A viral video from Germany shows a man, apparently observing Ramadan, storming into a store and flinging food off the shelves — as though flour packets and biscuit tins had personally offended his piety. His demand is simple: ban food sales during fasting hours and force Germans to fast against their will.
Elsewhere in parts of Europe, groups are seen offering prayers in the middle of busy roads, daring traffic and law alike to acknowledge a certain theological supremacy.
Ramadan, last I checked, was about restraint – abstinence, charity, and introspection. Not about disciplining supermarket shelves or regulating traffic.
The Jamai doctrine of equality
Closer home, AIMIM’s Delhi president Shoaib Jamai has appealed to the Delhi government to shut liquor shops for the entire month of fasting.
His reasoning is charmingly tit-for-tat. If the sale of non-vegetarian food is restricted in some places during Sawan, why not reciprocate the courtesy during Ramadan?
This is the kind of moral mathematics one learns in primary school. If Raju does not bring eggs to school on Monday, Ramu must not bring sandwiches on Tuesday.
By that logic, let us shut down all non-veg and alcohol during Navratri. In fact, every Hindu festival that involves fasting should trigger a nationwide ban. Ekadashi special closures. Karva Chauth curfew. Mahashivratri moratorium. Governance by calendar.
Revenue, reality, and restraint
There is also the small, vulgar matter of revenue. Liquor brings in thousands of crores. If the self-appointed Muslim scholar is willing to reimburse one month’s loss to the exchequer – and compensate shopkeepers, distributors and daily wage workers – the proposal can at least be entertained.
Jamai should understand no one is forcing alcohol down anyone’s throat. There is no blood flowing in liquor shops. No animal is being slaughtered at the counter. And alcohol, as many pious voices remind us, is haram in Islam anyway. If you do not drink, you do not drink. The rest of the city need not enlist in solidarity sobriety.
If merely passing a liquor store shakes one’s resolve, the problem may not be the storefront.
The test of faith
The essence of fasting is control of appetite, of temper, of impulse. If the sight of food or alcohol is so destabilising that it must be erased from public view, what exactly is being tested?
In Dubai, and other parts of the UAE, restrictions on eating in public during Ramadan have long been eased. Alcohol is available in licensed venues. Supermarkets even sell pork in clearly marked sections. The faithful fast, the rest carry on.
That is what confidence in one’s faith looks like. Shutting shops is not piety. It is insecurity masquerading as sensitivity. Ramadan is best honoured by prayer in peace, not by policing other people’s plates and glasses.
Restrain the self. Leave the shelves alone. If you fast, the whole world need not fast. And if you do not drink, let others. Cheers.
Cheers. Drink and let others drink ….