LAST weekend, our Muslim brothers and sisters completed their annual 30-day obligatory fasting in the month of Ramadan and went out in their best clothes to pray to Almighty Allah, Most Gracious and Most Merciful, for a successful spiritual exercise in the Eid-ul-Fitr, or Feast of Breaking of the Fast.
WHILE we on Today congratulate all Muslims in Ghana, Africa and worldwide, the message is not lost on us that the annual ritual of fasting is both a spiritual and moral exercise which must have manifestations in the lives and relationships of each Muslim who undertakes it if the process is to have any significance for that individual.
THAT is why in this era when corruption and misappropriation are drowning our country it is necessary to look at the significance of that universal exercise in the light of helping us reduce and, possibly, eliminate corruption, by which public officials and their culprit cronies are milking Ghana dry to their criminal benefit.
THE fast is a spiritual exercise mandatory for every Muslim or one who practises Islam or submission to Allah. Apart from the fact that denying oneself too much food could help one get closer to God in prayer, if one focuses on God in the duration, there is another social morality angle to it.
ACCORDING to the Hadiths or tradition – acts, saying, etc., – of the Prophet Mohammed (PBUH), denying oneself food also helps one to know how hunger really is, so that when someone comes to your doorstep and says I am hungry, please give me some food, you, by yourself, know how hunger is like, and will hence have personal basis to oblige the one.
HOWEVER, since fasting is also a spiritual exercise the entire ritual has a moral angle too. For if through God’s message the prophet (PBUH) calls us to Islam in which God has set out for us a way that obliges us to live a righteous life then the way every Muslim is called to walk upon is also one of moral uprightness.
IT is thus worrisome that we have so many Muslims in Ghana, and particularly in political circles and in national administration and even close to the president, and also in so many responsible positions in public office, and yet corruption goes on each day and no one seems to care.
WE on Today hope that the just-ended fast would bring each of our Muslim brothers and sisters in public office to the realisation that each of us has a role to play in stopping and reducing the canker of corruption. If he or she does it, it is time to realise, just like our Christian and Traditionalist brothers and sisters, that it is time to stop the immoral act.
ALSO, if he or she sees others doing it, it is time to ask them to stop. That may sound funny in today’s world where immoral people have invented all sorts of derogatory epithets to describe and ridicule people who want things to be done right and according to laws that inure to our collective benefit.
IT thus becomes instructive to all to realise that children in a village far away or even close to Accra have no proper school buildings and so study under trees, because public officials steal so much money, and there are inadequate drugs or old almost-unusable equipment or logistics in our hospitals for the same reason.
WE therefore call on our Muslim brothers and sisters to use this period immediately after the fast to reflect on the fortunes of Ghana and see if they like what they see as our common lot – tough and deteriorating economic conditions, a three-year-old dum-sor, dum-sor that has no end in sight, a national administration that is clueless about how to begin solving our problems.
IF not, and if in their heart of hearts each of them cares about this country enough to love to be called a citizen of the Republic of Ghana, then let him or her decide to make his or her life the beginning of the collective change that will eventually rescue Ghana and make it a place in which we can realise our dreams of better life for all.
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