The John Conspiracy
Columns
Benson C Saili
THIS EARTH, MY BROTHER…
Was Jesus among the cabal that plotted the death of the Baptist?
Why did Herod Antipas have John the Baptist killed? There are two versions on the subject. One is found in the gospels and the other in the works of Josephus. The Josephus account is recorded in The Jewish Antiquities as follows in part:
“Now when [many] others came in crowds about him, for they were very greatly moved [or pleased] by hearing his words, Herod, who feared lest the great influence John had over the people might put it into his power and inclination to raise a rebellion, (for they seemed ready to do anything he should advise) thought it best, by putting him to death, to prevent any mischief he might cause, and not bring himself into difficulties, by sparing a man who might make him repent of it when it would be too late.”
The gospel version goes as follows:
17 “For Herod himself had given orders to have John arrested, and he had him bound and put in prison. He did this because of Herodias, his brother Philip’s wife, whom he had married. 18 For John had been saying to Herod, ‘It is not lawful for you to have your brother’s wife.’ 19 So Herodias nursed a grudge against John and wanted to kill him. But she was not able to, 20 because Herod feared John and protected him, knowing him to be a righteous and holy man. When Herod heard John, he was greatly puzzled; yet he liked to listen to him. 21 Finally, the opportune time came. On his birthday Herod gave a banquet for his high officials and military commanders and the leading men of Galilee. 22 When the daughter of Herodias came in and danced, she pleased Herod and his dinner guests. The king said to the girl, ‘Ask me for anything you want, and I’ll give it to you. 23 And he promised her with an oath, ‘Whatever you ask I will give you, up to half my kingdom.’24 She went out and said to her mother, ‘What shall I ask for?’ ‘The head of John the Baptist,’ she answered. 25 At once the girl hurried in to the king with the request: ‘I want you to give me right now the head of John the Baptist on a platter.’ 26 The king was greatly distressed, but because of his oaths and his dinner guests, he did not want to refuse her. 27 So he immediately sent an executioner with orders to bring John’s head. The man went, beheaded John in the prison, 28 and brought back his head on a platter. He presented it to the girl, and she gave it to her mother” (MARK 6:17-28. Same event related in MATTHEW 14:1-12).
From the above accounts, we see that whereas Josephus attributes the Baptist’s death to power politics, the gospels attribute it to a scheming queen. Which of the two versions is true?
WHERE GOSPELS GOSSIPY?
Let us begin with the gospel version. Although it does have a core of truth, it contains aspects that smack of naivety. Why it comes across as such we shall explain shortly.
The central villain in the gospel version is Herodias, along with her unnamed daughter. Thankfully, Flavius Josephus supplies the name for us: she was Salome. Salome was Herod Antipas’s stepdaughter. Herodias was first married to her uncle, Herod II, also known as Phillip I (not to be confused with the tetrarch Phillip II, another uncle). In the gospels, Phillip I is also referred to as Thomas, one of the so-called disciples of Jesus. Thomas was the fourth son of King Herod the Great (37 BC to 4 BC) and was a half-brother to Herod Antipas, the youngest of the Herod scions. It was with Thomas that Herodias had Salome.
Why did Herodias ditch Thomas for Antipas? Thomas had been in line to succeed King Herod but was disinherited in the waning years of King Herod when his mother Mariamne II was implicated in a plot to poison the King. The gorgeous and deathly ambitious Herodias, however, saw herself as a future Queen and so when Antipas proposed marriage to her, she had no compunctions about tying the knot with him without legally divorcing Thomas. Antipas was at the time already married to Phasaelis, a daughter of Aretas IV, King of neighbouring Nabatea (modern-day Jordan).
This was clearly a politically expedient marriage. Antipas decided to hitch Herodias to again make political capital out of her pedigree: not only was she a Jew but she had Hasmonean blood. The Hasmonean line had ruled Palestine for nearly 100 years and was held in higher esteem than the Herod dynasty. Aware of her marquee value, Herodias insisted to Antipas that he could only take her hand in holy matrimony if he divorced Phasaelis. A hooked Antipas did likewise, a move that led to a disastrous war with Nabatea, which Antipas nearly lost.
