Like millions of Muslims around the world, I completed a month of fasting on March 30th.
The rest of the year blurs into routine, indistinct; only Ramadan, edged with hunger, stands apart. It comes each year with its quiet demands, its small disruptions.
As a child, I absorbed the rituals of Islam before I understood them. My father was the imam in our local mosque and I fasted to keep up with my older siblings. In Ifo Nuura, the refugee camp in Kenya where I was born, hunger was unremarkable. Only later, as life grew more comfortable, did hunger acquire its weight—it became a choice, something distinct from neccesity. Scarcity, once familiar, grew sharper, more real.
Ramadan offers lessons in restraint, in clarity, in the quiet order that hunger brings. Each year, I set small goals—to eat less, to read more, to finish the Quran at least once, tracing a single theme. This Ramadan, I chose exile.
Exile is a defining motif of the Quran, shaping the lives of its prophets. Moses, whose story spans much of the text, spends a decade in Midian in the service of Jethro before returning to Egypt to confront Pharaoh. Muhammad, whose struggles are preserved more in tradition than in scripture, faces rejection and hostility before fleeing to Medina. Joseph, betrayed by his own brothers, endures thirteen years of servitude before rising to power.
But exile in Islam is not merely the fate of prophets; it is the human condition itself. The first exile was Adam’s, cast out of paradise and set adrift on earth. In Islam, exile is not an interruption of life— it is life. That is why the Islamic calendar does not begin with the prophet’s birth or the beginning of revelation but with the hijra: the moment when the early Muslims abandoned Mecca, choosing principle over their homes.
And as wars rage around the globe and millions more flee their homes, as nations, desperate to hold power, rain fire on the innocent, the Quran reminds us—this has happened before. And it calls us, still, to patience.
In that spirit, here are the ten lessons I learnt this Ramadan.
1. Clarity by restraint
Ramadan stripped my day of excess.
With no breakfast, lunch, or even water, there were fewer pauses, fewer distractions. Conversations built around food and coffee disappeared too. The result was more time and sharper focus. It was in this clarity that I launched Wayfarer, a blog on books and global affairs.
2. Hunger as teacher
Ramadan imposes hunger on all, rich and poor alike.
Hunger, though it can be measured with the detached precision of theory, remains distant—an abstraction. It is only when the hours stretch endlessly, when the body withers and the mind dulls, that true understanding arrives.
And in that state, sympathy—raw, unbidden—becomes an inevitability.
3. Discipline of delay
Ramadan can be best understood in the image of a little boy I once saw in the mosque. It was minutes before sunset. Before us, the water and dates lay untouched.
The boy was not fasting, but his father had told him not to eat in front of those who were—a small lesson in courtesy. He could not resist entirely. He covered his eyes with his hands, turned his face from the food.
We all begin like that, wrestling, looking away from the food, pretending it does not exist. But as the days pass, restraint becomes more natural. It settles in, not all at once, but gradually, as the body learns what the mind has already decided.
4. Communion in silence
Though the small talk of the day fades, community emerges at night. Ramadan prescribes night prayers, and many return to prayer during this month. Those who pray consistently mock those who appear only in Ramadan, but I see no shame in it. Some remain after the month ends; others vanish. But for four weeks, we eat together, we pray together.
In the mosque, conversation is sparse. When the Quran is not being recited, silence fills the space. It is a strange kind of community—one of presence rather than words. You do not speak to these people, yet you see them every night in their quiet devotion.
And as in any community, there are small irritations. The careless way some leave their shoes. The person beside you whose loud recitation disrupts your own prayer. But you learn to accept others.
5. Remembrance as debt
Every night, we pray for those caught in war, those crushed by debt, and those who lost themselves and still grope for a way back.
There is much in life beyond our power to alter. In prayer, we acknowledge our own helplessness—but at the very least, we remember those in need. This remembrance has purpose: it is a recognition of the debt we owe to others simply by witnessing their pain.
The purpose is simple—if strength comes, if fortune tilts in our favour, we will know who to help. For now, we let them—and God—know they are not forgotten.
6. Power in an apron
There is much in life we can change. Ramadan, in its stern simplicity, imposes a duty: every Muslim must feed the poor.
For those whose health denies them the fast—the sick, the elderly—their obligation becomes the feeding of others.
This is no mere act of charity but a responsibility. It is a reminder of the power we wield. Restaurants send meals to the mosques; families open their doors to strangers.
At my local mosque, three homeless men from the streets sat with us to break the fast. In time, they ceased being guests and became part of our community, their presence as natural as the rhythm of the month itself.
7. Edge of capacity
Fasting forced me to be more attuned to my body.
By later in the day, weakness set in, making it hard to focus and impossible to do heavy work or exercise. As a result, I learned to tackle the demanding tasks—like work and running—early in the day.
Evenings became a time for lighter tasks like answering calls or emails.
8. Wisdom of the body
When you are hungry or thirsty, you spend the day thinking of food.
You imagine the feast you will have, the satisfaction. The mind races ahead. It prepares for excess.
But when the time comes, you discover hunger has changed your body. You cannot eat much. The appetite you imagined was not real.
First, you must nourish your body, then wait. In time, you begin to eat again, slowly.
Moderation is not a virtue—it is a necessity imposed by the body. And by the end of the month, you no longer think of devouring everything. The craving has softened. You are content to return to yourself, little by little.
9. Beauty without meaning
There was something peculiar about our approach to the Quran.
Each night, after prayers, my friends and I would walk home from the mosque debating the recitations. Which imam’s voice carried more weight. Which one stumbled, however slightly, over a vowel.
There are ten sanctioned modes of recitation. Some are more common than others, but all are accepted. And we—Muslims—have turned this recitation into an art. It is beautiful. It moves people.
And yet, something felt absent. We spoke rarely, if at all, of meaning. The Quran—part history, part law, part poetry—is at once clear and confounding. Its grandeur lies not only in how it sounds, but in what it says. And that, I fear, we have neglected. We walked home in reverence of its beauty, but left its message behind.
10. Grace of hard things
The lesson of hardship is often self-respect. Ramadan teaches that. You deny yourself, you restrain the body, and by the end of the month, you feel cleaner somehow—sharpened.
I found the disruption hardest. I had grown used to my routines, and the rhythms of the fast broke them. The sleep was irregular. I stayed up too late, and the days passed in a kind of haze. Still, I endured.
And when it was over, I saw myself a little differently. I have done a hard thing. That knowledge, simple as it was, gave me joy.
When Ramadan ended, something hollow settled in. The days stretched out again, unmarked.
You miss the order, the companionship, the brief sense of purpose. The change is subtle but complete; the old habits no longer fit as they did. For me, already, the counting has begun. The rest of the year will pass in its usual haze.
This article’s illustration was generated using ChatGPT, an artificial-intelligence tool by OpenAI.
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