Last Word

From animated sparkling stars to a smiling moon, Ramadan E-Greetings have added a new dimension to convey Eid wishes. Welcome to the fairytale style of saying Ramadan Mubarak.


The internet boom has changed the life and lifestyles of many across the world. It has also changed the way people greet each other. In seconds, one can now send greetings for any occasion to family, friends and relatives in any part of the globe.


Yet the good old way of buying a greeting card at a card shop, signing it and dropping it into the red post box has its own beauty. I still prefer this traditional style. But as they say, one has to keep pace with the times. Probably it is a bit too much to expect from your friends, to hop across to a card shop, buy the card, sign it and then drop it in the post box. So let’s accept this with grace. It’s the age of E-Greetings.


A quick survey of some of the Ramadan greetings found in Cyberspace indicates that the creators of these greetings do have immense aesthetic sense. The popular ones like the Yahoo Greetings have stuck to traditional imagery-like the postcard types…a shining sun followed by Ramadan wishes. Most of the greetings here are philosophical. It’s all about life and the beauty of nature and a brief Ramadan wish.


The Islamic web-sites have all the dazzle and the sparkle. You can choose from the animated versions. A really pretty one has the moon slowly sailing up behind the minarets of a mosque. There is a castle like structure and two little boys float towards each other and shake hands wishing Ramadan Mubarak and Eid Mubarak.


Each card takes one into the fairytale world of twinkling stars, super-white moon with a smile on its face and illuminated mosques. Most of the e-cards have the Quranic verses supporting the imagery.


Iftar and Suhoor wishes seem to be the new addition to the e-cards trend. A year ago, these were not in sight. A kettle and tea-cup placed against a background of a bunch of fresh roses is the ideal setting for Suhoor greetings. The ceramic cutlery-spoons and plates in the picture add the ethnic touch. The Iftar card carries a bowl of fruits, dates and juice glasses with the “ Happy Iftar” wishes sliding across the screen.


An interesting aspect of these Ramadan e-greetings is the fact that the greetings have been made for each group-friends, family, relatives and even for the colleagues.


But the winner among all the e-greetings this year seems to be the one I found with a random click on “ramadan greetings” on google. It was an animated little face with a cap-(too small for his head), plonking himself on the table laid with colourful food, picking up a piece of sticky Bombay halwa and chomping away on it happily. Between big bites of the halwa, he wishes you-Ramadan Mubarak. The headline promptly reads- “ From Fasting to Feasting!” I suggest you reserve this card for your best friend.


While e-greetings have helped bond people together across the world, just be prepared for a hurdle or a hitch here and there. After all, technology can go haywire any time. It happened once when I tried opening an eid –e-card-it said “card opening”- It had some Mughal era type animated gates with stars hanging here and there, that had to open and the wishes were supposed to be read. After a wait for 10 minutes only one gate opened. It was Happy Ramadan with a comical twist anyway!

In Ramadan 1979, during my first visit back to Palestine since the ’67 expulsion, my cousin and I, became the Ramadan drummers of Beit Hanina.


The holy month of Ramadan is once again upon us, and its fasting. Muslims will fast from sun-up till sun down, abstaining from food, water, and intimate relationships.


Each year around this time, my memories of Ramadan in our small village of Beit Hanina, a suburb of Jerusalem which was still without electricity, whereby people carried lanterns to light their way in the darkness as they went first to the mosque and from there to visit friends and family: a special part of Ramadan, are once again rekindled.


Beit Hanina had a drummer, charged with the pre-dawn task of awakening the village to suhoor, the light meal whose end marked the beginning of each day’s fast. Closing my eyes and thinking real hard, still brings back the sound of Beit Hanina’s drummer banging away, and the delightful memories of joining the other children, carrying our decorated fanoosia lanterns with candles burning brightly inside them, as we ran along behind the drummer, singing, laughing and shouting to help awaken the sleeping adults and start them on suhoor and their new day. How I admired the drummer; how I wanted his job and to share his fun.


