ভূমিকা

Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books Fast The Fruits of Fasting for the Servants of Allah Ramadhan has come. Muslims all over the world are fasting from dawn until sunset. The philosophy of the fast is well-known: It gives the servants of Allah a training in discipline, self-control, unquestioned obedience to God. It cultivates self-denial in Man so that he may be able to understand the problems facing the community and society. Islam is a religion, compact and well-balanced.

It is not just a collection of some unrelated ideologies and traditions. There is good reason behind every enjoinment, every tenet and every precept. So compact is the whole Islamic system, in fact, that you cannot believe in it piece-meal; you have either to take it in its entirety or leave it in total; you cannot select from it. Take, for example, the lunar system of the Islamic calendar.

Though Islam recognises the solar year for the purpose of Zakat and Khums (agricultural taxes etc.), it insists on following the lunar system, in other matters, like fast and pilgrimage. Why this double standard? The reason is simple enough. Islam is an universal religion; and the fast and pilgrimage are intended for the whole mankind, wherever they may be living. And, the fact is one cannot pinpoint a single minute in a whole year which is equally convenient for the whole world.

Season and climate in the northern hemisphere are poles apart, literally, from those of the southern hemisphere. Distance from the equator creates great differences between the climates of the lands situated in the same hemisphere. Altitude belies all the theoretical calculations of geographers (the people of Europe did not believe, at first, that there was a snow-capped mountain — Kilimanjaro — near the Equator).

Directions of the mountains make two nearby lands radically opposed to each other in climate (had the Himalayas been created North-South, instead of East West, the cold winds of North would have made the Indo-Pakistan sub-continent a second Tibet). The distance from the sea; the path of the sea-currents; direction of seasonal winds ----all these things have profound effect upon the climate and seasons of a given land.

For example, the Gulf Street, being a hot current, makes countries warm even in Arctic Circle; and Dar es Salaam, being on the sea shore, experiences less temperature changes than the interior regions.