Muslim world mired in war, anti-West anger prepares for Ramadan
(AFP)
20 September 2006
CAIRO - Islam’s holy fasting month of Ramadan is expected to start Saturday or Sunday in a Muslim world still seething over remarks by the pope and rocked by at least five major conflicts.
Ramadan is supposed to be a month of introspection and piety, but has also been in recent years a time plagued by a surge in attacks by Islamic extremists, notably in Iraq.
US President George W. Bush on Tuesday listed the achievements of his administration’s Middle East policies during a speech at the UN general assembly in New York.
But five years after the US response to the September 11 attacks carried out by Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda network dramatically reshaped the Middle East, the region remained engulfed in violence.
The run-up to this year’s Ramadan was marked by the uproar Pope Benedict XVI caused when he delivered a speech in Germany last week during which he used a medieval quotation describing some of the Prophet Mohammed’s teachings as “evil and inhuman”.
Muslim and Christian leaders exerted efforts in recent days to defuse the crisis, which saw angry protestors take to the streets and denounce what they perceived as the West’s latest “crusade’ against Islam.
“There is a real tension between Christian and Muslims and it is getting steadily worse,” said analyst Antoine Basbous, who heads the Paris-based Arab Countries Observatory.
Despite the pope’s apology, the controversy sparked by his remarks threatened to re-ignite a movement of anger that swept the Muslim world earlier this year following the publication in several western newspapers of cartoons of the prophet.
Caricatures depicting Mohammed as a terrorist were deemed offensive by a large portion of the world’s estimated billion Muslims and revealed an unprecedented cultural rift between the Islamic world and the West.
Amid fears tempers could again boil over, much attention will be focused on the sermons delivered at Friday prayers, which will set the tone for Ramadan.
As Muslims stock up on products consumed to break the dawn-to-dusk fast, the Cairo fruitsellers’ tradition of giving nicknames to their different varieties of dates revealed the anti-western mood prevailing in the region.
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As Muslims in Europe and the United States also prepared to mark the holy fasting month, the commemoration of the September 11 attacks and the continued threat of attacks in European capitals brought the issue of western societies’ growing Muslim communities to the fore.
The beginning of Ramadan is set according to the sighting of the moon, which can vary from country to country.
This year, the fasting month is expected to kick off on Saturday or Sunday before culminating with the Eid Al Fitr feast, around four weeks later.
Ramadan is the ninth month of the Muslim calendar, during which Muslims abstain from eating, drinking, smoking and having sex during the daylight hours, before evening meals and visits to friends and family.
The fasting that characterises Ramadan is one of the five pillars of Islamic faith, along with prayer, almsgiving, belief in Allah and pilgrimage for those who are able at least once in their lives.
Five-times daily prayers are rigorously observed, and massive crowds of pilgrims flock to Islam’s holiest sites at Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia near the end of Ramadan, particularly during the last 10 days of the month.
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