The gospels say it was Herodias who was behind the killing of John the Baptist owing to his unstinting condemnation of her unlawful marriage to Antipas, that Antipas had John beheaded after making an inviolable pledge to little Salome (the Greek word associated with her in the gospel of Mark suggests she was a very young girl, probably aged 12 or thereabouts), whose exquisite dance moves stupefied him out of his senses. Of course the story cannot be taken on its face value: there was no way Herod would have promised little Salome half of his kingdom in honour of her wish, a kingdom which he did not have.
Antipas was Rome’s client king (quarter-king actually), meaning he ruled under the mandate and at the pleasure of the emperor. He had no powers whatsoever to parcel out the territory in which he had jurisdiction to anybody he wished. Remember, even Herod the Great’s will, whereby he divided Palestine amongst his three sons, had to be ratified, and was even altered, by Caesar Augustus and unlike Antipas, Herod was a King with full stripes but who nonetheless had to defer to Rome. The gospel account therefore sounds gossipy and borders on fable.
THE JOSEPHUS VERSION
It is Flavius Josephus who provides a more credible explicit account of the death of the Baptist. Josephus documents that Antipas had the Baptist arrested by virtue of his rock-star popularity. John the Baptist was indubitably the most popular figure of his day and to the extent where he had to “command” the Jews to repentance and not appeal to them. Whenever and wherever he held a crusade, be it in the village square or some river valley, thousands thronged there. Antipas therefore must have feared that with such a hold on the masses, John could easily incite them to rebellion against his rule. Such a scenario could only be forestalled if the Baptist was erased from the face of the Earth.
What we see, therefore, is that Josephus did not draw a causal connection between Antipas’s marriage to Herodias and his decision to have the Baptist executed. Now, in relating the death story of John, Josephus was not simply writing as a historian: he did have near-firsthand knowledge of the circumstances of the Baptist’s death. Josephus was born in 37 AD, six years after the death of John. But as a teenager, Josephus spent time in the wilds with a man called Banus, who to all intents and purposes was a former disciple of the Baptist to judge by his ascetic and unconventional life style that mirrored that of John. The following is Josephus’s account of his encounter with Banus according to his most famous work, The Jewish Antiquities:
“When I was about sixteen years old, I had a mind to make trim of the several sects that were among us. These sects are three: – The first is that of the Pharisees, the second that of the Sadducees, and the third that of the Essenes, as we have frequently told you; for I thought that by this means I might choose the best, if I were once acquainted with them all; so I contented myself with hard fare, and underwent great difficulties, and went through them all.
Nor did I content myself with these trials only; but when I was informed that one, whose name was Banus, lived in the desert, and used no other clothing than grew upon trees, and had no other food than what grew of its own accord, and bathed himself in cold water frequently, both by night and by day, in order to preserve his chastity, I imitated him in those things, and continued with him three years.”
Banus certainly must have recounted to Josephus the manner of the Baptist’s death, but was Banus fully conversant with the cutthroat politics against whose backdrop John met his fate?
SIMON ZELOTES SUCCEEDS BAPTIST
The gospel version of the Baptist’s death, it turns out, is not as legendary as may be suggested on the surface. It is actually factual. But the factuality is not apparent: it needs discernment with the help of the vital pesher instrument. Just to recap, pesher is a device whereby the real story is told beneath the surface story using the familiar language but which has a double, underlying meaning only known to the writer and people privy to the secret language.
In the gospels, “Daughter of Herodias” does not mean Salome, the stepdaughter of Antipas. It stands for Helena-Salome, a namesake of Antipas’ stepdaughter, which explains why the evangelists did not name her. Helena-Salome, who is actually the most significant woman in the gospels after Mary the mother of Jesus and Mary Magdalene, was the mistress of Simon Zelotes, Jesus’s lead disciple. Helena-Salome was nicknamed “Daughter of Herodias” because of her scheming with Herodias about the Baptist. John the Baptist had 30 disciples and of these only one was female – Helena-Salome. Whilst Simon Zelotes belonged to the Jesus party, his mistress stayed with the Baptist as Simon’s mole and agent provocateur. It was Simon Zelotes and Helena-Salome who orchestrated the killing of John.
