Boreal

Ramadan and

When Holy Became Synonymous With Evil

Ramadan, the month of conquest and jihad ... make it a month of calamity everywhere for the non-believers.

Abu Muhammad al-Adnani, ISIS spokesman in a May audiotape,

Islamic State got its wish, a likely record number of terror attacks on a record number of countries during the holy month of Ramadan 2016; two in Turkey alone, June 7 and June 29. WOW!

In the Prophet's time the most feared day of Ramadan was the last day, the Festival of Breaking of the Fast. With his followers more convinced than ever of the need to rid the world of unbelievers after a period of intense immersion in the Koran, God's Messenger would use the celebration of Eid al-Fitr, and that of Eid al-Adha, the Festival of Sacrifice at the end the Hajj, to give his army its marching orders

In what could pass as a metaphor for what happened next e.g. Khaibar, the gates of Hell, which were closed at the beginning of Ramadan, are opened and the devils let loose. This still leaves one wondering who is responsible for the death and destruction that have become emblematic of holy months since Islam appropriated the concept.

Islam’s so-called holy months are a vestige of pre-Islamic Arabia’s Sacred Months. Then, all fighting on the Peninsula stopped and life was celebrated through worship, song, dance and poetry. All that changed with the killing of the first unbeliever, a farmer on his way to market by the name of Amr-ben-al Hadra’mi.

With His Messenger challenged to justify the cold-blooded murder, Allah, after somber reflection, changed the prohibition against taking a life during a sacred interlude and holy months got a lot less holy.

Associating murder with what is ostensibly holy more than corrupted the meaning of sacred months. For many, where the new religion was concerned, holy became synonymous with evil.

Bernard Payeur, July 6, 2016