"What Ramadan is Actually About" – A Practical Theological Reflection on Fasting Practices in the Light of the Global Ecological Crisis and Muslims’ Spirituality.

Ayşe Almıla Akca

Abstract

The fasting month Ramadan is one of the most impressive forms of Muslims' religious lives. While public debates either focus on negative impacts of the Islamic fasting on health and wellbeing or highlight positively Muslims' invitations to the Iftar-meals as interfaith dialogue events, Muslims mostly address the idealized impact of the fasting month on raising awareness towards both religious duties and spiritual development. What remains unseen both in public debates and in academic research is what Muslims exactly do when it comes to the religious duty of fasting during Ramadan and how they actually experience, shape, and transform the meanings of Ramadan and fasting practices. Drawing on ethnographic research among young and middle-aged Muslims (18-45) in Germany this chapter explores the variety of the religious and spiritual actions in Ramadan beyond religious norms and rules. By analysing habitual settings as well as by embedding these practices in broader societal and Islamic discourses and practices, the chapter discusses the examined fasting practices as a specific bodily mood to develop personal contemplation and reflection as well as to develop self-care and care for others as part of how to pursue an environmentally sensitive life. By doing so, the chapter investigates how these specific meanings of Ramadan come into life. I argue that these practices point out to notions of how to pursue a good life, and look out for a sustainable life in light of the late capitalist modernity and the global ecological crisis. Furthermore, the chapter explores if and how the efforts for a sustainable life through attaching ecological meanings to fasting is part of a specific greening of religions. In doing so, the chapter contributes to the question how religion and development as lived realities are intertwined.