Helena-Salome (who goes by several names in the Bible and of whom we will talk about in detail at a later stage), was a former priestess of the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus in Asia Minor, modern-day Turkey. As a priestess, she performed orgiastic dances to the Anunnaki goddess Artemis. It was these sexually provocative dancing skills that she put on display before a spellbound Herod Antipas at the Fortress of Machaerus in September AD 31. That’s how she wrung a pledge from a literally hypnotised Antipas to instantaneously render her a gift of her asking as a reward for her lewd contortions and gyrations. Helena-Salome was rooting for her consort Simon Zelotes to take over from John the Baptist as Pope, as a result of which she and Simon strategically endeared themselves to Antipas and Herodias, having capitalised on the Baptist’s incessant tirades at the illegality of the couple’s marriage.
As such, Helena-Salome’s request for the “head of John” had two meanings. The surface meaning was the execution of John. But the pesher meaning was John’s headship – the papacy, which she wanted conferred on Simon. Antipas, who had made the promise before a dignified gathering, was cornered and had no option but to make good on it. He would never recover from this grisly deed. Meanwhile, the Baptist had ceased to be Pope after his incarceration and Nathaniel had become the acting Pope. Whilst Nathaniel was Pope, Simon Zelotes had lobbied Jesus to support him to take over from him in case John permanently forfeited the position and Jesus had agreed. (This story can be deciphered using the pesher code from Jesus’s conversation with the Syro-Phoenician woman (MARK 7:25-30/MATTHEW 15:21-28), who as we shall later demonstrate was actually Helena-Salome).
Meanwhile, the incarcerated John the Baptist sent his disciples to Jesus to tell him to his face that he (John) was justified to endorse James (the younger brother of Jesus ) as the Davidic messiah as Jesus had done nothing whatsoever to help set him free. Jesus’s response was that the messengers should not bother persuading him (the Baptist) that he was indeed messianic material but simply relate to him his epic deeds (MATTHEW 11:1-6/LUKE 7:18-23). Jesus’s statement in this regard that “blessed are those who are not offended by me” is as plain as plain can be that he and the Baptist were not on good terms.
Following the execution of the Baptist at only age 38, Simon Zelotes was elected as Pope, having been supported by Jesus and Antipas himself, and Nathaniel accordingly stepped down. Simon then appointed Judas Iscariot as his No. 2 and Jesus as his No.3. Note that this was in terms of the priestly hierarchy, which was the most prestigious. Politically, Jesus was still head of the 12 so-called disciples, who included Simon Zelotes and Judas Iscariot. As successor to John the Baptist, Simon Zelotes also took the headship of the 30-man apostolate that John had headed.
The fundamentalist Essenes, however, who were diehard loyalist to the Baptist, directed their wrath not at Simon Zelotes but at Jesus. As far as they were concerned, it was he who instigated the death of their leader. Jesus consequently became a marked man in Judea, as a result of which he relocated from there to Galilee, where he enjoyed the protection of Antipas as Galilee was the latter’s jurisdiction.
NEXT WEEK: THE WOMAN IN THE LORD’S LIFE!
Columns
GONE FISHING
In recent years, using personal devices in working environments has become so commonplace it now has its own acronym, BOYD (Bring Your Own Device). But as employees skip between corporate tools and personal applications on their own devices, their actions introduce a number of possible risks that should be managed and mitigated with careful consideration. Consider these examples:
Si-lwli, a small family-run business in Wales, is arguably as niche a company as you could find, producing talking toys used to promote the Welsh language. Their potential market is small, with only some 300,000 Welsh language speakers in the world and in reality the business is really more of a hobby for the husband-and-wife team, who both still have day jobs. Yet, despite still managing to be successful in terms of sales, the business is now fighting for survival after recently falling prey to cybercriminals. Emails between Si-Iwli and their Chinese suppliers were intercepted by hackers who altered the banking details in the correspondence, causing Si-Iwli to hand over £18,000 (around P ¼ m) to the thieves. That might not sound much to a large enterprise, but to a small or medium business it can be devastating.
Another recent SMB hacking story which appeared in the Wall Street Journal concerned Innovative Higher Ed Consulting (IHED) Inc, a small New York start-up with a handful of employees. IHED didn’t even have a website, but fraudsters were able to run stolen credit card numbers through the company’s payment system and reverse the charges to the tune of $27,000, around the same loss faced by Si-Iwli. As the WSJ put it, the hackers completely destroyed the company, forcing its owners to fold.
