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Time For Change Is Near: Do Not Despair Despite The Current Debilitating Challenges!

Bernard Busani

I have been missing in action as they say. I had taken time off to reflect on the many challenges facing us a nation and as individuals.

Some of my followers were worried that I may have been gagged.  No, I am sound. It is gratifying that many people have found some encouragement and enlightenment in my contributions. Many of our people believe that a better future is in store for the nation despite the many man-made debilitating challenges facing the nation.

I am therefore encouraged to continue to engage and contribute in my small way to the national discourse. I love my country very much; I want only the best for this beautiful country. I will therefore continue to challenge the wrongs I see in our country and provide meaningful suggestions for the future. There is need to inspire hope for the poor, the youth, the unemployed; the disadvantaged in our society. Let me say boldly that God who so loved us will never allow this country to fail.

I must assure you that God is quietly building a new crop of leadership that will take this country to new heights of development where the national cake will be shared equitably by all our people; where merit will displace cronyism and sycophancy; where our young people will be given opportunities and assisted to grow to achieve their full potential; where our older people will be equipped with skills and opportunities to  improve their lives and will decidedly reject the mentally impoverishing handouts we see daily being paraded on BTV masterminded by the first citizen.

All our mines will be re opened and will produce at full capacity and will employ more of our citizens. New mines will also be opened and successful mineral beneficiation will take place in this country. This country will indeed become a true shining example of people centred development in Africa. Do not despair!

I have been observing closely and hoping to see change of mindset in the current leadership; the leadership we have entrusted with the stewardship of our country and its natural resources. What I see is a continued spirited movement towards a national disaster of unprecedented proportions, clearly driven by naked greed, self interest and self entitlement. This must stop.

The ruling class has become so reckless and so comfortable in the knowledge that many Batswana are now very poor and unemployed; desperately vulnerable and trapped into a gullibility rut where they want all of us to be, the end game being total control of our minds.

Because of the hunger; in some cases ignorance imposed on our people; in other cases naked greed, all created deliberately through the manipulative propaganda propagated through BTV, the daily news and Radio Botswana, we see Batswana still voting for the BDP in large numbers as seen in the recent bye elections; we see many people from the opposition defecting to the BDP despite the many blunders and many national disasters created by the reckless management of our economy by the same ruling party.  This is not surprising, but those who truly love this country should now be concerned and do something before our country is brought down to its knees economically.

The list  of the blunders perpetuated by this government is endless, legendary and quite frankly  shocking, especially since 2008; Morupule B that is now being sold for a song after spending billions of Pulas only to fail to achieve energy sufficiency that was promised by 2012; the aborted Palapye glass factory; the aborted metal refinery plant in Francistown, the many projects including airports, stadia, schools, roads etc that were completed years behind schedules with unacceptable cost overruns and suspect quality; the mines that closed, some reduced their production levels; the latest disaster that is meant to deliver the final fatal blow to Phikwe and declare it a ghost town; by the way, where is the Lobatse leather park, no body is talking about it these days, has it also joined the list of the failed projects?

 Despite all these glaring failures people are still joining BDP and voting for a party that has obviously failed the leadership test in so many obvious ways. The reason is that people are hungry and desperate. They need the crumbs from BDP tables to survive. All you need to do, to keep a slave calling you master is to provide basic food and some modicum of shelter, but one day and only one day that slave will wake up and violently turn against you.

In passing, this week we will are seeing America voting for a new leadership in a contest that was long, open, vigorous and transparent to allow all Americans to carefully assess the candidates and choose freely. The whole world has been watching as American brings in a new leadership of their choice. For me the American choice represents a shift in our geopolitical landscape.

 How I wish we could one day talk of true democracy in our country, like we have witnessed in America and in Britain recently where the leaders can be exposed in order for the nation to know exactly what they stand for; where the nation knows that it has the power to appoint the leadership and to remove same leadership if it fails to deliver and where the leadership respects the true will of the people. We long to see our country becoming ‘a shining example of democracy’ in Africa.

Why we should not despair

I was asked by students doing mining related courses whether they should continue doing mining related degrees in the wake of the many mine closures and reduced production in some of our mines.  I told them to continue and that the future is bright and very bright. Our country is very rich in mineral resources and many other natural resources; these will require Batswana with requisite qualifications and experience to exploit them for the good of the nation. Remember our mineral wealth was hidden from the imperialists and only revealed to us after our independence in 1966.

This was no accident, the current closures and reductions are a way of preserving our minerals for the true benefit of our people and future generations. The current leadership has failed to diligently manage these resources and therefore there is need to shut them and preserve them for future generations. God is simply taking these resources from the current wasteful leadership, so do not be afraid.

