Ramadan: Responding to the Secularization of Time
In his magnum opus, A Secular Age, Charles Taylor famously lays out an 874 page long critique of the secularization of Western civilization. He declares that the notion that “God is dead,” in the words of Nietzche has left Western civilization in an age of disenchantment leaving human beings in a dull state of existence devoid of meaning. An important part of Taylor’s critique is his idea of the “disenchantment” of time.
The modern world has created this notion that all 24 hours are of the same value, thereby disenchanting time. No set of time is more blessed or enchanted than the other. Secular time is also linear. In a sense, the month of Ramadan exists as a reminder to the Muslim in the modern world to contradict this secular notion of time.
The Islamic paradigm is rife with times that exceed other units of time in their blessing(baraka). Prophetic traditions tell of how God descends to the lowest heaven in the last third of the night to hear the prayer of those who are calling out to Him. Prophetic traditions exclaim Friday as the most blessed day of the week, the day on which Adam and Eve were created, and the day on which the Day of Judgement will take place. The added blessings to these days infuse a sense of enchantment that counters this secular notion of linear time. A prayer in the last third of the night is more likely to be answered than the same prayer at a different time. A prayer on a Friday is more likely to be answered than a prayer on a different day of a week.
For the Muslim, the month of Ramadan too pushes back against this notion of linear time. The month of Ramadan does not merely appear and go away. Rather, Ramadan exists in a paradigm of cyclical time. For one month of the year, Muslims are observing the month of Ramadan. For the other 11 months of the years, Muslims are waiting and preparing for the coming of the month of Ramadan.
In addition, Ramadan contradicts the notion that all 24 hour days have the same exact value. Muslims believe that one good deed done during the month of Ramadan has 70 times the reward of the same good deed done outside the month of Ramadan. There is a certain enchantment in this month of the year that does not exist in the other 11 months of the year.
The month of Ramadan is also the month in which the Quran was revealed, allowing us to escape yet another secular notion of time. Ramadan brings Muslims closer to the time the Quran was revealed to the Prophet Muhammad. Muslims may be closer in this cyclical time, even if in linear time, they would be further away. In this cyclical notion of time, May 7th, 2020, because it falls during the month of Ramadan, is actually closer to the time that the Quran was revealed than January 7th, 2020. In a linear conceptualization of time, January 7th, 2020 is obviously closer. But the enchantment of Ramadan allows one to escape this linear time and enter into a cyclical time.
The night of power(Laylatul Qadr) is the exact night that the Quran was revealed. While the night falls during the month of Ramadan, its exact date is not definitely known by anyone other than God. Most scholars say that it falls on an odd night within the last ten days of the month of Ramadan. The reward of good deeds done on this night is greater than that of 1000 months(over 80 years) of worship. As a result, Muslims normally increase in their good deeds during the month of Ramadan. But during the last ten nights, and particularly in the odd nights, such worship increases even more. The fact that only God knows certainly when this night falls in the month of Ramadan adds even more to its enchantment. Secular time teaches us that a one dollar donation to a charity on any night is worth just one dollar. But this paradigm of enchantment teaches us that a one dollar donation, if it aligns with the right night, can have blessings greater than doing that small act continuously for 30,000 nights straight. This enchantment leads a mere one dollar donation to be greater than 30,000 nights straight of one dollar donations. It is a common practice of Muslims to perform one minor good deed for ten days straight on this night, thereby guaranteeing that it aligns with this most blessed night at least once.
I write this on one of these last ten nights, on an odd night, during the blessed month of Ramadan, that is also on a Friday. All of these designations have a special enchantment to them. This is so much that the 14th century Islamic scholar, Ibn Rajab Al-Hanbali(d. 1393), declared that if a Friday coincided with an odd night during the last ten days of Ramadan, it had to increase the likelihood of it being the night of power. He reasoned that the enchantment of Ramadan, combined with the enchantment of its last ten nights, with the enchantment of it being odd, with the additional enchantment of a Friday, was such a high level of baraka(blessing) that it had to increase the likelihood of it culminating in the night of power, the holiest night of the year.
In the Quran, it famously declares that fasting has been ordained upon us as it was ordained upon the people before us so that we may attain God-consciousness. As I reflect upon the immanence of this transcendent Creator, that God is closer to us than our jugular veins, I think of how even in this command of fasting, we find a response to the secularization of time. Ramadan is an annual response to this age of disenchantment that the age of enchanted, cyclical time shall live on.