Tariq Ramadan – Chronicles of Ramadan #13 To see The witnesses

Peace be with you.

We talked about

the the way we have to

listen to the world. And as I said

at the beginning,

we have to listen to ourself

and to listen to the world and to

listen

to the people around us. We talked about

listening to the voices coming from the excluded

people, coming from the oppressed, coming from the

people around us, and to listen to ourself.

Now there is another dimension, which has not

to do with listening,

but to see, to look at, to look

at the world, and to have this deep

understanding that through this way of looking at

the world, this is the way for us

to bear witness. We know that what we

have to do as a human being, as

a believer, is to bear witness to the

message.

You have to be witness to the message

to the truth before people. This is what

we are expected to do,

in the world. Now

to be a witness,

it's important to

make a difference within our society.

God to come close to him. The rituals,

the way we pray, for example. When we

start praying, we have to separate ourself

from the world and to enter to into

this vertical dimension to come close to god.

When we are giving a zakat, we have

to separate ourselves from money in order to

purify the rest that is with

us. When we fast, we have to avoid

drinking and eating in order to purify our

body, and we do exactly the same with

the pilgrimage. We separate ourselves.

This separation

is helping us to look

differently to what we have and who we

are.

By this separation,

we understand

what we are living and who we are,

and we appreciate

the very nature

of who we are and what we have

to bring to the world. And it should

be exactly with our fellow human beings

to separate ourselves

from the way the people are dealing with

the reality in order for them to see,

to look at something which is different, the

spiritual way. So a kind of

separating

yourself

from the bad

habits

that you have within your society, the bad

way of dealing with the society,

the bad way the people are dealing with

themselves

in order to become a witness and to

be witness to the very

deep spiritual message of Islam with its light,

which is

messaged to the world. This is something which

is essential for us.

So the very meaning of

repair

has to do with the deep meaning of

bearing witness

to the message before

our fellow brothers and sisters and humanity. And

we have to think about this because at

the end of the day, if you want

to repair,

be able to be seen

as someone who is bringing

something good to the world.

Don't forget to tell the people you love

that you love them. Life is

fragile.