And in May 2019, the city of Baltimore’s computer system was hit by a ransomware attack, with hackers using a variant called RobinHood. The hack, which has lasted more than a month, paralysed the computer system for city employees, with the hackers demanding a payment in Bitcoin to give access back to the city.
Of course, hackers target governments or business giants but small and medium businesses are certainly not immune. In fact, 67% of SMBs reported that they had experienced a cyber attack across a period of 12 months, according to a 2018 survey carried out by security research firm Ponemon Institute. Additionally, Verizon issued a report in May 2019 that small businesses accounted for 43% of its reported data breaches. Once seen as less vulnerable than PCs, smartphone attacks are on the rise, with movements like the Dark Caracal spyware campaign underlining the allure of mobile devices to hackers. Last year, the US Federal Trade Commission released a statement calling for greater education on mobile security, coming at a time when around 42% of all Android devices are believed to not carry the latest security updates.
This is an era when employees increasingly use their smartphones for work-related purposes so is your business doing enough to protect against data breaches on their employees’ phones? The SME Cyber Crime Survey 2018 carried out for risk management specialists AON showed that more than 80% of small businesses did not view this as a threat yet if as shown, 67% of SMBs were said to have been victims of hacking, either the stats are wrong or business owners are underestimating their vulnerability. A 2019 report by PricewaterhouseCoopers suggests the latter, stating that the majority of global businesses are unprepared for cyber attacks.
Consider that a workstation no longer means a desk in an office: It can be a phone in the back of a taxi or Uber; a laptop in a coffee shop, or a tablet in an airport lounge. Wherever the device is used, employees can potentially install applications that could be harmful to your business, even from something as seemingly insignificant as clicking on an accidental download or opening a link on a phishing email. Out of the physical workplace, your employees’ activities might not have the same protections as they would on a company-monitored PC.
Yet many businesses not only encourage their employees to work remotely, but assume working from coffee shops, bookstores, and airports can boost employees’ productivity. Unfortunately, many remote hot spots do not provide secure Wi-Fi so if your employee is accessing their work account on unsecured public Wi-Fi, sensitive business data could be at risk. Furthermore, even if your employee uses a company smartphone or has access to company data through a personal mobile device, there is always a chance data could be in jeopardy with a lost or stolen device, even information as basic as clients’ addresses and phone numbers.
BOYDs are also at risk from malware designed to harm and infect the host system, transmittable to smartphones when downloading malicious third-party apps. Then there is ransomware, a type of malware used by hackers to specifically take control of a system’s data, blocking access or threatening to release sensitive information unless a ransom is paid such as the one which affected Baltimore. Ransomware attacks are on the increase, predicted to occur every 14 seconds, potentially costing billions of dollars per year.
Lastly there is phishing – the cyber equivalent of the metaphorical fishing exercise – whereby cybercriminals attempt to obtain sensitive data –usernames, passwords, credit card details –usually through a phoney email designed to look legitimate which directs the user to a fraudulent website or requests the data be emailed back directly. Most of us like to think we could recognize a phishing email when we see it, but these emails have become more sophisticated and can come through other forms of communication such as messaging apps.
Bottom line is to be aware of the potential problems with BOYDs and if in doubt, consult your IT security consultants. You can’t put the own-device genie back in the bottle but you can make data protection one of your three wishes!
Columns
“I Propose to Diana Tonight”
About five days before Princess Diana and Dodi Al Fayed landed in Paris, General Atiku, a certain Edward Williams was taking a walk in a woods in the Welsh town of Mountain Ash. Williams, then 73, was a psychic of some renown. He had in the past foretold assassination attempts on US President Ronald Reagan, which occurred on March 30, 1981, and Pope John Paul II, which came to pass on May 13, 1981.
As he trudged the woods, Williams had a sudden premonition that pointed to Diana’s imminent fate as per Christopher Andersen’s book The Day Diana Died. “When the vision struck me, it was as if everything around me was obscured and replaced by shadowy figures,” Williams was later to reminisce. “In the middle was the face of Princess Diana. Her expression was sad and full of pathos. She was wearing what looked like a floral dress with a short dark cardigan. But it was vague. I went cold with fear and knew it was a sign that she was in danger.”
