Month Of Ramazan & Appropriate Time For Reconstructing Religious Thought Of Sri Lankan Muslims

By Rishard Najimudeen –APRIL 13, 2021

N.M. Rishard

Terror Easter Sunday attack has created an unprecedented atmosphere where Islam and Muslims became scapegoat. Number of accusations as well as suspicions are being thrown towards them. This new phenomenon is unavailable, even though Islam and Sri Lankan Muslims were far from those accusations. History of Sri Lankan Muslims itself is a vivid testimony that coexistence with other religious groups was an influential thought throughout the decades. Coexistence is the predominant belief of contemporary Sri Lankan Muslims as well. Although, Muslims of Sri Lanka have a rich history of coexistence and contributions, the brutal terror attack has caused enough damage to the community as a whole. There are two areas Muslims should consider seriously. First, they should come forward, with enough courage, to respond to the accusations and secondly, they should go back to their religious references in order to provide an interpretation that suits the context. Consequently, they could draw a conceptual framework that will clearly depict as to how a “Sri Lankan Muslim” can abide the constitution of the nation while being faithful to their religion without any contradiction.

This reform process starts with a profound “Internal Review” to the societal structure of the community with special focus on the religious ideologies and approaches they adopt. I would say the month of Ramadan, in which Muslims fast the entire month, is the right time to initiate the discussion on their internal reform process. According to Muslims, Ramadan is basically considered as the “Month for Reform” for numerous reasons. For instance, The Quran, premier religious source, was initially revealed in this blessed month and the particular day was a turning point in the reform project of Prophet Muhammad. Adding to that, the whole month Muslims change their daily routine by performing fasting and engaging in special prayers till late night. Fasting, according to their belief, is not only abstaining from having food and drinks, but also being away from sinful activities orally and physically. Further, they engage in virtue and good practices as well.

In following paragraphs, I would like to highlight only two key points from a lot that should be critically discussed by Sri Lankan Muslims in general, by religious leaders and seminaries in particular in their internal reform process:

A comprehensive reading to Islam/Quran

Islam has been portrayed, intentionally or unintentionally, as a set of rigid rules and punishments. Killing innocent people, oppressing women, cutting hands of robber and some other issues highlighted as the premier contents of Islam. As a student of Islamic studies, I strongly disagree with this argument and I would say that a comprehensive reading to the sources of Islam, Qur’an and prophetic traditions, without any prior convictions would lead to a totally different conclusion. A profound reading to Qur’an, which consists of 114 chapters, and authentic prophetic traditions while taking the context of the revelation into our consideration will give a clear picture about Islam. To put it in another word, throughout the Islamic history, Muslims scholars made utmost effort to interpret the sources and ultimately, a number of disciplines related to Islamic studies have emerged gradually.

Disciplines founded by scholars are considered as the interpretations to the sources and its contents. There are two fields directly related to the sources. Apart from that, four disciplines evolved gradually as interpretations to the religious texts. “Science of Qur’an” and “Science of Hadees” are the two fields developed by scholars, by which they tried to draw a systematic approach or methodology for understanding both Qur’an and Prophetic traditions. Here, I prefer not to elaborate these particular fields in detail. Rather, the second part is quite essential to our discussion. Theology, jurisprudence, Sufism and ethics are the four major sciences established by traditional scholars after an in-depth reading to the sources. This proves that Islam and its premier sources have four major themes:

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