Ramazan is like a prayer. It’s both personal and communal. The faithful fast, shunning all kinds of foods and drinks and also the many evils that tempt us all year round. But it’s as much about those around us — it’s about sharing a portion of our savings with the less advantaged, and it’s about lending help, in whatever way we can. The more you are able to do for others, the greater good you are destined to attain. That’s the kind of reward we are eyeing in this month in particular.

Even when we stand up in qayam and mumble a prayer to God, from the privacy of our homes or behind the imam in a congregation, we submit ourselves to divine providence knowing full well that we are like the rest of the people, and if there’s something that would set one person apart from the other, it’s their fellow feeling and charitable deeds.

A typical Ramazan day ends on a happy iftar feast, which is symptomatic of the joy we’re to feel at the close of the month and the sighting of the Shawal crescent.