Ramadan starting today

Jan

As our Muslim friends start fasting today, let's not forget to pray for them to have an encounter with their great God and Saviour Jesus Christ.

Here are five testimonies by Muslims-turned-Christians who experienced just that.

GaoLu

Touching. I plan to watch these with my wife later when we get free time. I got to spend some time yesterday with 2 girls, sisters, age 19 and 16. They are fleeing their home and family--their parents are sending them--to seek a better life elsewhere. They are Muslims and need Jesus, and I did what I could, but my heart aches for them.

reformed

@GaoLu said:
Touching. I plan to watch these with my wife later when we get free time. I got to spend some time yesterday with 2 girls, sisters, age 19 and 16. They are fleeing their home and family--their parents are sending them--to seek a better life elsewhere. They are Muslims and need Jesus, and I did what I could, but my heart aches for them.

Praying

C Mc

We need to learn all we can of Muslims to relate to them and share Christ with them. Here is a contribution to this end:

Ramadan [a.k.a. Fengzhai (封斋)], the month of fasting, and before the two major annual festivals), and it loosens one of the knots that Satan ties in the hair of a sleeper.

Fasting (Saum). In the second year after Hijra, Muhammad commanded that the ninth month of the year, which is called Ramadan, be observed as a time of fasting. The fast begins when the new moon is seen and lasts until the next new moon. From the first light of dawn in the morning until about a half hour after the sunset in the evening, all adults (except the sick and travelers) are forbidden to take food or drink, to smoke, and to have sexual intercourse. Some very strict Muslims will not even swallow their own saliva.

Ramadan is the time Muhammad had a dream, first revelation, in which he claimed that the angel Gabriel spoke to him. He had more over the next twenty-two years of his life. These messages would later be collected and written down in the Qur’an, Islam’s sacred scripture.

He had sought to seclude himself for contemplation and meditation outside Mecca in a cave called Hira. One night during the seventeen days of Ramadan, in the year of 610 A.D., Muhammad and his family were together at the cave. As he slept he heard bell-like sounds and a voice— later identified as the voice of the angel Gabriel— speaking to him.

Allah's Apostle said: Islam is based on (the following) five (principles):


1. To testify that none has the right to be worshipped but Allah and Muhammad is Allah's Apostle.
2. To offer the (compulsory congregational) prayers dutifully and perfectly.

3. To pay Zakat (i.e. obligatory charity) .

4. To perform Hajj. (i.e. Pilgrimage to Mecca)

5. To observe fast during the month of Ramadan.

Allah's Apostle said, "Whoever observes fasts during the month of Ramadan out of sincere faith, and hoping to attain Allah's rewards, then all his past sins will be forgiven."

In addition, consider the sources below for further understanding. CM

SOURCES:

-- Ibn Maja, Siyam, bab. 68 in Wensinck, “Tahadjdjud,” Shorter Encyclopaedia of Islam, 559.

-- The final day of Ramadan, Kaizhaijie (开斋祭).
-- John L. Esposito, Islam: The Straight Path (New York, New York: Oxford University Press, 2007), 7.
-- Muslim World 70 (1980): 122.