Ayyāman Maʻdudāt (specific number of days)! That exactly is the description of this glorious month in Quran 2: 184. Fasting in the month is an exercise that is suspended, as it were, between the alternating phenomena of nights and days. It is an exercise, the physical and the spiritual, that the believer undertakes for a specific number of hours, of minutes and seconds. The combination of seconds makes minutes; the combination of minutes makes hours; the combination of hours makes days. The combination of days makes months.
Ayyāman Maʻdudāt! Yes. If fasting in the month of Ramadan is only for a specific number of days, exactly what in our life is not dated and numbered and for a specific number of days? I became attentive to this question a couple of years ago during one of my tafsir sessions. I pondered that question when we started to prepare for the Id al-Fitr that particularly year. I was seized by the reality of the seeming short time span instituted for fasting; the short period that we have always had to fast. By referring to this month as Ayyāman Maʻdudāt, I asked myself – could it not be that this phrase is calling attention to the reality of the beginning and ending? Is it not arguable to say that by referring to fasting in the month of Ramadan as Ayyāman Maʻdudāt, we are being invited to ponder a metaphor or a signifier figured in the days of fasting for that which is beyond the days of fasting? Is the phrase Ayyāman Maʻdudāt, not hinting at the datedness and shortness of this whole illusion that we reference as life, this whole contraption that we understand to be the ‘real’ world?
Years of interaction with Islamic texts, the revelatory and the ‘humanatory’ are instructive of the above fact – that one of the reasons Ramadan is branded by the Almighty as Ayyāman Maʻdudāt is probably to remind believers that while they can only fast while being in the world, they must constantly strive to not be of this world; while they can only fast, in line with the Quranic phrasing, for Ayyāman Maʻdudāt, the reward accruable for doing so, and conscientiously too, is for Ayyāman ghayr Maʻdudāt – days without end, for eternity.
In other words, when transposed to the larger mundane and profane spheres of human life, spheres of life and living, one discovers the pertinence of this type of reading and interpretation. One discovers that the principle of Ayyāman Maʻdudāt is applicable to all realms of human conurbation and interactions; it is relevant to all spheres, be it the political, the social and the financial. These spheres are all Ayyāman Maʻdudāt. It holds true for the president, the governor, the senator, the speaker and the messenger. It holds true even for locales, spaces and experiences of pleasure – of sex, of cuisines, of sports, of play and pastimes. It holds true for pain and grief – for death, for loss, for deprivation, for interdictions, for oppression, for punishment. It holds true for oppressors, for interdictors and for abductors. Fir’awn lasted for years on the throne until he thought that his suzerainty had no expiration. He forgot that earthly life is for a specific number of days only; that it is Ayyāman Maʻdudāt. Our days, Ramadan teaches us, are like tickets of mortality meant to be used to purchase immortality.
Thus, as we celebrate this year’s Eid al-Fitr festival, those imbued with intuition would celebrate the arrival of the ‘departing’ with caution and circumspection. They would be thankful to the Almighty for the uncommon privilege of being alive and living. There are subtle differences between being and becoming. As we celebrate this year’s Eid, we must seize the moment to atone for the inadequacies and mistakes we must have made while trying to obey His commandments during the past thirty days. The atonement must be both in deeds and in words; the atonement and correction would have to be made through payment of Zakat al-Fitr, It is a compulsory act of charity which becomes payable on the occasion of Eid-ul-Fitr. The Noble Messenger says: “Acts of fasting remain suspended between the heavens and the earth until the Sadaqatul Fitr is paid.” It is not permissible to delay the payment till later on the day of Eid. It is paid by a Muslim who possesses goods free of debt in excess of his personal needs (e.g. house, clothing, furniture, etc.) to the value upon which Zakaat is obligatory. It is paid for and on behalf of every member of a household who is alive at dawn on the day of Eid-ul-Fitr.
