Ramadan - Balancing Life in the Age of Noise

By Abdussalam Nakua

As we welcome Ramadan this year, we can only imagine how early Muslims felt as they welcomed Ramadan in a new land.

About a century ago, the word “Ramadan” entered the Canadian lexicon in the form of a trivia question.

On Oct. 29, 1927, “What is Ramadan?” was a trivia question put by the Toronto Daily Star to its readers.

Oddly, Ramadan that year started on the fourth of March.

It would take the newspaper more than 30 years to report about the first attempt by the renascent community to establish a mosque in the city, in 1959.

Much has changed since then. 

Now in 2026, mosques have become ubiquitous in Canada’s landscapes and Ramadan is part of the social fabric of Canadian society.

It is even becoming a Canadian ritual for non-Muslims to fast one day in solidarity with the local Muslim communities.

Yet, Ramadan remains, at least in the Canadian culture, as an enchanting form of worship that is rarely given the reflection and analysis it deserves, nor was it contextualized beyond the core elements of fasting, basically the abstinence of eating, drinking and intimate relationships. 

What is missing from the narrative around Ramadan is its essence beyond the rituals and rules.

At its core, Ramadan is a human journey of spiritual rejuvenation that is designed to help us find our individual paths towards living a more balanced life. 

This balance is anchored in attaining a heightened state of God-consciousness through pivoting our focus away from desires towards a middle path that balances the inherent tension between the spiritual and the mundane, the secular and the sacred, the personal and the communal.

We live in a world where desires are so pervasive in our daily lives. 

It is estimated that people feel some desire about half the time we are awake. Aldous Huxley called this the “Age of Noise,” as he lamented 80 years ago about the prevalence of desires in the age of Radio.

He notes how such noise prevented people from attaining a moment of reflection and stillness.

If Huxley had lived into the 21st century, he would have seen a new crescendo of noise with the emergence of social media and digital platforms.

Today, the average person sees between 4,000 and 10,000 ads in a single day. This creates the allure of gratification through insatiable consumption of new things. 

This culture was cultivated through a carefully constructed marketing industry  where humans were reconstructed as consumers.

According to William R. Leach, a professor of history at Columbia University, who chronicled this transformation in his book, Land of Desire, this transformation started to take shape at the start of the twentieth century.

He traced how a new culture was curated around the allure of desires.

Subsequently, consumption became a way of life, and buying was made into a ritual through which we seek our spiritual satisfaction.

This indulgence in desires has dulled our capacity to distinguish lust from intimacy, allure from beauty, and noise from substance.

As a consequence, this uninhibited pursuit of desires has proven to be catastrophic on our health and wealth.

For example, It has been estimated that up to 40% of deaths in the United States every year are attributable to self-control failures and indulgence.

Excessive consumption patterns and endless acquisition of things has been the leading cause of the catastrophic degradation of the earth ecosystems.

In 2018, North Americans consumed 862 kg of food per person, or 30% more than the global average.

The average Canadian household amounts to 140 kilograms of wasted food per year, costing Canadians in excess of $20 billion.

It is estimated that 100 billion garments are produced each year, of which 92 billion tonnes end up in landfills.

Sustaining those consumption rates comes at a steep cost due to use of natural resources which has grown dramatically from 10 billion tonnes in 1950 to 70 billion tonnes in 2010, and is projected to reach at least 225 billion tonnes by 2050.

More alarmingly, these activities generate 2.01 billion tonnes of municipal solid waste, and massive 9.2 billion tons of industrial waste.

Therefore, Ramadan, in essence, is part of an alternative world view that rejects this obsession with consumerist gratification.

It awakens a spiritual consciousness to help us pursue meaning and purpose in life beyond just the pursuit of happiness and worldly pleasures.

Fasting offers a unique path to sharpen our senses by taming our desires.

This is achieved through many interconnected routes.

One is through delayed gratification by comparing the temporary worldly wealth and comforts with the reward and the bounties of the Hereafter.

فَمَا أُوتِيتُم مِّن شَيْءٍ فَمَتَاعُ الْحَيَاةِ الدُّنْيَا ۖ وَمَا عِندَ اللَّهِ خَيْرٌ وَأَبْقَىٰ لِلَّذِينَ آمَنُوا وَعَلَىٰ رَبِّهِمْ يَتَوَكَّلُونَ ﴿36 الشورى﴾

So whatever thing you are given, that is only a provision of this world's life, and what is with Allah is better and more lasting for those who believe and rely on their Lord. (Chapter 42:36)

Secondly, Quran instructs Muslims to resist the lust of desires by seeking spiritual gratification and closeness to Allah:

وَاللَّهُ يُرِيدُ أَن يَتُوبَ عَلَيْكُمْ وَيُرِيدُ الَّذِينَ يَتَّبِعُونَ الشَّهَوَاتِ أَن تَمِيلُوا مَيْلًا عَظِيمًا

And Allah desires that He should turn to you (mercifully), and those who follow (their) lusts desire that you should deviate (with) a great deviation. (Chapter 4:27)

Indeed, those verses along with many more encompass the essence of self-control which is typically defined as the ability to control behaviours to avoid temptations, and the ability to delay gratification and resist cravings and unwanted behaviours or urges.

While mapping the path from desire to behaviour is neither simple nor linear, there is considerable research that correlates self-control to an increased capacity to resist the temptation of desires.

Inhibition of desires and avoidance of temptations are necessary steps in any effective self-control strategy.

With effective self-control, it is possible to avoid 83% of desires.

Fasting through the month of Ramadan, therefore does give us the opportunity to develop the capacity to resist daily temptations and strengthen our mental resilience to build self-control and restraint.

In addition to fasting, the increased focus on prayers and sharing of wealth among the community further strengthens the spiritual growth and pity.  

So, the story around Ramadan should not be about the endurance of the journey, but rather about the shift in our attitudes and lifestyles.

A reorientation to a new paradigm that expands our areas of concern beyond ourselves to include the communities we live in.

Acts of giving and charities become one of the means to exercise self-restraint and tame our insatiable craving to have more.

Ramadan is about bringing a balance to our lives by focusing on meaning instead of gratification. 

[Abdussalam Nakua is an executive with the Muslim Association of Canada. He serves on the board of directors for the Ontario Nonprofit Network].