'are you fasting?'
“Are you fasting?”
“I’ll think about it.”
“So that means no. You said the same thing this morning.”
One parent held a look of resignation, the other of indignation, like how could our son not fast.
“You should fast. Tell him.” She turned to her husband.
I should fast? Ha
“He’s going to his grave alone. As are all of us.”
“At least tell me this. Are you still Muslim?”
Silence. “Yes.”
I’m not Muslim though. Not your kind. I don’t follow rituals blindly. Sorry. Oops. Guess that makes me a terrible human. Sorry, but maybe you don’t really know what being human means though. Guess that makes me a terrible Muslim. To follow rituals with no meaning. To pray all the whilst focused on what’s happening around you. Focused on everything but the prayer. So much so that you snort at jokes while in the middle of worshipping. I wonder what your Allah thinks about that. Not focused on your kind of rituals. I actually predicted this and turns out, you went above and beyond. A friend asked me a day before Ramadan started, ‘are you fasting?’ ‘Probably not’ I replied. He proceeded to tell me his concern about how Muslims would do it in the middle of this crisis. My response?
‘I mean the privileged will do it like they always do it.
By sleeping through the actual fast
And staying up all night
As for the daily wage earners, they barely have any food anyways’
Well, guess what. You lot woke up at one thirty in the afternoon. The fast began at four fifteen in the morning. It ended at six thirty in the evening. Do the math. Sleep for nine hours. Fast through four. Oh, I forgot the evening naps. What are you even fasting for? So no. I’m not Muslim. Not your kind. The one that is filled with envy, and pride, and greed. The kind of Muslim that practices Islam, and domestic abuse, and backbiting, and gossip, and slander, and lies. The kind of Muslim that can’t raise a single well adjusted child. The kind of Muslim that enforces their opinion on others. No, sorry. I’m not Muslim. I was born into your creed of Muslim. I’m not it anymore. I turned away from your ‘light’. Sure, I have my sins. Sure, I’ve done things that your society rejects, even as they beat up old men for eating food during the fast. But you think that makes me worse than you? Boy, what a gaggle. You really have a rich version of what being a Muslim means. I believe in Islam. I am a proponent of the first kalma. Sure, I’ll mock the religion sometimes. But really, it’s the people, your people. You people. That I’m making fun of. I have nothing against the Good Lord or His Messenger. Look, caps. I know how important that is to you. Ritual, right? Who cares about being a good person, when you can mindlessly follow rituals without the meaning behind them. Every year at eid prayer, the mullah talks about the sacrifice made by Ibrahim and the meaning behind it. Every year, you lovingly consume mountains of goat flesh. A genocide every year. What about the saying ‘do not make your stomachs a graveyard for the flesh of animals.’ No, but we believe in selective religion, right? Let me explain your religion to you. Since you’re so blind to your own hypocrisy. Your version of religion is selective. Your version condones hypocrisy, backbiting, slander, gossip, abuse, discrimination, mockery, cheating, murder. Your religion forbids missing any of the prayers, or god forbid, any of the fasts. No alcohol, no pork. Sorry to tell you this, but that’s not Islam. Let your kalashnikov wielding prophets know.