Mustafa Khattab – Taste Of Ramadan 2015
AI: Summary ©
AI: Transcript ©
Michael. Hello. Hello.
Hello.
Hello. Hello. Hi.
Helena is the audience. Yes?
Hi, everyone. May I get your attention, please?
Peace be with you.
To all of our honored guests, welcome. My
name is Loujena Satya, and I will be
your emcee for this evening.
We are delighted to have you today to
take part in our 2nd annual Feast of
Ramadan hosted by the Islamic Society of Saint
Catherine's.
Ramadan is a month where Muslims from all
over the world observe fasting if they are
able to for 30 days.
This means abstaining from food and drink from
dawn till sunset.
This special month is a time of devotion,
perseverance, unity, and giving to those in need.
We thank you sincerely for taking the time
to celebrate and break bread with us. We're
running a little bit behind schedule, so, there's
a, short breakdown of the,
of the schedule.
So the imam will be our first speaker
to come and give, short remarks.
Then we also have a talk by sister
Jenna, reflections on Ramadan.
We have a talk by brother Abarista, fasting
not furious.
And we have a poem by brother Abdul
Abu Bakr al Ruth,
what is Ramadan.
Okay? Without further delay, at 9 o'clock, the
call for prayer will be called. We'll, break
our fast with light food and water, then
we'll go pray and we'll come and
and enjoy a nice meal. Okay?
It is in this spirit of interfaith relation
that I would like to call on our
imam, doctor Mustafa Khattab to share his short
remarks.
Good evening, everyone. I'm happy to see you
again.
I'm gonna keep it short. I have only,
2 minutes. Okay? It's hard for a speaker
to speak only for 2 minutes. Those of
you who are priests and ministers, they know
what I'm talking about. Right?
So I'm gonna talk about,
my understanding for of the month of Ramadan
growing up as a child in a small
village in Egypt.
And when I was about 6, 7 years
old, I received my first lesson from my
father.
He never he had never been to school.
My father, my mother were not educated.
All members of my family to the best
of my knowledge, I'm the the first educated
person in the history of my family. Okay?
But still I learned a lot from my
parents,
who were not to school.
My father
was a businessman. He was a farmer but
he was also a businessman. We used to
sell stuff like cows and buffalos and
and goats and sheep and stuff. And some
of the people who came to do business
with my father were non Muslim from neighboring
towns and villages. Right?
So
some of them,
it happened that they came in Ramadan. Right?
During the day of Ramadan. Everyone in the
house was fasting,
so my father
asked my mother to to, prepare lunch for
the guests. Right? So they're sitting there, they
were eating a good meal, they had tea
after, although everyone in the house was was
was fasting.
So that was the spirit. Then something interesting
happened when they concluded the, the business transaction.
I think the man was buying a buffalo
or a cow from my father.
It was the tradition in the village
for
the buyer and the seller
to recite the first chapter of the Quran.
It's like the Lord's prayer in English. It
just, like, four lines.
And I remember
the Christian
buyer recited the first chapter of the Quran
with my father. So for me, that was
something interesting. This is the spirit of the
month of Ramadan. It's about compassion.
It's about love. It's about integrity.
I also call it the spirit of Nancy
Macintosh, who is among us tonight. Where is
Nancy? Yes. She's right there.
About 4 months ago,
it was very cold outside. I was on
Welland Avenue. I've told the story account countless
times, but I never get bored of telling
the story. I'm gonna be done. Hi there.
So I got only 1 minute.
So
the next morning after the, Charlie Ipdo shooting
in France,
I was sending my son off to school.
I was standing on Willan Avenue. It was
very cold in the morning. I think it
was snowing, snowing slightly.
Then a green car pulled over,
then this wonderful lady
stepped out of the car. She came toward
me and she said, you know, I heard
about what happened yesterday in France, and I
don't blame you. I love and respect Muslims,
and I I think you have nothing to
do with this, and I love and respect
your family. Because she saw my wife, you
know, with the kids, all the time.
