There are good men behaving badly in the name of religion.
#SliceofGasant columnist Gasant Abarder explains how his own journey over the last month of fasting in Ramadan has awoken a spiritual consciousness that won’t be shaken by the angry men of the faith community.
There are two people you should never mess with. The one is the barber about to shave your neck with a cutthroat blade. The other is a law enforcement officer pumped up on toxic masculinity who just pulled you over.
The guys who cut my hair and fix my wannabe beard at the barber shop are pleasant fellows. They will re-do your haircut with no hassles if you ask nicely after showing you that your poorly conceived instructions for your coif didn’t work. This is generally true of Pakistani barbers and Bangladeshi shopkeepers. They’re among the friendliest around.
But they won’t put up with abuse and why should they? They’ll give as good as they get.
I was flabbergasted when a fellow Muslim man in the chair next to mine at Abid Barber in Imam Haron Road started abusing the chap who was about to give him a shave. The barber was also fasting and it was the last day of Ramadan. He looked embarrassed when his customer told him: ‘I need you to be careful because the last time you guys did a kak job of shaving my beard. Just don’t shave kak again.’
On Eid, I was on the end of a dirty look, a scowl and a telling off by a fellow congregant because I didn’t move fast enough into a space before prayers. This was meant to be a joyous morning to mark the end of 30 days of fasting and I felt I had reached a higher level of spiritual consciousness.
I had considered fasting the six days of Shawaal – the month that follows Ramadan. The religious authorities made me feel decidedly less enthusiastic after issuing a fatwa with 1 001 conditions for fasting the six days of Shawaal.
When Eid was held, it was also a point of contestation. When I was a boy, the Muslim leaders had a disagreement about when the holiday should be celebrated, leading to half of the community celebrating with Makkah and the rest after sighting the moon locally. It has been going on for almost 40 years with families being torn apart.
The day after Eid I was at Friday Jumuah prayers and had to sit through a fire and brimstone sermon where the Imam was giving another 1 001 reasons why I would end up in hell. I had been looking to enhance my higher spiritual consciousness with inspiration, but it was not to be.
I am grateful none of these incidents have shaken my faith. I am grateful that being an angry man is not a pre-requisite to serve Allah. I am grateful that I have the intellect to discern between human overzealousness and divinity. I am grateful that I don’t have to trash other religions to validate my own faith.
In fact, the Qu’ran, the Bible and the Torah – known as the People of Abraham or the People of the Book – speak highly of the Prophet Moses. By all accounts, Moses was a sceptic and an angry, impatient man. But his God still chose him to spread the divine message and entrusted him with powers to defeat Pharoah. The more God loved Moses, the more his heart thawed and this gave way to compassion.
There are examples of God’s mercy for all to see if you are receptive. I was particularly touched when a man on the margins of society, who turned his back on the prison gangs, gave willingly during Ramadan. Magadien Wentzel had a new pair of donated boots to give a girl footballer I coach. He walks several kilometres to collect treats to spread much-needed cheer to the children of Manenberg over Christmas and Easter. Surely, this is an act of worship too?
South Africa, as SAFM presenter Ashraf Garda this week remarked, has 99 problems but religious intolerance isn’t one of them. We’re blessed to enjoy religious pluralism and interfaith in our society. We are civilised and a far cry from a country like France that has all but banned being Muslim.
Read your Qu’ran, go to church and observe the Passover as your Lord has commanded you. But go beyond the angry man stereotype most religions are straight-jacketed against and allow your faith to unearth the humanity we have forgotten. We dare not take our religious freedom for granted.
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Picture: David McEachan / Pexels
