My Little Ramazan - Day Fourteen

Tues 24th August 2010

Well, Ramazan has brought Mustafa and I to our first conflict situation. Not a conflict of the plate throwing and sleeping on the sofa variety, but a quiet conflict of disappointed glances and long silences. And, as we all know, sometimes that can be worse.

The good thing is that we’ve finally been reunited. This reunion involved stretching out in front of the TV at a late hour, arming ourselves with tea and biscuits and watching a trashy film. As per usual our movie viewing was punctuated by mini-chats and remarks about the day. You know the kind of thing. Business is slow. Rain in August is unfair. The toddler ate a crayon. But then Ramazan cropped up. As we’ve been little more than passing ships in the night, and as Mustafa knew I’d had a lady problem which meant I had to drink water, he’d assumed that I had stopped Ramazan altogether. “You drink water sweetheart, there is no point. That is not point of Ramazan”.

He said I could, if I wanted, build up a kind of Ramazan debt, meaning I could pay back those days of non-fasting at a later date, after the Ramazan period. He says it happens all the time. If a person gets ill for example, but they still want to complete their sacred ritual, they can wait until they are ship-shape again and choose exactly when and where they want to do it. And they don’t have to do it in a continuous succession of days, they can dot them about or string them together however they fancy. “We can do together,” Mustafa explained, “We can choose days after Ramazan.”

Forgive me if this didn’t cause a feeling of excitement to well up inside of me. The suggestion was just not floating my boat. I mean, how kind of Allah to provide people with this lending facility, a kind of interest free Ramazan overdraft. But I don’t bank with Allah, do I? I’m a Lloyds TSB girl and that overdraft is already being happily utilized.

If I’m honest, right from the start, I’ve thought going without water is just plain madness. But, as the ever loving wife, I gave it a go, just to understand what my husband was going through. And, as I expected, it was plain madness. Not only did it cause nasty bacteria to form in my precious bladder and give me horrendous peeing issues, but it made me feel terrible. Lethargic, moody, prone to headaches and lacking any spark I might usually have. I did not feel my inner soul was being cleansed, I did not feel my heart was being purified. If anything, there was some actual resentment going on. And waking eighteen times a night to down tumblers of water, not to mention the frequency of night time toilet trips, was not doing me any favours either.

And I have a little boy who still needs mummy’s attention. A little boy who still wakes up at the same hour and still has an unrivalled amount of energy. So how do you continue to be Super Mum without regular hydration? The answer is, you don’t.

I explained to Mustafa that I am still demonstrating self discipline. I am not indulging in tea, coffee, fizzy pop, or any other non-essential beverage. I have even ditched the cranberry juice. It’s water all the way. And food does not feature in my day at all, aside from serving it up for my son. I understand that if an actual genuine Muslim were to turn round and announce he/she was going to drink water during Ramazan, that it would absolutely not be accepted. But here I am, a girl of my own individual faith, finding my own individual way, and this is the best I can do.

It reminds me of the time I was visiting Mustafa’s home town in Eastern Turkey during the time of Winter Bayram, a Turkish festival which involves slaughtering a sheep, cooking it, eating it, and offering it to poor families. Now, I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this before, but I’m a vegetarian and vegetarians are not a recognized breed in Eastern Turkey, as you may have guessed. Considering he’d been with me for approximately two years by this point, I did not understand what was going through Mustafa’s head when he assumed I’d be there for the ritual slaughtering of the sheep. And this Ramazan thing, really, raises the same point. I am interested in the religion, I support my husband in his faith, but I will never be able to go all the way.

So now we’re about halfway through the Ramazan calendar, I think I have found the way in which I want to press forward. And that’s the beauty of being the master of your own faith. I can decide on my own rituals, my own sacred commitments. And because I was forced to sing the hymn ‘Water of Life’ to the inexplicable tune of ‘Rupert the Bear’ during school assemblies as a child, I will choose that as my compromise. Water of Life.