Later I got a hug. Okay?
And, when I told my wife I met
this lady, and she gave me the hug,
and she said, okay, you know, how old
is the lady?
And I said she's old enough to be
my my older sister.
But, again, I thank
Nancy and her husband, Randall,
for,
displaying this spirit of the month of Ramadan.
Right? And I'm gonna give you a small
gift, some dates. This is a traditional food
we have in the month of Ramadan, so
please accept this gift from me.
Thank you.
I greet you today with the Islamic greeting
and welcome all of you on this special
evening, including our religious leaders and community leaders.
As we gather here to break our fast
during this sacred month, I will be informing
you a bit more about fasting in the
month of Ramadan.
Now what exactly does it mean to fast?
Now I'm sure many of you know fasting
is abstaining from eating and drinking.
But for Muslims, fasting has a much bigger
meaning.
Fasting is abstaining from all evil actions, such
as lying, backbiting, and cheating.
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says in the Quran
about fasting,
Oh you who believe,
decreed upon you is fasting as it has
been decreed upon those before you, so you
may become righteous.
From this verse, we understand that fasting was
something that was done even before the time
of prophet Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wa sallam.
But it must be noted that fasting is
not something unique to Muslims only. But many
Christians and Jews fast on several occasions.
Now when a Muslim fasts,
the mind, soul, heart, and senses
rise to elevated places by the means of
fasting.
Although the stomach may begin to cry, they
will continue to smile innocently.
Now, I've been fasting for about 9 years,
and one of the moments I cherish the
most is when one of my younger siblings
tried to fast. We were all sitting gathered
in a room, most of us were fasting,
and my younger my younger sister, she was
also trying to fast with us. She left
the room and went to the kitchen and
started eating started eating blueberries.
She returned and her face and clothing was
filled with blueberry juice. I started to laugh
and smile.
What what happened? I thought you were fasting.
She smiled and said, I thought we were
allowed to do so. My dad then came
in smiling and said, it's okay. As long
as she didn't mean it, then she can
continue.
From this, I understood how our religion was
based on forgiveness.
I also cherished the beautiful nights that I
would spend with my parents and family when
we gathered at the dinner table to break
our fast.
I felt so grateful to live in a
peaceful country, this country, Canada, where I could
eat in peace and could have dinner on
the table every night. Now I'm gonna talk
a bit about the month of Ramadan.
Ramadan is the 9th month of the Hijdi
calendar or lunar calendar. It is the month
in which the first revelation was sent down
on prophet Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wa sallam.
Many Muslims gather after Iftar or breaking up
the fast to pray taraweeh.
Many Muslims also share
Iftar together as we are doing so today.
Many Muslims also work to memorize and read
Quran throughout the month. Ramadan is a month
of sharing
as we are encouraged to feed the feed
the poor and hungry
and feed the fasting person as well. As
prophet Muhammad, sallallahu alaihi wa sallam, said, anybody
who offers the meal for the breaking of
a fast for a fasting person
receives the same reward as that person without
diminishing in the reward of that person.
Ramadan is a month of solidarity
in which we come together to feel how
those poor people feel every day.
Ramadan is a month of solidarity,
sharing,
and practicing good.
In this month, we get this chance only
once a year in which everything is greater
and the reward is higher. We get the
chance to open up a new page with
God to change our lives forever
by replacing our bad habits with good ones,
improving our relationships with others,
and
improving our relationships with others and changing our
personality as a whole. Finally, I'd like to
thank every single person here for coming. I
hope you enjoy your meal and get to
meet new people.
Once again, thank you for listening, and may
God bless you and your families.
Our next speaker would be brother of Warissa,
fasting not to raise.
Assalamu alaikum and howdy to the rest of
you. So,
I'm my name is Aburissa.
That's not my original name that I was
given when I was born, but I actually
converted to Islam a while ago.
What I'm gonna do,
right now is very briefly because, we're running
a little bit behind on our schedule. I'm
gonna take you back to a very long
time ago,
8 years,
back before I converted to Islam so that
maybe you can share in a little bit
of that story with me and a little
bit of the story of how I, learned
about fasting. So the first Ramadan I partook
in, I was not actually Muslim.
