Ramadan, the month of myriad blessings, teaches us all about patience, brotherhood, sharing and caring, invokes amongst us a sense of responsibility and spirit of brotherliness. It calls for maintaining a balance in the society, observing austerity while taking a good care of the poor and underprivileged class of the society. There are a number of important lessons to be learnt from this blessing month however one of the obvious lessons is that while observing the fast a Muslim feels and experiences what his needy and hungry brothers and sisters feel who are forced to go without food and drink for many, many days. The kind of a handy experience instills amongst the believers a sense of realization and a sense of feeling pain of others. It is also a month of generosity. So far as the different levels of generosity are concerned, utilizing ones resources to fulfil the needs of others and being kind and compassionate to others is one of the noblest ranks of generosity.
Apart from this our religion-Islam teaches us the principle of making the life of others easy to achieve success. In Quran, Allah says: “Seek the life to come by means of what God has granted you, but do not neglect your rightful share in this world. Do good to others as God has done good to you.” Unfortunately, it seems we, as a nation, have forgotten this spirit that happens to be the cornerstone of a Muslim society. Instead of making other’s lives easy it has become a new norm in our part of world wherein people try to make their own life easier on the cost of making it difficult for the others. There is no dearth of such self-serving and self-centered lot of people in our country who for their economic interests don’t bother in making others’ lives hell and that too in the sacred month of Ramadan.
The sudden price hike of essential commodities in this holy month shows the lack of religious knowledge and people’s desire for money making through unfair means. Every year, at the advent of Ramadan we see that the people across the country are subjected to unnecessary, unjustified artificial price hike, which makes the life of a common man difficult.
Traders and shopkeepers tend to charge exorbitant rates that are beyond the reach of the people. Even the more disturbing part of this whole saga is that the competent authorities who are supposed to take notice and control the prices remain ignorant and largely unmoved or they deliberately turn a blind eye to the suffering of the majority who cannot afford to buy products.
Since this lust for money has turned into a big menace the government should redouble its efforts to arrest this growing trend of immoral business besides taking necessary measures to control the prices of food items in order to bring it within the reach of those people who are living below the poverty line. And those involved in this immoral business should also make some introspection and see how far their greed for money hurts their own brethren and how far this profiteering violates the sanctity and spirit of the religion they practice and belong to.