Echos of Ramadan 2012 part 1: Ramadan Lectures; were the muslim faithful audience for foods or sermons?

Ramadan lectures: Were the Muslim faithful audience for food or the sermon?

Malam Munir, Chairman (2nd left); Alfa Azeez (left) & other members of Itikaf Committee of Abdul-Azeez Islamic Foundation at the Eid-ground on Eid-Filtr Day 

Muslims worldwide celebrated their end of Ramadan festival on Sunday, August 19, 2012 with the traditional fanfare of carnival-like gathering for prayer on Eid-grounds.

    The correspondents of The Colloquium Tabloid that went round to see how things went, from whom Newz Indices also sought its materials for this publication, reported on the peaceful atmosphere that pervaded the entire nation -- otherwise widely under the siege of a rampaging religious sect called Boko Haram (BH).

    So far, over 2000 deaths are said to have been recorded from the menace of the BH. The Nigerian government has refused the sect to be recognized as terrorist group. On the visit of the Secretary of State for United State of America, Hillary Clinton, to Nigeria recently, the President, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, still reiterated this position to the US government, insisting that the BH group were only another group of Nigerians with grievances seeking the attention of their government.

    The month of Ramadan is regarded among the Muslim faithful as the Holiest month of the Hijra calendar; being the time Allah revealed His message to mankind through His Prophet, called the Rosullilah in the Arabic version, Mohammed Ibn Abdullahi.

Alfa Ishiak, also of the Itikaf Committee of Abdul-Azeez

    Throughout this holy month, Muslims are believed to have gone into a total era of annual spiritual piety from cleansing off their past sins through complete abstinence from all worldly affairs that include the mandatory daily feeding, drinking or tea-break of any kind.

    In the intangible aspect of this process of spiritual cleansing, Muslims are to refrain their public conducts to only the inevitable but allal (Allah’s accepted way of) social interactions with their immediate neighbours – no quarrelsomeness, no anger, no malice, be generous and talk only when is absolutely necessary.

Alhaji Taofik, aka Tasho, did his usual, giving free Malts after Eid

Muslim women at Eid ground of Abdul-Azeez Foundation

    In this wise, it is clearer that for a Muslim to maintain the highest standard of piety required of the time, all the sense organs must sustain a degree of restraints. The eyes must strive to see less of the ubiquitous debased morality of sexually offensive dressings around it. The tongue must not talk evil in so far the brain must desist from conceiving it. The ears should instigate the man to walk away form evil and un-Islamic talks and seek to be fed with spiritual foods in sermons/lectures regarding matters of Allah’s commands on mankind. And above all, the body nerves should coordinate all these senses to limit the sense of touch to the threshold of permissible level.

    To help the Ummah meet and sustain the highest ethics of these basic requirements, the 29 or 30 days of Ramadan fasting are always a beehive of activities raised by combined actions of Islamic scholars and wealthy Muslims to engage the mind and body of the Muslim Faithful. Indeed, the 2012 edition’s was no exception in this wise.

    Prominent among the activities as often witnessed are the Itikaf and Ramadan lectures. However as in tradition, while the latter is a general phenomenon, the former is the elitist that some critics have come to say it's taking an habitual business angle some Islamic clerics have introduced to the process of serving Allah.

However, both are the channels of annual opportunities the many clerics have to reap their worldly bounties in service of Allah:

    The various Ramadan lectures for this year, as the Newz Indices confirmed to be, were well spiced up with generous gifts of Souvenirs, food stuff and feedings for iftar (the breaking of fast at 7pm).

The worthy question from observations: The lecture audience; for material gifts or spiritual foods?   

A typical lecture event aesthetic on display

The many of such lectures NI witnessed were the Abdul-Azeez Islamic Foundation’s held at the Police Parade Ground, Oduduwa, Ikeja; De-Fayus Islamic Foundation’s held as Ta’ajud (Nigh event/prayer till day break) at Igando; the one of Alimosho Council of Chief Imams held at Moshalshi, Alimosho and sponsored by Baba Idini of Alimosho, Alhaji Abdullahi Ogunrinde (a.k.a Amo Oil); the one of Solo efforts Engr. Osuolale held at the premises of Abdul-Azeez Islamic Foundation Central Mosque, Unity Estate, and the one of Admonition Islamic Centre (AIC) --  with supplementary efforts from MICA Alimosho, held at Club 9, also at Unity Estate.

Gift distributed at the lecture sponsored by Alh Ogunrinde

A guest clutching her gift package

    The peculiarity to all this lecture is the material of attraction – being the gifts from the generous treasury of the sponsor as far more than the lecture, the resource personnel (the cleric) and the topic of the lecture. This is a fact from the post-lecture opinion polls conducted on the participants by NI on each occasion.

    Side comments of the many faithful at the lectures instigated the opinion sampling. NI soon noticed that it became a common parameter to use gift distributed at each of the lectures or food package served compared to last year’s or the penultimate’s, or the standard convention sponsor of the lecture was noted for to mark a stamp of success or failure of these 2012 lectures – as often discussed in hush tone among the participants. Hardly were references made in review of the values or social relevance of the sermons delivered.

Some members of the Council of Chief Imams, Alimosho

Family members of Alh. Ogunrinde their lecture, Mosalashi

    In Alimosho, the Admonition Islamic Centre (AIC) opened the floods of Ramadan Lecture series on 21^st of July 2012 at Club 9 Garden, Unity Estate, Abule Odu. To speak on a well structured topic agreeably potentially evergreen in relevance to mankind – themed Boundless Rahma; the organization paraded those the religion correspondents of The Colloquium Tabloid described as ‘Sectored Icons’ that fit into worth for the three lecture topics of religious, politics and personal finance the organizers strategically coined..

    The religious lecture – “Ramadan Month of Boundless Rahma” -- was handled by Sheikh Abdul-Rahman Sulaimon Adangba, the Chief Missioner of Al-Faith Ul Quareeb Society of Nigeria. The subject of “Islam and the New World Order” was handled by Abdulhafeex Salaudeen, the Managing Director of Brooks Honey; while Mr. Sulieman Adedokun, the Managing Director of Meristem Wealth Managements Ltd, handled the topic of “Lifestyle Financial Planning” for personal finance.

Members of Assalat women organisation at a lecture

Another Assalat women at another Ramadan lecture

    Thus in both terms of personality for role model and wisdom from Islamic Sermons, AIC had packaged well its spiritual foods for the Ramadan Lecture to engage the meaningful attention of the Muslim audience. And to sustain the concept of households’ value Islam holds in high esteem, the Benevolent group of MICA, another Islamic organization complemented this effort with the right tool for the engagement of the tendentiously playful mind of the children with Bouncing Castle. However, the post lecture comprehension impacts survey the NI later carried out revealed that the Iftar food package were rather applied to score the success of the event.

    With “How would you describe today’s lecture” as lead question to those interviewed, 100% returned a verdict of success on it. But when asked to “justify the success verdict” deliberately without a lead for factor or parameter to use, 7 out of 13 people interviewed promptly replied with answers that is here in reframed for a common meaning as: ‘The organizers have tried for them to have served these foods and gifts package for both adult and children’. 4 made reference to how well the event was organized while only two made specific mention of the values of the sermons (lectures) as delivered in touch of relevant interests.

Muslims on Eid-ground of Abdul-Azeez Islamic N/P School

What could be responsible for this general interest in food and less of the lecture? 

Comment your opinion.