two choices we are left with teach us that fasting for 60 days and feeding 60 poor men are equivalent to each other in the sight of God.

The giving reaches its peak during the Ramadan Feast. Within the first three days of the Ramadan Feast all Muslims are supposed to give a special amount of money called fitrah. A fitrah is a kind of life tax paid not to the government but to the poor. It is paid for every member of the family and is calculated every year on the basis of the country’s financial situation. The amount given should be enough to feed a person in a humble restaurant for one day. This year the amount is TL 15 in Turkey. In most Western countries the amount is fixed at $10. Fitrah cannot be given to a member of one’s family. It creates solidarity in the society and helps share the richer Muslims’ feeling of joy with their poorer brothers and sisters.
 
Published on Today's Zaman, 05 August 2011, Friday

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