I just, fasted during Ramadan because I thought
it was an interesting thing to do and
I wanted to take part in, some of
the culture that other Canadians were sharing,
and
explore sort of what other people do in
other religions. This was a part of a
lifelong process of learning for me.
I learned religion not from my parents directly,
but actually from my stepmother.
It was the wife of my father who
taught me about religion, but she was a
Hindu. Now, she was under the impression that
no one could convert to Hinduism,
in her own, in her own belief,
because you would be born as a Hindu
if, if you were to be a Hindu.
So instead, she taught me, she taught, me
and my brothers a little bit of every
faith so that we could find whatever good
we could find and that later, maybe a
generation or 2, we could be Hindu.
So this was, how she taught us a
lot of different religions so that we could
find the best in whatever we possibly could.
Part of that was teaching us different, things
like meditation and fasting and things like this.
The first time I ever fasted, I fasted
according to, a certain,
method of Hindu fasting, because she taught me
how to do it this way. Now she
taught me other ways as well from other
faiths, but of course, she was most familiar
and comfortable with this method. So she explained
to me,
you don't
eat at all. Nothing.
And then you meditate and you pray through
the day in a certain way. And, you
also drink water, copious amounts of water through
the day. Now, the first time you do
this, do it for 24 hours.
And then, you know, when you wake up,
then break your fast, have something to eat,
drink more water. The second time you do
this, try to do it for 48 hours.
Don't eat a thing for 48 hours. Try
and do that. The 3rd time you do
this, try and do it for 3 days
straight. Do not eat anything.
Only drink water through the day for 3
days.
And so I,
I started fasting in this way when I
was young, about 16 years old.
And I started learning to sort of increase
the length of time that I could fast.
And we're talking about days at a time
without food.
And, but of course, I would drink water.
So
I I got to the point where I
could fast a number of days and I
had some friends of mine doing it with
me, for some of the time.
And, so I was learning how to fast
this way,
and I moved to France. When I was
in France,
I continued to fast this way for a
couple of months out of the year. I
would take a day or 2 days off.
3 days if I was really feeling, you
know, really,
really, overly proud of myself.
Because that sort of fasting really takes it
out of you. After 3 days of no
food whatsoever and only drinking water, you feel
pretty terrible.
And you you sort of try to meditate
and keep your mind off of anything at
all because everything,
is a little bit awful.
But,
so I learned,
this method of fasting until finally I moved
back to Alberta.
My father was living there, my stepfather was
living with him, my grandparents were living there.
And I decided I wanted to try something
a little bit different, try something a little
bit new, go in this vein of of
exploring other faiths,
and I wanted to fast Ramadan.
So what I did, I kinda broke the
news to them in in a less than
tactful way.
I said to them,
well, okay. So my father's here, my stepmother's
over here. And I said, well, you guys
know that, I've been fasting on and off
a little bit once in a while. They're
like, yeah. I was like, okay. Well,
in the summertime,
in about 2 weeks, I'm gonna be fasting
for 30 days.
And they were like, well, you're going to
die. That's
that's quite simple, you know,
because you can't do that,
to not eat for 30 days. And then
I explained, oh, it's for Ramadan. And, of
course, she understood, what Ramadan was my father
did not. So my father said, okay. Well,
you're gonna die in a different language. That's
fine.
But then we explained it to him. We
said, oh, no. The the method of fasting
is different. So
as Muslims, we break our fast every day.
So many of us eat the
the the normal amount of calories,
through the 24 hour period. Although, I would
say that maybe most of us actually eat
more during Ramadan
because,
as you'll see when this amazing food is
spread out before you, you have that encouragement
to maybe bump it over the 2,000 calorie
mark every night even though you don't fast
through the day. So I just wanted to
share with you guys, that, that experience that
I have reaching out to a number different
faiths and how,
how beneficial that it can be,
understanding one faith to prepare you for your
explorations later in life where you don't even
know whether you're going there yet.
