One of the choicest blessings of God Almighty upon Muslims is the holy month of Ramadhan and one of the best things about Ramadhan is that it is connotative of much more than merely thirty days of fasting. The days are a composite of numerous moments of blessings. Perhaps, the most remarkable shade of Ramadhan is that the Satan (devil) is caged and we are rendered face to face before God. Yet, there is no doubting the fact that even in Ramadhan, we retain the remnants of evil that buds in us all year long. But while some of us tend to overpass the evil tendencies in honour of the sacred month, most disappointingly, others cause sacrilege to it by sticking hard to their noxious doctrines and showing no flexibility or consideration whatsoever.
Even holding a pen between my fingers while writing this down seems to be a huge challenge because I might draw flak from a significantly large section of the society who might accuse me of ultraconservatism. Nevertheless, a writer is no less than a warrior and warriors ought to be fearless of the daggers pointed towards them. Getting straight to the point, I, like all other people of my faith was quite excited about the last ten days of Ramadhan. Calling these final days a ‘treat to the soul’ would be no understatement, especially, the blessed nights of the last ten days, wherein one has to seek the Night of Decree or the Night of Power- a night worth more than a thousand months – Al-Qura’an (Chapter 97, Verse no. 3). Although, the date of the special Night of Decree is not clearly specified but most cultures, including Kashmiris observe it on the 27th of Ramadhan – the night all the loudspeakers and mics are turned on as if the heavens are hard of hearing!
For people like me, grappling with the noise and striving hard to maintain their concentration in prayers, the 27th night of Ramadhan was spent. The next day, I woke up to find numerous posts on social media who had been equally irked by the din of the loudspeakers and mics like myself throughout the night. Then followed a series of religious dissension. Those opposing loudspeakers in mosques were accused of blasphemy and pejoratively called as Sonu Nigams of Kashmir, given the fact that the singer had once expressed his dissent towards the use of loudspeakers in religious places. On the other hand, most heart wrenchingly, some people had expressed the kind of exasperation their diseased and terminally ill family members had felt during the whole night struggling to find peace amid the cacophony. Meanwhile, mothers were complaining of how the clamour had made their sleepless infants cranky leading to disruption in their night prayers. All these comments and my own experience summoned the couplet of Allama Iqbal(R.A) in my mind –
Shourish se bhaagta hun, dil dhoondta hai mera
Aisa sakoot jis par taqreer bhi fida ho!
I seek escape from tumult, my heart aspires for
The silence(peace) which speech may ardently love!
Islam is not just a faith, it is a way of life. Above all, it teaches humanity and consideration even towards the tiniest of the creatures. And humanity is all about alleviating the pain of others instead of causing it. Mics and loudspeakers have become quite irksome in today’s world forming an integral part of all the private ceremonies and social festivities; but nothing can be more unfortunate than this that this menace has been even buttressed by our religious places. Prayer is a private affair between the Lord and His slave. It need not be broadcast through loudspeakers to assert devotion. Similarly, people do not have to advocate the use of loudspeakers in religious places to validate their religiosity. On top of this, the menacing loudspeakers are not only restricted to a particular day but continue to irk the student community and the ailing people throughout the year, getting even louder on Fridays, especially marring the prayers of women folk.
My otherwise anodyne words may sound quite inflammatory to a certain section of the society who stick to a factitious dogma concerning faith and morals but I would rather leave all inferences to another couplet of Allama Iqbal(R.A) –
Har dardmand dil ko rona mera rula de
Behosh jo pade hain shayad unhe jaga de!
May every compassionate heart bleed with my tormented feelings
Perhaps it may awaken those who are in deep slumber!