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Nigerian Muslim, Ramadan Fasting and the challenge of leadership By Baba El-Yakubu
Nigerian Muslims are amazing in the way they conduct their religious duties and obligations. Go to the mosques and prayer places and witness the zeal and seriousness with which they enter into communion with the almighty Allah (SWT). A typical Muslim, whatever his/her station in life or present circumstance, allocates time for daily prayers. I have had opportunities to pray with Muslims in a couple of other countries and found no parallel to Nigerians’ devotion, willingness to attend the mosques and ability to sacrifice moments for Allah (SWT). Unlike the situation in Saudi Arabia where religious polices need to keep watch over the believers for them to pray on time, in Nigeria, it would be blasphemous if a typical Muslim must be coerced and forced into the presence of the Almighty. It is true that some do not attend to prayer on time, but those who do, do so joyfully knowing that one of the benefits of the prayer is its prevention against abominable acts. For such largely individualistic act of worship, Nigerian Muslims will get glorious gold medal.
Daily prayers are perhaps the most dominantly individualistic act of worship among the five pillars of Islam. A simple affirmation of the unity of Allah (SWT) and belief in prophetic mission establishes the first pillar and put any person into the great way of life that emphasizes internal peace and harmonious coexistence among mankind. Other four pillars – prayers, Ramadan fasting, alms giving and annual pilgrimage - follow naturally to support and reinforce the first. We know the perennial problems associated with annual pilgrimage to Makkah. To a lesser extent and of course, less obvious to general public is the triviality with which Nigerians handle the important pillar of fasting during the holy month of Ramadan. The carelessness and criminal neglect with which we go about sighting the crescent of the moon at the beginning and end of the Ramadan are appalling and inexcusable. For the last several years, this important communal responsibility of making effort to dutifully sight the moon has been left to the wimp and caprice of anybody who chooses to look at the sky and claim to see the crescent. Is the issue that simple?
The prophet of Islam had a practice of sighting the crescent that he bequeathed to us in the hadith literature. The instruction is simple – start and end the fasting if at least two persons of unquestionable integrity sight the crescent. In Nigeria, the matter is trivialized. Muslim leaders under the auspices of Nigerian Supreme Council of Islamic affairs (NSCIA) simply ask the general public to watch for the new crescent. They give some telephone numbers and perhaps increase the volumes of their ringers and wait for willing volunteers. Are there some prerequisite for sighting the crescent? Was there any mass campaign about the importance of accuracy in the matter? What is the clear definition of who and who is not a person of unquestionable integrity? Can special instruments be employed to enhance visibility as practice in some countries? Can scientific knowledge be applied to verify the claim of anybody about the crescent? Unfortunately, nobody seems to ponder on these relevant questions. This leads to today's uncertainty about authenticity of sighting the crescent. The doubts serve as ground for dissensions and give plausible excuses for different groups of Muslims to start and end the fasting on different days in the same country. Everybody knows this is wrong and even blasphemous to Islam. The Nigerian Muslims must find ways to stop this scandalous bastardization of this important pillar of the religion.
The matter is even worst this year. Perhaps among all the Muslims nations in the world, it was only Nigeria that celebrated the end of fasting on Sunday. The same happened last year. Nigeria was the first country to start the fasting. This is clearly wrong. Nigerian Muslims are manifest error. This year, according to scientific information, the new moon was to be born on Sunday at 5:15 GMT. How could anybody claimed to have sighted it on Saturday. Even in the realm of science fiction, nobody could see something that does not exist! This is a serious matter that all well meaning Muslims must put hands together to bring to it all seriousness and significance it deserves. I discussed this issue with a friend who is familiar with the procedure of sighting and receiving information about the crescent in Nigeria. He shared with me one nasty experience he had. At the beginning of Ramadan last year, he made effort to move around his town to get first hand information about sighting the crescent. Luckily, he came across a group of people talking about it. Among them, a man claimed to have seen it. My friend asked the man to show him the crescent. He pointed his forefinger skyward and my friend followed the direction of the finger. All efforts to have a glimpse of anything resembling crescent failed. My friend called a third party to try. He also failed. Finally, the claimant retorted that those who could not see were not blessed at that moment to see it because sighting the crescent was after all an ‘honor’ that Allah (SWT) bestowed upon some chosen servants.
Believe me, a large number of Muslims have this wrong believe. So, they make strenuous effort to be blessed with sighting new crescent. As modern psychology teaches, people always see what they believe. I could remember a report on happenings in Iran during the Iranian revolution. The revolutionaries wanted to keep Ayatollah Khomeini (rahimahulLah) in the news. So, somehow rumors circulated from nowhere that on a full-moon day, Khomeini's face will be seen in the moon. Only societal miscreants wouldn't see it. In a typical fashion of mass psychological hysteria, many people ended up congratulating each other for seeing his smiling face. Who would like to be unblessed miscreant? With a believe that seeing the crescent is a blessing, is there any wonder that whenever NSCIA ask the general public to watch for the new crescent almost always somebody will claim that he sees it? Can you see a need for general awareness campaign about the importance of the matter? This year it was claimed that the new moon was sighted in fifteen states. This is nonsense. The moon was not even born. It is as impossible to see a smiling face in the moon as it is to sight a non-existing crescent.
This brings us to the important issue of leadership among the Nigerian Muslims. Nobody can say that we have no leaders. We do! Whether the leaders play the proper role expected of them is a different matter. Leadership is no mean task. It takes seriousness, dedication and willingness to render useful services. There are many characteristics of purposeful leadership. Among them, the three most important are integrity, courage and vision. With regard to the Ramadan fasting, we need leaders who have high personal integrity so that the followers may take them serious and make no attempt to give false or unreliable information. This integrity will also give the leaders moral courage to define the meaning of a gentleman and reflect the same in their personal life. So that anybody who does not qualify would not even attempt to 'impersonate' because he knows that the leader knows better. Further, the courage will make it easy for the leaders to approach regional and/or central governments to demand for any communal requirements necessary for those who are fasting. They should also be courageous to question the present practice of sighting the crescent and consider using special instruments and scientific information to assist in sighting the crescent. We need visionary leaders who will see the wider dimension of the fasting. They should use it as a means of bringing Nigerian Muslim together rather than a source of dissensions. As individuals, Nigerian Muslims observe prayers and attach importance to their daily communion with Allah (SWT). This is a challenge to Muslim leaders to turn the Ramadan into a period of improved cohesion and social intercourse among Muslim and occasion for extending Muslims hands to non-Muslims for peaceful coexistence in the country.
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