In Ramadan 1979, my first visit back to Palestine since the ’67 expulsion, my cousin and I, both 18 and living in the US, finally became the Ramadan drummers of Beit Hanina. The Israeli invasion of 1967 and the subsequent occupation made the drummers’ job very high risk and today they are scarce: Ramadan drummers were often stopped, even beaten, and some have been killed by the Israeli occupying army.


By 1979, the village had not enjoyed a drummer in 5 years, so my cousin and I delighted in our job of walking through the village each morning banging away on large tin cans. It must have been a very humorous sight: the elderly were happy to hear us; the younger people thought we were a great joke and made fun of the ‘bored Americans’. But everyone agreed that we had renewed some “life” that had been lost as we broke through the dark still nights of Ramadan. For me, however briefly, I was transported back to a happy childhood whose memories had never left me for a moment.


I still remember sitting by the family’s transistor radio with my siblings listening to the special programs as we awaited the “cannon” to go off, signaling that it was time to break our fast. The “cannon” was a World War I era English relic and merely made a loud bang, which was all that it, was good for.


Ever since my children were very small, I had regaled them with the many stories of my childhood in Palestine, enjoying the look of fascination on their faces as they implored me to tell them yet “another story of when you were young in Palestine”…


This past summer, I took my children to visit the grave of my grandmother which is located on a hillside cemetery, off Salah Eddin Street in the Old City. The cemetery is actually located inside the boundaries of the Palestinian village of Lifta which was ethnically cleansed of its Palestinian inhabitants, which included my wife’s family, by the Zionists in 1948. Many people, including my grandmother and her family members are buried there, although now it is considered part of Jerusalem.


As we made our way through the cemetery gates and up the hill so that we could read Al-Fatiha, which is the opening verse of the Quran at her graveside, I noticed an old rusty cannon sitting on the top of the hill, virtually buried beneath the overgrown weeds. I decided to head up the hill and take a closer look. Much to my surprise, the cannon was an exact copy of the very same cannon that I had remembered as a youth. I called my children up the hill and showed them the cannon, surmising that the cannon was used to alert the residents of Jerusalem when to break their fast before the city fell under Zionist control.


During Ramadan, my mother would always invite friends and relatives to our home to break the fast with us. As Muslims, we are obligated to share breaking our fast with others, especially those less fortunate than us. It is considered a blessing to do so. It is something that we continue to do here in America as we invite friends and loved ones to share in our blessing on this holy Month, the essence of which are a time of prayer, fasting, and charity.


Some of the best memories that I carry with me are connected to the month of Ramadan in Palestine when I was a child. The closeness and feeling of “community” that I felt during those times is something that is almost beyond description. The sound of the drummer, the Muezzin call to prayer, the static emanating from the transistor radio, the “boom” of the cannon, the enticing aroma of the special foods that we only ate during Ramadan, the sight of families huddled together on a mat covered floor around the evening meals, illuminated by the flickering light of a kerosene lantern, enjoying their meals, as humble as it may have been, in the company of family and loved ones.


These are my memories of Ramadan before the Israeli invasion and subsequent brutal and inhumane occupation which has destroyed many families and communities and is now in the process of causing further havoc as Israel continues to erect its Apartheid Walls, checkpoints, and roadblocks which have reduced many Palestinian villages and cities to nothing more than walled off ghettos and open air prisons.


Unfortunately, these will constitute the next generation of Palestinian children’s memories and experiences. (Palestine Monitor)

Allah, most exalted, detains the unbelievers on the Day of Judgement and keeps them at a distance from His Forgiveness and Mercy.


“We swept the evil-doers away like withered leaves.” (23:41).


This is a just punishment because, when His Light has come to them in the Messages of the Prophet, they have stayed far away from it.


In this life, people are sometimes detained and held back by the will of Allah, from attaining whatever they want, whenever they want. The timing of the events is His privilege.


Most important of all is the timing of the person’s death. “ Your day is already appointed. You cannot put it back by a single hour, nor put it forward.” (34:30).