Building bridges at iftar

One school’s initiative to celebrating faith and unity and breaking bread together can promote religious tolerance

KARACHI:

Last week, St Patrick’s School in Karachi took the commendable initiative to celebrate St Patrick’s Feast Day by organising an iftar dinner for their Muslim staff. March 17, is believed to be the Saint’s death anniversary, and celebrated as a Feast Day. Saint Patrick was a Christian missionary and bishop in Ireland during the fifth century. But this year wasn’t the first time Father Mario Roderiques, the Principal of St Patrick’s organised the celebration of Ramadan and St Patrick’s day feast together.

“Previously, I have done the same in various parishes,” shares the Reverand Father who belongs to the Archdiocese of Karachi, and was ordained as a priest in 1990. “When I was St Jude's, our church was in the centre of an all-Muslim community. When I decided to host an iftar dinner for them, I was shocked by the response. The neighbours were extremely excited about it and it was an excellent turnout. People came in big numbers, including the maulanas from the nearby mosques. With Ramazan and Lent falling together since the last three or four years, I thought why not have an interfaith celebration again.”

The overlap

Since 2022, the Christian Lent has overlapped with Ramazan. Those who didn’t study in a missionary school or don’t live close to the Christian community, might wonder what Lent is.

Lent is a 40-day period of preparation and penance preceding Easter, during which, Christians are encouraged to fast, pray, and engage in acts of charity as a way of preparing themselves for the celebration of Easter, while Ramazan is a time for increased spirituality and purification. Despite their disparities, both practices facilitate a deeper connection with God for those who observe them. Distinct in their purposes and rituals, yet both Ramazan and Lent offer individuals a chance to enhance their spiritual bonds and draw nearer to their faith.

Focus on shared values

While Ramazan is about fasting and abstinence from food, drink, physical intimacy, etc., Lent is a meditation on the sacrifices, crucifixion, resurrection and divinity of Jesus Christ. The 30-day fast is obligatory for all Muslims, while most branches of the Christianity call for observing the 40-day Lent. Underlying these events are basic tenets and commonalities that find a common ground.

The Quran teaches us as Muslims to find “common terms with the People of the Book (i.e., Jews and Christians), and reiterates that we worship only one God.” It is comforting to know that there are core doctrines behind Ramazan and Lent. Both teach piety and self-introspection or meditation during the period, in an effort to cleanse the self from sin and evil thoughts.

For Muslims, the itekaf entails time in solitude at the mosque and the reading of the Quran and Hadees. At this point, how can we negate the message of patience and humility from Jesus Christ, known to Muslim as Hazrat Eesa AS, one of our revered prophets, who was endowed with healing powers and miracles. The two faiths were founded by the Prophet Abraham (Hazrat Ibrahim AS), and both are aimed at salvation from hell. The Jesus of the Quran has a reference in ninety-three verses, which is more than any other prophet, apart from Prophet Muhammad (PBUH). The Quranic account of Jesus’ life harmonises with the Gospels in more particulars than even many Muslims realise.

Millions of Muslims are named after Jesus and Mary — we call them Isa and Mariam and it is done out of love because you don’t name your kids after people you don’t like! So believing in Jesus is an absolute requirement and if you don’t believe in him, you’re automatically not a Muslim. According to the Hadees, Jesus was assumed into heaven, and will return at the end of time in the east of Damascus, his hands resting on the shoulders of two angels. When it sees him, the Antichrist will dissolve like salt in water, and Jesus will rule the earth for forty years. In the Quran’s fourth Surah, verse 157: “They did not kill him, nor did they crucify him.”

The Quran mentions twenty-five prophets, and nearly all of them are familiar from the Bible: Adam and Noah, Moses and Abraham, David and Solomon, Lot and Job, John the Baptist — all messengers of God. Both Lent and Ramadan emphasise the importance of self-discipline, sacrifice, and spiritual reflection. Both observances encourage individuals to engage in acts of charity and to seek forgiveness for their sins and also serve as reminders of the importance of community and unity, as individuals come together to celebrate and support each other during these periods of observance.

Islam and Christianity teach self-sacrifice, with Christians recalling the suffering of Christ and Muslims remembering the mission of Prophet Muhammed (PBUH) to free the Meccans from the shackles of idolatry and polytheism.

When the Muslims give zakat in Ramazan, it is a reminder that the rich and poor, are equal before the eyes of God (Allah). When Ramazan culminates into Eid-ul-Fitr festivities, those who have fasted and endured the hardship are compared to having become as pure as a newborn baby, who has no sins to his account. Similarly, Lent ends with Easter Sunday, and the feast of the Resurrection celebrates a new life in Christ.

