Islam says that in Ramadan, Muslims must eat double and triple the amount they eat on normal days in order to completely obliterate the underlying philosophy of fasting and the real objective behind abstaining from worldly pleasure. That's why as soon as the iftar cannon goes off, a good Muslim starts binging on food in an unprecedented way and then sits in front of the television to watch all the worldly pleasures he is deprived of not only in Ramadan but all year through. At dawn he shuts his mouth and shuts the television and sleeps till noon the next day. We live in a Muslim state that is well-versed in the teachings of Islam, which stipulates eating double what people eat all year. But instead of urging people to contain this inanity, the state announces before every Ramadan how it has made double the amount of food available and encourages people to buy everything they can before supplies run out in which case they will have to abide by the regular meals they eat during the rest of the years' unblessed months. This way they may even lose the chance to do good deeds and waste the opportunity to revel in this Holy month through satisfied stomachs and hungry TV eyes and perhaps some praying if there's any time left. Islam also said that those who make the call to prayer will get a lot of positive points (thawab) for their good deeds even if their voice is gruff and does not pacify the heart. That's why every single illiterate garage keeper or porter who never went to school sets up a prayer area in his garage or in the entrance of the building and blares through the microphone in a voice that surpasses that of a certain animal said to have the worst of voices. Over the years, they even started believing that by regularly making the call to prayer five times a day (especially at dawn when they raise the volume higher than all the other times) that they would be getting more thawab than those who pray. Undoubtedly this thawab is double in Ramadan, perhaps even more than that garnered by Belal, the man chosen by Prophet Mohamed to be his own muezzin (for reasons unknown to the new breed of muezzins) or even more than the thawab of Sheikh Mohamed Refaat, Mostafa Ismail or El Hosary or any of those voices we no longer hear in these lovely times. Islam says that if you stop eating from dawn till sunset then you can also stop working, especially if your work involves dealing with people's affairs. You even have a license to lose your temper and curse as much as you want. Using the pretext that you're fasting you can disembark from the taxi or microbus that you drive and clobber anyone walking in the street. I assure you that no one will be surprised at such behavior because they are all good Muslims who know that this kind of thing is natural in Ramadan because people are fasting, as they say. Islam says that women are a source of pleasure, especially those who don the veil. This was proven by a recent statistic saying that veiled women are more likely to be subjected to sexual harassment than non-veiled women. A good Muslim who harasses women in this way probably believes that they will not report him to the police because good Muslim women want to avoid scandal. And because they know that harassment is one of the traits of a good Muslim, they accept being harassed in silence, no matter how painful it is to them: May god forgive you, me and all the good Muslims. Mohamed Salmawy is President of the Arab Writers' Union and Editor-in-Chief of Al-Ahram Hebdo.
