In the book “In Praise of Slowness: Challenging the Cult of Speed,” author Carl Honore uses the following words to describe this fast life/slow life dichotomy: “Fast is busy, controlling, aggressive, hurried, analytical, stressed, superficial, impatient, active, quantity-over-quality. Slow is the opposite: calm, careful, receptive, intuitive, unhurried, patient, reflective, quality-over-quantity. … Seek to live at what musicians call the tempo giusto -- the right speed.” I've decided that clocks and watches and our personal planners have a lot to do with more and more of us living on the fast track.
I received several questions from foreigners asking me why Ramadan was this month because they thought it was at a different time of the year.
Most foreigners have not realized that most of the Muslim world lives by a different clock than the West. Friday is the holy day; most operate according to a lunar calendar. Turkey is one of the few exceptions. Yes, Muslims measure the passage of time using the Islamic (Hijri) calendar.
The Muslim calendar has 12 lunar months, the beginnings and endings of which are determined by the sighting of the crescent moon. Years are counted since the Hijrah, which is when Prophet Muhammad migrated from Mecca to Medina (approximately July 622).
During Ramadan, the times to begin and to break the fast are calculated according to the sun and varies from one town to another. The beginning of Ramadan is marked by the appearance of the new moon.
During the early 1980s, I spent some time during Ramadan in a remote village in western Pakistan, near the Afghan border. The mullahs in the area had been watching the sky for several days, and when the head mullah announced that he had seen the crescent moon, the beginning of the month was officially declared from the minarets of the mosques. News traveled quickly by radio, by taxi and horseback across the countryside. There were no mobile phones or text messaging then!
Their perspective of time was very different from mine, as I had a watch on my wrist. Many of the mud-and-mat homes lacked electricity and running water. Some were only lit by a kerosene lamp at night. Nobody had clocks, watches or calendars. The sun and moon were their guides to time.
The village where I was conducting research was made up of Shia Muslims (Turkey is predominately Sunni). I was invited to go along one evening to an event: During Ramadan, the women looked forward to special events held in each other's humble abodes, as it was a great social and religious time together. There was only one chair in the room: the mullah sat there. The mullah noticed that a non-Muslim was there, but said nothing. I just nodded as a sign of respect. We were quite a crowd for one small room, all sitting on a carpet on the floor. We even managed to make room for a few latecomers to squeeze in and join us. I sat silently and just tried to blend in. During the next few hours I was to observe women in worship who repeated chants, beat their breasts rhythmically, nodded their heads and then listened to a short sermon given by the mullah. As the story of the killing of Ali was told, you could hear a few sobs, but within a short time, the whole crowd was weeping loudly.
More chanting started and grew louder, intensifying into wailing. It was all quite emotional. At the end, everyone stood up -- rather quickly -- and as I attempted to stand on my feet I discovered my leg had fallen asleep and began to cramp.
The women then formed concentric circles around the mullah and everyone rocked in union and beat their breast. As they began a ceremonial dance and chant I managed to shrink back out of the circle unnoticed and just silently observe. It was a time of showing sorrow for the martyr.
Afterwards, we must have stayed for another hour just socializing. I had never seen anything like this before, and even though I found it quite difficult to respond with ease to the casual conversation afterwards, somehow I managed.
Time had passed quickly. Nobody was asking the time. Ramadan is both a spiritual and social time.
Note: Charlotte McPherson is the author of “Culture Smart: Turkey, 2005.” Please keep your questions and observations coming: I want to ensure this column is a help to you, Today’s Zaman’s readers. Email: c.mcpherson@todayszaman.com
