CAIRO – For Egyptians, Ramadan is very special. They welcome it by decorating their streets and balconies with long strings of party lights. They also eat large quantities of yameesh (dried fruit and nuts) and hold big parties for their families and friends, to whom they traditionally offer presents. Nasser Mahmoud Wahdan, a professor of Islamic studies, wanted his Ramadan presents this year to be something different. So he has produced two booklets about the holy fasting month. In one of them, he tells his fellow Egyptians that Ramadan is not an occasion for dependency and laziness, although many people think it is. In his introduction to this, the first booklet, entitled ‘It happened in Ramadan', he stresses that history tells us that Ramadan is not only a time for victories, as bad things sometimes happen during the holy fasting month too. In the second booklet, entitled ‘Ramadan around the World', Wahdan says that Ramadan is not only a special festive month for Egyptians, as a quick look at the rest of the world gives us an idea of the effect the holy month has on the lives of people in different countries. Wahdan says that, in times gone by, people would recall and talk about the victories achieved by the Muslims during the holy fasting month. But he also believes that it's important to study some of the setbacks that have happened during the holy month. Of course, one of the greatest victories during Ramadan was nearly 40 years ago, when the Egyptian Army defeated the Israeli Army in 1973. The Egyptians deliberately chose to attack during the holy fasting month, when the Muslims were fasting, taking the Israelis by surprise, because no-one would have expected them to fight at such a time. But it wasn't the first time for Muslims to fight during the holy fasting month. The first was the famous Battle of Badr, when a tiny Muslim army defeated a larger, infidel army in AD 632. It was also in Ramadan that Islam arrived in Egypt in 641. It then arrived in Algeria in Ramadan in 732 and, prior to that, in Andalusia in 710. As for the setbacks, one of them was in 732, the same year that Islam reached Algeria, when Muslim armies were defeated in France in the famous battle of Martyrs' Yard. The Zionists have also massacred Palestinians on two occasions during the holy fasting month: in 1948 and then in 2004, when 110 Palestinians were killed. The writer also acknowledges some famous figures, who were born or died during this month. In the second booklet, Wahdan looks at about 30 different countries, describing not only the different Ramadan rituals and celebrations, but also giving an insight into the state and the history of Islam there.