Williams hastily beat a retreat to his home, which he shared with his wife Mary, and related to her his presentiment, trembling like an aspen leaf as he did so. “I have never seen him so upset,” Mary recounted. “He felt he was given a sign and when he came back from his walk he was deeply shaken.”
The following day, Williams frantically sauntered into a police station to inform the police of his premonition. The officer who attended to him would have dismissed him as no more than a crackpot but he treated him seriously in view of the accuracy of his past predictions. He took a statement and immediately passed it on to the Special Branch Investigative Unit.
The report read as follows:
“On 27 August, at 14:12 hrs, a man by the name of Edward Williams came to Mountain Ash police station. He said he was a psychic and predicted that Princess Diana was going to die. In previous years, he has predicted that the Pope and Ronald Reagan were going to be the victims of assassination attempts. On both occasions he was proved to be correct. Mr Williams appeared to be quite normal.”
Williams, General, was spot-on as usual: four days later, the princess was no more.
Meanwhile, General, even as Dodi and Diana were making their way to the Fayed-owned Ritz Hotel in central Paris, British newspapers were awash with headlines that suggested Diana was kind of deranged. Writes Andrew Morton in Diana in Pursuit of Love: “In The Independent Diana was described as ‘a woman with fundamentally nothing to say about anything’. She was ‘suffering from a form of arrested development’. ‘Isn’t it time she started using her head?’ asked The Mail on Sunday. The Sunday Mirror printed a special supplement entitled ‘A Story of Love’; The News of the World claimed that William had demanded that Diana should split from Dodi: ‘William can’t help it, he just doesn’t like the man.’ William was reportedly ‘horrified’ and ‘doesn’t think Mr Fayed is good for his mother’ – or was that just the press projecting their own prejudices? The upmarket Sunday Times newspaper, which had first serialised my biography of the princess, now put her in the psychiatrist’s chair for daring to be wooed by a Muslim. The pop-psychologist Oliver James put Diana ‘On the Couch’, asking why she was so ‘depressed’ and desperate for love. Other tabloids piled in with dire prognostications – about Prince Philip’s hostility to the relationship, Diana’s prospect of exile, and the social ostracism she would face if she married Dodi.”
DIANA AND DODI AT THE RITZ
Before Diana and Dodi departed the Villa Windsor sometime after 16 hrs, General, one of Dodi’s bodyguards Trevor Rees-Jones furtively asked Diana as to what the programme for the evening was. This Trevor did out of sheer desperation as Dodi had ceased and desisted from telling members of his security detail, let alone anyone else for that matter, what his onward destination was for fear that that piece of information would be passed on to the paparazzi. Diana kindly obliged Trevor though her response was terse and scarcely revealing. “Well, eventually we will be going out to a restaurant”, that was all Diana said. Without advance knowledge of exactly what restaurant that was, Trevor and his colleagues’ hands were tied: they could not do a recce on it as was standard practice for the security team of a VIP principal. Dodi certainly, General, was being recklessly by throwing such caution to the winds.
At about 16:30, Diana and Dodi drew up at the Ritz Hotel, where they were received by acting hotel manager Claude Roulet. The front entrance of the hotel was already crawling with paparazzi, as a result of which the couple took the precaution of using the rear entrance, where hopefully they would make their entry unperturbed and unmolested. The first thing they did when they were ensconced in the now $10,000 a night Imperial Suite was to spend some time on their mobiles and set about touching base with friends, relations, and associates. Diana called at least two people, her clairvoyant friend Rita Rogers and her favourite journalist Richard Kay of The Daily Mail.
Rita, General, was alarmed that Diana had proceeded to venture to Paris notwithstanding the warning she had given Dodi and herself in relation to what she had seen of him in the crystal ball when the couple had consulted her. When quizzed as to what the hell she indeed was doing in Paris at that juncture, Diana replied that she and Dodi had simply come to do some shopping, which though partially true was not the material reason they were there. “But Diana, remember what I told Dodi,” Rita said somewhat reprovingly. Diana a bit apprehensively replied, “Yes I remember. I will be careful. I promise.” Well, she did not live up to her promise as we shall soon unpack General.
