Merry X’mas prop, Ramadan Mubarak flop: Muslims businesses must wake up!

How Muslim businesses celebrate ‘Merry X’mas,’ but fail with ‘Ramadan Mubarak’

Christmas and New Year, ordinarily should not concern the Muslim. Ordinarily meaning “all things being equal,” yet we are glued to a dating system that forces them to matter to us.

As a Nigerian Sheikh once intimated, we know close to zero of the Islamic calendar but thanks to the monthly salary, Muslims religiously keep track of Gregorian dates.

So in Sharia-compliant parts of Nigeria, New Year is 1st Muharram (first month on Hijri calendar), no one observes January 1 as such.

Muslim shops conveniently play along with the Christmas and New Year hype during that time of the year. Shop painting and decoration even with gifts and X’mas boxes are prominent. Again, for purely business reasons because the celebration concerns us not.

But when it comes to Ramadan, the main pointer is that Muslims are not eating during the day, so sales of especially food drops.

The Muslim shops are bereft of any vibe and fervor about the blessed period for which each and every Muslim yearns.

In my lay man’s view, ceding our opportunity to hype Ramadan in its beauty and prominence to tow their Christmas buzz is a missed opportunity over the years but one that needs to change forthwith.

And so I dream: I dream of / envisage a time when Muslims shops will have zero Christmas décor but rather Ramadan Mubarak inscriptions.

When these shops will have small booklets with tips on what Ramadan means and offer it to customers along with dates – with the reason that it is the main fruit we use to break our fasts.

The two-pronged result, educating people about Ramadan (stressing the Muslim identity) and sharing of the goodness of the period.

We may be living in a Gregorian calendar dominated society but what we can do and effectively so is to inculcate and effectively fuse our Islamic calendar at crucial junctures.

The first step, after Ramadan 1439H, kindly let’s all keep track of the Islamic calendar in the lead up to 1440 and beyond, may Allah be our helper, may we be aided, guided and guarded by HIS providence and mercy. Ameeen.