When Ramzan becomes Ramadan

This Ramzan I was startled, actually a little spooked, to find that every greeting from family and friends I got to commemorate the holy month for Muslims said: Ramadan Mubarak. During this month the Koran was revealed to Prophet Mohammed and for Muslims it’s a month of fasting, prayer and reflection on your life. Indian Muslims, irrespective of the language they speak — Hindi, Gujarati, Tamil, Malayalam — have always said ‘Ramzan’; for Bengalis it is ‘Romjan’.

The word ‘Ramzan’ is Persian, against ‘Ramadan’ which has Arab roots. It comes from ‘ramad’, denoting an object intensely heated by the sun. Linguistic scholars say this holy month was named Ramadan because it “burns the sins of the faithful”.

So in the Arab world, the greeting is “Ramadan Karim” while it is “Ramzan Mubarak” in the Indian subcontinent. Mercifully, all the Indian publications I read refer to the month as Ramzan.

An article on Scroll.in went a little too far when it said that Indian Muslims “are looking to a globalised Saudi brand of Islam for inspiration”. The Saudi or Wahabi brand of Islam might influence a section of Indian Muslims, the more gullible ones, but to say Indian Muslims are looking to “inspiration” from the Saudis is to exaggerate the issue.

Of course one has seen the Indian Muslim diaspora working in West Asian countries, in white or blue collar jobs, returning home to use what they might consider the more fancy or authentic ‘Ramadan’ compared to ‘Ramzan’. Incidentally, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had tweeted: “ Spoke to President @ashrafghani, PM Sheikh Hasina & PM Nawaz Sharif to extend my best wishes at the start of holy Ramadan on June 18.”. To get this irked reply from one Rahul Sharma @Biorahul: “@narendramodi Can you at least spell it RAMZAN? Like what we follow in India! Stop this Arabization.”

However, when he greeted the people of India, Modi used ‘Ramzan’ not once but twice in his message!

If Indian Muslims fall prey to the Arabisation of Ramzan, can Pakistan be far behind? Apparently not, though on social media I saw most Pakistani friends and public figures using Ramzan. But in a blog on Pakistan’s The Express Tribune , the writer moaned about the same trend; more and more people switching over to Ramadan, just as in the 1980s, ‘Khuda Hafiz’ gave way to ‘Allah Hafiz’, and the Lucknowi ‘Aadab’ to ‘Salaam’.

So much so when the blogger greeted people with the traditional “Ramzan Mubarak”, “‘Ramadan Kareem’, they correct me in a pious tone while rolling their eyes and smiling pityingly at my unholy ways. Iftar has given way to ‘fitr’ and ‘wuzu’ has died at the hands of ‘wudu’ ”, he wrote.

But while the ramadanisation of Ramzan may be nothing more than a cultural influence, the blatant discrimination in terminology in the US when it comes to crimes committed by whites against those committed by blacks or Muslims is shocking.

Dylann Roof, the 21-year-old high school dropout, who was arrested for opening fire on and killing nine black Americans during a prayer meeting at a historic African-American church in Charleston, has been invariably described in the American media as “mentally sick” or “a loner”. This has outraged blacks and Muslims alike, and rightly so. The question being asked is why nowhere in the media coverage of this “hate crime”, is the word ‘terrorism’ being used. After all, this is not a unique event, because historically black churches have been a target of racially warped whites who have bombed and burned them in an effort to terrorise black communities who worship there.

One of the most heinous acts in US history was the killing in 1963 of four girls at a black church in Birmingham, Alabama, when members of the KKK bombed the 16th Street Baptist Church. Martin Luther King, Jr described this as “one of the most vicious and tragic crimes ever perpetrated against humanity”. This attack marked a turning point in the American civil rights movement.

Returning to the latest church attack Charleston, while anchor after anchor on TV debates pondered on the “mental illness” of Roof, the words ‘terrorist’ or ‘terrorism’ were conspicuous by their absence. But when blacks or Muslims are involved in such crimes, neither mental illness nor hate crime is given as a probable cause. It is straightaway an act of terrorism, even at the suspicion stage.

Commenting on how Roof was not described as a “possible terrorist”, and his act blamed on mental illness, the British daily The Independent said: “He will be humanised and called sick, a victim of mistreatment or inadequate mental health resources. US media practice a different policy when covering crimes involving African-Americans and Muslims. As suspects, they are quickly characterised as terrorists and thugs, motivated by evil intent instead of external injustices. While white suspects are lone wolfs, violence by black and Muslim people is systemic, demanding response and action from all who share their race or religion.”

If you haven’t already seen it, please watch the horrifying video clip of how white policemen recently busted a pool party in McKinney, Texas, and terrorised a bunch of black teenagers. A resident had thrown the party in this prominently white neighbourhood and apparently some neighbours were concerned about the large group of black children who attended and called the police to intervene! The policemen were only too happy to oblige and arrived to chase, handcuff and terrorise the kids, who had no clue what their ‘crime’ was. The video shows a young girl in a bathing suit being pinned down to the grass facedown, while the officer grabs the hysterically screaming girl by her braids.

A picture speaks more than a thousand words!

COMMENT NOW