So nowadays, I I find it fairly easy
for me to fast for only 17 hours
because I've done 72 hours before.
So, so, yeah, it's hard to fully understand
the benefits of this sort of gathering and
really understanding each other and understanding new cultures
with, without the hindsight of seeing how that
becomes helpful, later on in life. So I
just wanna welcome you here and thank you
for coming and learning from us and thank
you for giving us the opportunity as well
to learn from you. Thank you. Thank
you. Our last speaker for this evening is
brother of Booker.
If you can come and share your poem
with us.
Hi, everybody.
I'm a little bit nervous, so please forgive
me, but I make a mistake.
Only when you give thanks
during times of misfortunes is when you could
truly see the beauty in the world.
And only while being thankful,
only when being thankful,
while consumed by the things you ought to
be thankful for,
is when beauty shall truly radiate through your
soul.
So I give thanks
for everything that I have and all that
I've got to know.
Both good and evil, both joy and sorrow.
I even give thanks
for some things that we may think as
little,
as simple as being able to write and
recite this poem.
So I give
but truly,
I can't give enough thanks to god almighty
for allowing me to be
thankful.
All praise is due to the most merciful.
I thank god.
Every year we are given 30 days with
every single devil locked in chains.
So we are given 30 days full of
chances for change.
Our desires decrease, the thoughts in our minds
increase. We are thinking as fasting fastens and
stimulates our brains.
We may feel our body being weakened and
our breaths increasingly stink,
but our character only grows stronger when we
remain patient throughout the day.
And our mouths send out a most sweet
fragrance like that of the scent of musk
to the most great.
And as we break fast, we give thanks
for being able to eat what we have
while others are forced to continue fast because
they don't have
any food to break.
We then sacrifice
our night standing foot to foot to pray.
But as we tire, our connections to morality
and god
stay your way.
We are promised whoever fastest holy month with
intention for reward
will be forgiven with a near clear state.
Yes. This is a month for change.
It is said,
if you take one step towards god, he'll
take 10 towards you.
If you believe you have reduced the bad
in which you do, no matter how little,
then you have improved
and you have gained one of the blessings
of this month and hopefully your efforts will
blossom and flourish into something beautiful
and good.
May god give you strength.
The other day I asked my father,
how would you explain what Ramadan is like?
So he told me a story about my
grandfather from my mother's side.
Many Ramadans ago during the last night after
they had all rise for the hour to
praise the most high.
Many came to him and said to him
with absolute delight,
tomorrow is Eid here.
Tomorrow is Eid, the joyous celebration.
Ramadan is finally about to pass by. Isn't
that amazing?
We can't wait till daylight.
But upon hearing this,
being reminded that the most beloved month in
God's eyes is about to leave tonight, he
could only respond
with tears as he cried.
This month is about to pass by.
The most beloved in God's eyes,
have we tried,
have we truly cherished it more than we'd
like? Have we tried to put goodness and
actions through doing something kind?
Have we given enough charity to feed the
hungry
and made it a habit to smile?
Have we strengthened our character and morality
to help lead ourselves and others to better
lives?
Have we done enough to benefit our community,
our city, our country, and anyone who resides?
As simple as helping another with their groceries
or helping an elderly cross the street, maybe
picking up garbage gross and nasty, or a
cup that's empty, or something blocking the road
so it doesn't hinder those who drive.
Have we taken advantage
of doing any kind of good deed in
a month where reward is greatly multiplied.
Ramadan is a month
where you gain a habit of humility,
thanking God for as many blessings as you're
always thinking.
Ramadan
is a month of beauty,
one that purifies the light in your soul
and reflects it upon the world as it
shines brightly.
Ramadan is a month when we grow closer
to God.
For that, she deserves to be loved and
should be but the beginning of who we
could be.
Men and women with radiant characters
who continuously
work on their flaws making them even more
beautiful.
The start of a wonderful journey
that is Ramadan.