Ramadan Reflection

I don’t remember her name, but I can tell you every detail of her face. Her eyes were dark, shiny, and as shy as the smile on her chapped lips. Her round face was tanned and flushed cheeks roughened by the heat of the sun. She was around my age—eight or nine. The first time I met her was at the doorstep of our house in northern Iraq. She was hiding behind her older sister and I was hiding behind my mother.

The second and last time I saw her this close to me was at the school courtyard. The school offered two shifts,  morning and afternoon, and I would sometimes see her walking through the gate alone, her big eyes looking bashfully at the ground as I ran to catch the school bus home. But that day, something was different. She was looking straight ahead, and even stranger, was smiling with pride. I could see joyful curl of her lips from the opposite end of the courtyard, and I could also see my old leather school bag across her shoulder.

As I made my way to the school gate, I heard a group of boys talking and laughing loudly –nothing unusual. But I looked around anyway, and what I saw was a return to normalcy. Eyes cast firmly on the ground, lips devoid of life, and tears making their way down her parched cheeks. 

It was a split second decision, and for me, a shy and quiet third grader, an unusual and scary one. I ran towards the mocking voices, and forgetting my timidity, yelled at them with a high-pitched voice that drove them into a fit of laughter. I didn’t care. I placed my arm around her and urged her not to listen to the bullies, as if that was possible. I remember her quiet tears, the cry of a person accustomed to pain and harassment. And I remember her walking towards the concrete wall for support, where I soon left her so I could catch the school bus home.

Noor. Light. Luminosity.  I’ll call her Noor because it’s my favorite Arabic name and I want to give her a lovely name that matches her beautiful heart.

Noor was an orphan. Without mother or father to support them, Noor’s oldest sister had quit school to provide for her four siblings.  While I ate, played, complained, and slept in my parent’s house, Noor’s sister was at work, trying to feed and shelter her young brothers and sisters.

I think about Noor and her family often, especially during Ramadan. Maybe it’s hunger that makes the hands of time linger a little longer at every second and leaves us pondering life more than we usually do. I don’t know where they are now or even if they’re alive. I hope to God they’re alive, and happy. God, please let them be happy.

During this month, we need little cajoling to remember the less fortunate. But I hope that we will do more than just remember for a short time and forget for a long while. Let us do what we can, every day for the rest of our lives, to stand in solidarity with the oppressed, Muslim or non-Muslim, confront injustice, however minor, or donate time, money, or both to a deserving cause. It is with these actions that our heavy hearts begin to shed the burden of apathy and soften in the presence of our Creator.

God doesn’t need our fasts or our prayers –we all know this.  He’s given us a month-long chance to attain the highest morals of humanity, and for this, we can never be thankful enough. 

“The Believers, men and women, are protectors one of another: they enjoin what is just, and forbid what is evil: they observe regular prayers, practice regular charity, and obey Allah and His Messenger. On them will Allah pour His mercy: for Allah is Exalted in power, Wise.” (9:71)

-- AK