As for Richard Kay, Diana made known to him that, “I have decided I am going to radically change my life. I am going to complete my obligations to charities and to the anti-personnel land mines cause, but in November I want to completely withdraw from formal public life.”
Once she was done with her round of calls, Diana went down to the hair saloon by the hotel swimming pool to have her hair washed and blow-dried ahead of the scheduled evening dinner.
THE “TELL ME YES” RING IS DELIVERED
Since the main object of their Paris trip was to pick up the “Tell Me Yes” engagement ring Dodi had ordered in Monte Carlo a week earlier, Dodi decided to check on Repossi Jewellery, which was right within the Ritz prencincts, known as the Place Vendome. It could have taken less than a minute for Dodi to get to the store on foot but he decided to use a car to outsmart the paparazzi invasion. He was driven there by Trevor Rees-Jones, with Alexander Kez Wingfield and Claude Roulet following on foot, though he entered the shop alone.
The Repossi store had closed for the holiday season but Alberto Repossi, accompanied by his wife and brother-in-law, had decided to travel all the way from his home in Monaco and momentarily open it for the sake of the potentially highly lucrative Dodi transaction. Alberto, however, disappointed Dodi as the ring he had chosen was not the one he produced. The one he showed Dodi was pricier and perhaps more exquisite but Dodi was adamant that he wanted the exact one he had ordered as that was what Diana herself had picked. It was a ploy on the part of Repossi to make a real killing on the sale, his excuse to that effect being that Diana deserved a ring tha was well worthy of her social pedigree. With Dodi having expressed disaffection, Repossi rendered his apologies and assured Dodi he would make the right ring available shortly, whereupon Dodi repaired back to the hotel to await its delivery. But Dodi did insist nonetheless that the pricier ring be delivered too in case it appealed to Diana anyway.
Repossi delivered the two rings an hour later. They were collected by Roulet. On inspecting them, Dodi chose the very one he had seen in Monte Carlo, apparently at the insistence of Diana. There is a possibility that Diana, who was very much aware of her public image and was not comfortable with ostentatious displays of wealth, may have deliberately shown an interest in a less expensive engagement ring. It may have been a purely romantic as opposed to a prestigious choice for her.
The value of the ring, which was found on a wardrobe shelf in Dodi’s apartment after the crash, has been estimated to be between $20,000 and $250,000 as Repossi has always refused to be drawn into revealing how much Dodi paid for it. The sum, which enjoyed a 25 percent discount, was in truth paid for not by Dodi himself but by his father as was the usual practice.
Dodi was also shown Repossi’s sketches for a bracelet, a watch, and earrings which he proposed to create if Diana approved of them.
DIANA AND DODI GUSH OVER IMMINENT NUPTIALS
At about 7 pm, Dodi and Diana left the Ritz and headed for Dodi’s apartment at a place known as the Arc de Trompe. They went there to properly tog themselves out for the scheduled evening dinner. They spent two hours at the luxurious apartment. As usual, the ubiquitous paparazzi were patiently waiting for them there.
As they lingered in the apartment, Dodi beckoned over to his butler Rene Delorm and showed him the engagement ring. “Dodi came into my kitchen,” Delorm relates. “He looked into the hallway to check that Diana couldn’t hear and reached into his pocket and pulled out the box … He said, ‘Rene, I’m going to propose to the princess tonight. Make sure that we have champagne on ice when we come back from dinner’.” Rene described the ring as “a spectacular diamond encrusted ring, a massive emerald surrounded by a cluster of diamonds, set on a yellow and white gold band sitting in a small light-grey velvet box”.
Just before 9 pm, Dodi called the brother of his step-father, Hassan Yassen, who also was staying at the Ritz that night, and told him that he hoped to get married to Diana by the end of the year.
