And selamat puasa!
In Singapore and Malaysia, the older Muslim kids are being ostentatiously heroic, rolling their eyes and suggesting they might faint, while their mothers beg them to eat something: "You're too young!" In offices and and factories and at outdoor worksites, all the Muslims, from cabinet ministers to daily-rated workers, are crabby—not nasty—or dopey and slow, in the awful humidity. At nightfall, everything is magically transformed as the feasting begins.
If David Brooks had any intellectual honesty, Islam would be his favorite religion, for the simple but rigorous demands made on the faithful and the social cohesion it provides. I admire it too, though I'm only a tourist in religion, congenitally faithless, and aesthetically I prefer a chewier theology. Ramadan, though, is just beautiful, comical and sweet. Human at its humanest.
In Singapore and Malaysia, the older Muslim kids are being ostentatiously heroic, rolling their eyes and suggesting they might faint, while their mothers beg them to eat something: "You're too young!" In offices and and factories and at outdoor worksites, all the Muslims, from cabinet ministers to daily-rated workers, are crabby—not nasty—or dopey and slow, in the awful humidity. At nightfall, everything is magically transformed as the feasting begins.
If David Brooks had any intellectual honesty, Islam would be his favorite religion, for the simple but rigorous demands made on the faithful and the social cohesion it provides. I admire it too, though I'm only a tourist in religion, congenitally faithless, and aesthetically I prefer a chewier theology. Ramadan, though, is just beautiful, comical and sweet. Human at its humanest.
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| Strasbourg mosque. Image from Euronews (but I can't pin down a proper credit). |
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