Copper and nickel

Despite the depressed market, the world cannot survive without copper and nickel. It is a known fact that commodity prices will always go up and down in a cyclical manner following world changing developmental demands. So producers know that they have to plan for such shocks in the system. It is that simple.   It is clear that the prices are now climbing up albeit slowly as the world stocks reduce and new demand for metals increase.  Where else in the world have copper and nickel mines closed due to the reduced demand?

I am not away of any serious mining venture that would have done that, yes I hear of mines managing down their costs in a sustainable manner, reducing overheads, stockpiling, reducing working time, training their staff to be ready for the upturn, yes that is how prudent leaders manage. There was no reason why any of our copper mines should have been closed; we did not run out of ore, it was failure to manage costs and failure to mine optimally. 

In mining the ore body and what is known as the overburden or country rock is never uniform; always challenging. The miner must have an approved plan that looks at long and short term mining requirements. These plans must consider all the factors including adequate access to the ore bodies, ore grades, treatability, losses, overall production costs and profitability. These plans must be approved, reviewed and monitored on an on going basis by the department of mines on behalf of the nation as these resources belong to the nation.

We seem to think that once we have provided a mining license all that is left is to wait for the royalties; that is negating your responsibility as a steward. There is a definite void in the leadership of our national resources that need to be closed. With this kind of leadership, the only viable option is to shut these resources until you have selfless leadership with requisite skills to reopen the mines and appoint rightful custodians.

Our diamond mines

We have the largest diamond fields in the world. We host ‘the richest mine in the whole world’ Jwaneng mine. I can tell you now that our richest mine has been throwing value since its inception. It is a home of some of the finest and largest stones in the world. The large stones are not being recovered, but crushed into small pieces losing incredible value. We have small but valuable stones called fines that are thrown away because they dilute our dollar per carat value. These are national assets being wasted. 

A younger independent miner Lucara has shown that large stones can be preserved and recovered almost intact. Why it is that Debswana with its huge financial muscles cannot do the same at its mines, is it not because of the shackles imposed by De Beers on Debswana. While we close Damtshaa and reduce production at our diamond mines because of the so called reduced demand preached by De Beers, the same De Beers opens Gahcho Kue diamond mine in Canada in 2016. All diamond mines in the world are running at full production and producers are looking for more diamond resources. Are we not being treated like mushrooms, kept in the dark and fed with cow dug?  What garbage is this?

Diamond beneficiation

The diamond beneficiation that should have taken our diamond business and country to an enviably high level is failing. The reason being given is low levels of labour productivity and lack of requisite skills. As a country that has spent so much on education and have even created a whole parastatal for improving labour productivity we should be ashamed to admit that our beneficiation efforts are faltering because of these manageable factors. It goes to show that our education and productivity efforts are ill founded. If other countries can take our diamonds and create such value in beneficiation for their people and we sit back and fold our arms and blame our labour force, then our national leaders are fast asleep and dangerously incompetent.

Leadership

It is clear; the current leadership has failed the country. We clearly need new leadership that will adequately equip our people to manage these mines including beneficiation. Education without requisite skills development is useless and must be rejected.  Despite almost forty years of mining, we still do not have the requisite skills to manage and run our mines; we rely on others for a lot of our technical skills.

With good leaders we should now be exporting these skills. Our people are as good as any in the world and can be trained to do anything any other nationality can do and even do it better.  Recently, BPC has acquired a German national to manage our national power corporation; we have not raised a single Motswana over so many years to do that; the new Khoemacau copper mine in Maun is looking for a managing director, despite years of mining we should not be surprised to be told that they is no Motswana identified to take up that position; we will import as is customary from countries who value their people and have trained them for such opportunities; we still have an Australian as general manager at one of our diamond mines and many other senior technical people in these mines why? Leadership failure!  

By now, if we were a proud nation as we sometimes brag, we should be having a pool of nationals who can do these jobs ‘in their sleep’ planted all over the world in rich exchange programmes. Until we have a new leadership that is far sighted, our many opportunities and prospects will remain dim, bleak and closed.

We need leaders that have clear national development priorities; leaders that will equip all our people for the many opportunities that are clearly available in this country but closed by greed and self interest resident in the current leadership. All Batswana who love their country must now stand up and go to all the schools, to their villages and educate our people on the need for change and demonstrate why this country cannot move forward with this kind of leadership.

People must know that despite the money, the beers, the blankets, the promises that are splashed at elections and public gatherings they must know that when they are at the ballot box they are alone and must chose change and shame the devil.

All our mines will be reopened, beneficiation will be done in this country and we shall have a world class developmental programme that will make our people proud owners of their resources.

 

E-mail: bernard.busani@gmail.com     Tel: 71751440

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GONE FISHING

28th March 2023

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!

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“I Propose to Diana Tonight”

28th March 2023

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

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RAMADAN – The Blessed Month of Fasting

28th March 2023

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.

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