From the Editors July 15, 2013 ISSUE

Remembering Ramadan

The Editors

The month-long religious holiday of Ramadan, which began on July 9, is a time of self-purification through fasting from food and drink during the day, striving to think only holy thoughts, making peace with others, and doing charitable works. Some Muslims engage in religious study such as reading the entire Quran.

Purification, peace with one’s neighbor, and a greater understanding of one’s scriptures are desires worthy of respect and fruition. As with many spiritual endeavors, however, the mortal sense of things would—if it could—mislead the faithful into actions that oppose their spiritual goals. 

Sometimes the end of the holiday—August 7, this year—has been marred by violent actions against non-Muslims, usually by people whipped into a frenzy of hatred by radical clerics. One can’t help but think that in some ways those who would sow hatred in a religion of peace are similar to the scribes and Pharisees, whom Jesus rebuked saying, “Woe unto you, ye blind guides” (Matthew 23:16 ).

These “blind guides” are not Muslims alone, however. Individuals who are virulently anti-Muslim, no matter what their religious beliefs, are, in their own way, just as blind. Both are denying the power of good—represented in Christ Jesus’ life and works—to bring about peace and harmony among the world’s people.

Divine Truth, which speaks—and keeps speaking—to every heart, is able to open the eyes of the blind and take away whatever would mislead the sincere seeker of purity, harmony, and
charitableness.

Divine Truth, which speaks—and keeps speaking—to every heart, is able to open the eyes of the blind.

Mary Baker Eddy writes: “Proportionately as the people’s belief of God, in every age, has been dematerialized and unfinited has their Deity become good; no longer a personal tyrant or a molten image, but the divine Life, Truth, and Love ...” She goes on to say, “This more perfect idea, held constantly before the people’s mind, must have a benign and elevating influence upon the character of nations as well as individuals, and will lift man ultimately to the understanding that our ideals form our characters, that as a man ‘thinketh in his heart, so is he’ ’’ (The People’s Idea of God, pp. 2–3 ).

Each reader of this magazine can insist in prayer that divine Truth and Love prevail and that all can be blessed. Love’s voice on behalf of purity, peace, and understanding can be heard above the cries of sectarianism and hatred. The quest for purification at Ramadan can be a blessing to all faiths, everywhere.

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