Posting Fancy Iftars While Gaza Starves?
Ramadan is a month of nourishment — spiritual, emotional, and mental — but how can we truly achieve spiritual nourishment when our brothers and sisters in Palestine have no access to physical nourishment? When their hands and stomachs are empty and our tables are overflowing with food every night for iftar?
In the wake of the U.S.-“Israel” attack on Iran, the Zionist entity has taken advantage of diverted attention from Gaza in order to once again reinstate a total and complete siege on Gaza, shutting down all crossings — including Rafah — indefinitely. Less than a third of the aid trucks scheduled to enter Gaza each day have been allowed to enter over the past several months, preventing the people of Gaza from accessing basic necessities. Families have been surviving on minimal calories and children, especially, have been facing severe malnutrition. Now that number will be absolutely none, which places Gaza at risk of returning to a state of severe famine.
It is no coincidence that this is happening during the holy month of Ramadan, when Muslims all around the world are reconnecting with Allah (sw) and their faith through fasting, charity, and increased acts of worship. What is meant to be a time of connection, joy, and spirituality is a time of unimaginable suffering for many communities in our ummah, whether in Palestine, Sudan, or elsewhere. Many of our fellow Muslims are fasting with no reliable access to food or water to break their fast. These are not naturally occurring famines, but man-made atrocities committed by imperialist powers with the intent of genocide and ethnic cleansing.
As members of the diaspora, as Muslims who are blessed with the privilege of reliable access to food and water, as Muslims who do not have to worry about going to bed with an empty stomach, or of waking up in a pile of rubble each morning, it is our religious obligation to stand against these injustices and to protect the dignity of our brothers and sisters.
Furthermore, we are obligated to hold ourselves accountable. We are fasting to feel hunger, but our brothers and sisters live it day in and day out. When we are blessed with a full spread at the iftar table every night, there is no reason for us to be posting or showing off these blessings when our ummah is being starved, murdered, and deprived of their basic human rights and dignity.
The blessings that Allah (sw) bestows upon us are just as much a test as our hardships. When Allah (sw) blesses us with provisions, wealth, and resources, He is seeing how we will handle this blessing. We can either accept these blessings with grace and gratitude and invest these resources in benefiting our ummah — in helping the oppressed and those who are in need — or we can take them for granted and show off the blessings with no sense of awareness or sensitivity for our oppressed and suffering brothers and sisters, especially when we are living in the imperial core and our comfort comes directly at the cost of their blood.
Surat Al-Anbiya (21:35)
كُلُّ نَفْسٍۢ ذَآئِقَةُ ٱلْمَوْتِ ۗ وَنَبْلُوكُم بِٱلشَّرِّ وَٱلْخَيْرِ فِتْنَةًۭ ۖ وَإِلَيْنَا تُرْجَعُونَ ٣٥
Every soul will taste death. And We test you ˹O humanity˺ with good and evil as a trial, then to Us you will ˹all˺ be returned.
By posting our meals and making a public display of our fortunate circumstances, we are normalizing an attitude of indifference towards their suffering. As Muslims, we must show gratitude for our blessings and honor our fellow Muslims’ suffering with our silence and with tangible, material action. Our growth and journey this Ramadan should not be centered purely around peaceful, individual spirituality devoid of any connection to the material realities of our people — we must center this Ramadan around upholding justice, around enjoining good and forbidding evil, and around demanding and enforcing dignity for the oppressed.
Instead of posting your iftars, dedicate whatever platform and influence you may have to educate your community about what is happening in Gaza, to encourage them to donate towards grassroots fundraisers, and to mobilize for an unconditional and immediate end to siege, starvation, war, and genocide that is happening to our communities around the world.