Later that same evening, both Dodi and Diana would talk to Mohamed Al Fayed, Dodi’s dad, and make known to him their pre-nuptial intentions. “They called me and said we’re coming back (to London) on Sunday (August 31) and on Monday (September 1) they are
Columns
RAMADAN – The Blessed Month of Fasting
Ramadan is the fasting month for Muslims, where over one billion Muslims throughout the world fast from dawn to sunset, and pray additional prayers at night. It is a time for inner reflection, devotion to Allah, and self-control. It is the ninth month in the Islamic calendar. As you read this Muslims the world over have already begun fasting as the month of Ramadan has commenced (depending on the sighting of the new moon).
‘The month of Ramadan is that in which the Qur’an was revealed as guidance for people, in it are clear signs of guidance and Criterion, therefore whoever of you who witnesses this month, it is obligatory on him to fast it. But whoever is ill or traveling let him fast the same number of other days, God desires ease for you and not hardship, and He desires that you complete the ordained period and glorify God for His guidance to you, that you may be grateful”. Holy Qur’an (2 : 185)
Fasting during Ramadan is one of the five pillars upon which the structure of Islam is built. The other four are: the declaration of one’s belief in Allah’s oneness and in the message of Muhammad (PBUH); regular attendance to prayer; payment of zakaat (obligatory charity); and the pilgrimage to Mecca.
As explained in an earlier article, fasting includes total abstinence from eating, drinking, smoking, refraining from obscenity, avoiding getting into arguments and including abstaining from marital relations, from sunrise to sunset. While fasting may appear to some as difficult Muslims see it as an opportunity to get closer to their Lord, a chance to develop spiritually and at the same time the act of fasting builds character, discipline and self-restraint.
Just as our cars require servicing at regular intervals, so do Muslims consider Ramadan as a month in which the body and spirit undergoes as it were a ‘full service’. This ‘service’ includes heightened spiritual awareness both the mental and physical aspects and also the body undergoing a process of detoxification and some of the organs get to ‘rest’ through fasting.
Because of the intensive devotional activity fasting, Ramadan has a particularly high importance, derived from its very personal nature as an act of worship but there is nothing to stop anyone from privately violating Allah’s commandment of fasting if one chooses to do so by claiming to be fasting yet eating on the sly. This means that although fasting is obligatory, its observance is purely voluntary. If a person claims to be a Muslim, he is expected to fast in Ramadan.
The reward Allah gives for proper fasting is very generous. Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) quotes Allah as saying: “All actions done by a human being are his own except fasting, which belongs to Me and I will reward it accordingly.” We are also told by the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) that the reward for proper fasting is admittance into heaven.
Fasting earns great reward when it is done in a ‘proper’ manner. This is because every Muslim is required to make his worship perfect. For example perfection of fasting can be achieved through restraint of one’s feelings and emotions. Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) said that when fasting, a person should not allow himself to be drawn into a quarrel or a slanging match. He teaches us: “On a day of fasting, let no one of you indulge in any obscenity, or enter into a slanging match. Should someone abuse or fight him, let him respond by saying: ‘I am fasting!’”
This high standard of self-restraint fits in well with fasting, which is considered as an act of self-discipline. Islam requires us to couple patience with voluntary abstention from indulgence in our physical desires. The purpose of fasting helps man to attain a high degree of sublimity, discipline and self-restraint. In other words, this standard CAN BE achieved by every Muslim who knows the purpose of fasting and strives to fulfill it.
Fasting has another special aspect. It makes all people share in the feelings of hunger and thirst. In normal circumstances, people with decent income may go from one year’s end to another without experiencing the pangs of hunger which a poor person may feel every day of his life. Such an experience helps to draw the rich one’s conscience nearer to needs of the poor. A Muslim is encouraged to be more charitable and learns to give generously for a good cause.
Fasting also has a universal or communal aspect to it. As Muslims throughout the world share in this blessed act of worship, their sense of unity is enhanced by the fact that every Muslim individual joins willingly in the fulfillment of this divine commandment. This is a unity of action and purpose, since they all fast in order to be better human beings. As a person restrains himself from the things he desires most, in the hope that he will earn Allah’s pleasure, self-discipline and sacrifice become part of his nature.
The month of Ramadan can aptly be described as a “season of worship.” Fasting is the main aspect of worship in this month, because people are more attentive to their prayers, read the Qur’an more frequently and also strive to improve on their inner and outer character. Thus, their devotion is more complete and they feel much happier in Ramadan because they feel themselves to be closer to their Creator.