Day 28: Ramadan relationships

Yesterday was the first day in the whole month of Ramadan that I managed to steal some 1-1 time with the student who inspired my Ramadan experience.

'R', as we will still call him, is quite a quiet fella. He really keeps himself to himself and doesn't often want to ask you for anything if he is in a group situation. When I was checking over the afternoon activities to see what my duties were that day, I saw that R had decided to stay with the non-sport group, which I had also been assigned to. This wasn't like him, as he'll always usually choose football when he has the choice. 

I stole him for a quiet word shortly after and asked if he would like to join me to practise calisthenics instead. The group he was going to be with were all younger and far less mature than him, so I thought he'd appreciate some more man-to-man time if given the opportunity. R accepted and after lunch we headed off to Knockhill Park in Renfrew to train and hang out on the bars together.

After living in Renfrew for 3 years, Knockhill Park is one of my favourite locations for calisthenics. I've been there with R before and he always enjoys training with me, and has been practising his calisthenics at home recently on a doorframe pullup bar in his bedroom. 

Giving R the chance for over an hour of 1-1 time with me really allowed him to ask me much more about my Ramadan experience than he's asked me the whole month. I've said before that I didn't think he was that interested that I'd been observing fasting, but I was incorrect. During both car journeys to and from Renfrew he really asked me everything about what I'd experienced so far. I really enjoyed speaking to him so openly and frankIy and I got to learn far more about his faith than ever before.

To my slight surprise, with regards to his age, R is already very well informed about his religion and takes time to continuously educate himself about Islam in his spare time. He was very interested to know if my perception of Islam had changed during my experience. I told R that my perception of Islam had strongly improved, but that's not to say I had an overly negative perception before I started. I just had never bothered myself to learn about something that didn't really affect me. 

I did have a negative perception as a teenager and younger man, due to the environment I grew up in in Lancashire and the bias of typical UK media coverage. This has evened out as I've matured, but now my perception of Islam has gone from neutral to very positive. 

I've enjoyed learning about the religion itself and benefitted from reading a few translated excerpts from the Quran. I've also actually really enjoyed learning from R, my friends and new people I've met through Instagram about how true their religion is and how important it is for them. I've always held a negative bias about all religions and have been dismissive of most people who say they had a religion, because I could see their religion was in vain; for example, they said they belonged to a specific sect of Christianity, yet lived a life which was in direct conflict with the beliefs and practices of their stated religion (see the majority of 'Catholics' and 'Protestants'...), or James 1:26 in the Bible.

At the start of Ramadan I had hoped that observing fasting would enable me to improve my relationship with R and yesterday I truly felt that our relationship has improved. I feel proud of this today. But, it's not just R who I've improved my relationship with. I've actually improved my friendships with a number of people (yes, Zenab and Zenith, I'm talking to you!) and have made a number of new friendships along the way.

This for me will be the most valuable part when I look back on my whole Ramadan experience. I could not have expected to receive a reward of improving and creating this many friendships and relationships along the way. As we enter the final day of fasting (or so I hope this will be the case), this is what I'll be reflecting on most positively. 

People were saying they were proud of me at the start, but I can say now that I'm very proud of my achievements too.