The similarities between the observance of Lent and Ramazan, can inspire people to engage in academic and constructive discussions. This could perhaps contribute to the ongoing pursuit of tolerance and harmony among people, ultimately alleviating global tensions and distrust fuelled by extremists, orthodox thinking and acts of violence such as suicide bombings and false accusations by misinterpreting the blasphemy law.

Once upon a time

This time of year, as I am surrounded by the observances of Ramazan and Lent, my mind goes back to my childhood in PECHS, Block E, Karachi, in the 70s, where our street had a few Christian families living. In the upper portion of the house right across us lived Muggo’s family. Muggo was Margaret, a spritely 20-something I used to think the world of. She was attractive, had lovely straight her that moved with her animated head. She always smiled at us as she went in her office van early in the morning as my dad drove us off for school. On Sundays, dressed in smart skirts and shoes, she and her elderly mother and elder sister left for church, their heads draped in wispy chiffon scarves.

Peering at them through our window, my mother taught us what ‘Sunday best’ meant. Next door to them lived little mean Maureen, who was differently-abled. We played pittu and hide and seek together with other kids in the street, until her mean streak came alive and disrupted our playtime. Then a few blocks away was Shirley, a dark girl with lots of long, thick hair and dazzling smiles for us. She too whizzed off in her office van early in the morning and returned in the evening when we were playing in the street or hanging in our balconies, chomping on bubble-gum, as we waited for the other kids to appear.

And then how could I not think of my bestie Sandra Cordeiro in the government officer’s colony at Garden Road, Karachi, where we lived in the late 70s and early 80s. We hung out a lot at each other’s houses. At her house was better because Sandra had three elder sisters Joan, Jackie, Eva. Their brother Alan would be busy driving the sisters back and forth or fiddling with his copper coloured Dodge Dart or strumming his guitar. Dino, their dog would join us off and on as we listened to music, ate innumerable sandwiches, or cycled around the colony. Mr Cordiero worked for some elevator company while Dr/Mrs Cordeiro was the civil surgeon and must have looked down our throats and give us unpalatable mixtures a million times, at the civil surgeon’s office where now stand the barracks of the Sindh Secretariate.

Ofcourse Christmas and Easter were duly celebrated and Sandra appeared at our washed and scrubbed and in a new dress and string of pearls. A vast difference from her usual messy appearance and patent slacks and tee. The cookies and cakes that were sent to our house, we thought, were far more exciting than the sevaiyan, haleem or halwa that was sent from ours to them for Eid, Moharram and Eid-e-Milad-un-Nabi respectively. But Sandra and her dad thought differently as they devoured the plate of halwa in minutes. The closeness, and camaderie that we shared was so uncontrived, so casual as though there wasn’t any other way to be. They were them and we were us and that’s how it was meant to be. Nobody even thought about, let alone speak of belonging to different faiths. Being there for each other mattered most and that is all there was to it, an easy, weightless feeling. I have lost touch with most of these lovely people as they immigrated abroad, but I do hope to find them on social media someday soon.

A confused nation

“The only way we can promote interfaith harmony is by encouraging activities that help our relations with each other,” says Father Mario. “We should let go of the negative elements and start talking positive. Let’s focus on becoming better Pakistanis, not just better Muslims, and better Christians. I also feel that as a society, we have lost our nationalist spirit which must be developed among us again. We have to feel that we are proud to be Pakistani. That is the most important thing.”

Presently, a mix of communities reside together in only in the older areas of the cities and towns, not the newer areas, where there is not much mingling among people of different faiths. Overall, the society is more Saudi influenced, than core Pakistani, many of imagine we are Turks. What is certain that we are not what we used to be. “All human beings are important to me,” says Father Mario, beaming at his students who performed a series of skits around interfaith harmony and beautifully recited hymns and naats, before the iftar dinner began. “I hope I continue and am able to serve the people, and when I say people, I don’t mean only Christians.

But he agrees that our society has become intolerant and polarised since the time of General Zia. “But this makes it even more important to promote good will between people belonging to different religious communities. Prior to Zia’s time, this division wasn’t present at all inthe communities whether you were a Muslim or Christian or Hindu orParsi. This change has happened since then. We were all an equal partof Pakistan, practically living in each other's houses. For Christmas,everybody would live in my house most of the time, for Easter, it wasthe same, and for Eid, I would be in their house. There was a lot ofmingling and mixing and nobody felt threatened or insecure. Everybodyhad their own faith to follow, others respected that. And that isharmony.”