Over the darkening grass the first fireflies of the season open and shut their tiny green Ramadan lanterns. Fragrant quiet night enters the garden; it is an hour after sundown and the end of a long twilight. As the Holy Month of Ramadan unfolds, flowers and fruits, we Muslims wait to harvest its sweet promise of Mercy, with our prayers. The Last Ten Days surround us like tall trees sighing in the wind; Revelation buzzes in the humid night air like a bee, invisible but felt. Yes, we can feel hope and faith in the Unseen.
Meanwhile a Muslim girl is abducted and killed in Virginia. A van crashes into a crowd leaving a mosque in London.
This happens only days after a Muslima artist from Ghana dies choking in her London tower block, after a Syrian refugee on the next floor, exhausted from coughing, sends his sad last words on Facebook to the world, while all around them frightened families are waiting for help that never comes. Fire rises. But Human help is so uncertain to succeed.
And with suffering increasing from Mosul to Miami, from Mexico to Moscow and Maungdaw, human mercy seems in markedly short supply. The night air fills with alarms and acrid smoke. When will humanity breath again in peace?
I admit it: I too embrace business as usual. For me this means an untidy house and too many anxious hours following the bad news of the world’s problems online. For others, business as usual may mean family tensions, or terrible governmental policies based on impulse and half-truth. Is there no escape from the disastrous status quo? From disorderly habits and confused impulses that prevent us from quick and right response to the tests we face?
Perhaps there is a way to transform bad habits through prayer, though humble opening up to other people and to the greater Truth and Reality of Allah. But you and I make excuses, don’t we… we would flee battle to take care of something suddenly terribly important. It is not only the Banu Qurayza tribe that betrays, and breaks the Covenant. And indeed I betray my better self constantly; as promises are broken, I leave a trail of invisible wreckage. If I could hear each promise shattering as I move through my day, I’d really know my life as the war zone it is.
Bringing peace, justice and order to our own lives is our inner jihad and grounds our call to serve humanity. And so in the midst of disaster the fireflies wink their signs of hope, one and off. God sends His Signs, in Nature and in the Quran. We can remember, and try to recognize them. We can learn to perceive mercy even in disaster, as the day follows night and the stars twinkle over the grass. We can embrace the laws that hold us together in life and love.
From the Preserved Tablets the mystery of knowledge and faith descend on all nations, peoples and tribes. Am I here on earth to dispute with them? Who am I to judge? Am I ready to share my meal with them or do I prefer the butter harvest of tears, hate, and fear to the fruit of Revelation?
This Ramadan many, many Muslims around the world took the opportunity to invite Jews, Christians, People of all backgrounds, into the mosques, to their iftar tables. For some, this action was organized as a peaceful response to the anti-Muslim rallies taking place across the USA on June 10. For others, this was the new business as usual, showing clearly Muslim love to neighbor and our hospitality even to the stranger.
We Muslims can face trouble with patience. Do we have any choice? So many traps along the way to a peaceful world—some of them may even explode. But what “All the Kings horses and all the King’s men” cannot put back together, Tawbah can. But Tawbah-repentance is not negative, and is not depressed self-loathing. Tawbah is a new realization. Therefore, readers, in that spirit, let’s all open windows and doors to the light and hope and fragrance of the coming day.
And what comes next, after Ramadan? Look to the fireflies, hear what they say.
Posted By: Adem Carroll
Adem Carroll is currently New York and United Nations Program Director for Burma Task Force USA. With a background in human rights advocacy, Adem worked for five years for Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA Relief) after the 9/11 terror attacks. There he directed a program providing emergency legal and financial help to over 825 detainees and their families after 9/11. Adem was also founder of Muslim Consultative Network (now called Muslim Community Network) in late 2003 and served as Chairman and later as Executive Director, directing the Nafis Salaam anti-smoking program for Muslim community in partnership with Islamic Medical Association of North America. Adem is or has been an active steering committee member of several interfaith coalitions, including the Metro New York Religious Campaign Against Torture; the Flushing Interfaith Council; and New York Disaster Interfaith Services. He has worked as a visiting professor and written papers for conferences including the Duke-UNC Graduate Islamic Studies Conference and International Center for Ethno-Religious Mediation (ICERM) conference. He writes also for Muslim publications and served as producer of Global Movements Urban Struggles on WBAI radio from 2004 through 2014.