The Ramadan Debate: Spirituality vs. Productivity
There’s a heated debate amongst Muslim Professionals that take place every year regarding Ramadan. The debate is divided between the “Spiritual camp” and the “Pragmatic camp” and it goes as follows: The Spiritual camp argue that Ramadan is the month of spirituality, and we should focus our efforts on acts of worship such as fasting, prayers, charity, and recitation of Quran — and if possible, we should take time out from work during Ramadan and make the most of the blessed month. The Pragmatic camp argue that we should be practical about Ramadan, and balance (translate to: reduce) our spiritual commitments during Ramadan so that we can maintain productivity in the workplace and not give Islam or Muslims a bad name.
How do we settle this debate? And does being productive during Ramadan negate enjoying the spirituality of the month.
The Ramadan Spirit & Challenge
When we think about Ramadan, most of us — as Muslim Professionals — look forward to the spiritual & cultural elements of the month: the soul-moving prayers, the beautiful recitations of Quran that move us to tears, the delicious iftar meals by our family, and the happy & hearty “Ramadan Kareem!” you hear from family, friends and even strangers. This is what makes Ramadan special for us and a month that 1.5 billion Muslims around the world look forward to every year.
However, we cannot deny that Ramadan comes with its own set of challenges — especially with regards to our productivity, this includes: the long fasting hours, the feeling of thirst and hunger that challenges our concentration at work, sleeping late because of the late night spiritual/cultural aspects of the month, having to wake up early to eat a meal at a time you normally don’t feel like having breakfast, and yes — the cranky people during fasting hours who because they can’t have their nicotine/caffeine fix, are not in the mood to discuss your new project (See my previous LinkedIn article: Understanding the Ramadan Challenge: 3 Surprising Insights Every HR Manager Needs to Know for this Upcoming Ramadan).
Apply this on a macro level, and you’d probably come to the same conclusion as two researchers from Harvard Kennedy School of Government in their paper:”Does Religion Affect Economic Growth and Happiness? Evidence from Ramadan” (Campante & Yanagizawa-Drott, 2013) which concluded that
“Ramadan affects Muslims’ relative preferences regarding work and religiosity…and has negative implications for economic performance, but that nevertheless increases subjective well-being among followers”.
Here’s a short NPR Interview that explains the above research in more detail:
Understanding the Debate
I wasn’t aware of the intensity of this debate until in 2011, when I partnered with the New York Research & Advisory firm DinarStandard, to produce the first survey on productivity during Ramadan. One of the unintended consequences was that some news media picked up the research and plastered headlines on how productivity drops in Ramadan and how much it is costing Muslim majority countries billions of dollars in GDP loss. Soon after, we started receiving both criticism & applause from both debate camps: The Spiritual camp was furious that it seemed that we negated the importance of spirituality of the month, and that no billions of dollars of lost productivity could ever be measured to the spirituality and blessings of the month (this is not what we meant by the study, please read the research recommendations here). And the Pragmatic camp were cheering saying how much this research was needed in the Muslim world.
What surprised me in the debate is that there was an “EITHER/OR” mentality amongst the debaters: Either you’re spiritual during Ramadan OR you’re productive. Some of those in the Spiritual camp, have a very strong belief that nothing “productive” gets done in Ramadan and that Ramadan is the month of fasting, prayers, and recitation of Quran and we should not try to reduce the value of its spirituality by emphasizing the need to improve work performance and productivity. Those who are in the pragmatic camp, simply said no, you can be productive in Ramadan and if that means you should reduce your spiritual commitments so that you can work as efficiently and as productively as your non-fasting peers, then that’s part of the struggle.
Another nuance of this debate is that it was clearly divided between Muslims who live in majority Muslim countries where working hours are reduced and there’s a cultural “acceptance” of reduced productivity in the month (as well as ramp up of spiritual advice received before/during the month) vs. Muslims living in non-Muslim majority countries who basically have to keep up with everybody else who are not fasting otherwise it’ll affect their performance at work (and perhaps don’t receive as much spiritual dosage in the media and surrounding environment).
Settling the Debate: understanding Taqwa
What I realized from this debate was that it was a debate about the purpose of Ramadan. And specifically, how we understand the concept of Taqwa (or God-consciousness or righteousness) during Ramadan which is what the Quran emphasizes as the purpose of Ramadan. Allah says in the Quran:
“O you who have believed, decreed upon you is fasting as it was decreed upon those before you that you may become righteous” The Holy Quran, Ch.2, V.183
For those in the Spiritual camp, Taqwa is about performing acts of worship and hence during Ramadan, they only want to increase their acts of worship. For those in the Pragmatic camp, Taqwa is not clearly defined.
Taqwa, comes from the root Arabic word “to protect” or “be protected” and the idea is for one to be protected from the hellfire and make choices in their life that lead them to Paradise in the hereafter.
If we think about it, Taqwa is essentially about being disciplined. Being disciplined with not only our spirituality (by doing acts of worship and avoiding sin) but being disciplined with our Soul, Bodies, and Mind. Put in other words, having Taqwa is about being conscious of making “righteous” choices in the full meaning of the word — not just for our spirituality but everything that makes human.
My contention in this debate is that we narrowed down the purpose of Ramadan to a specific understanding of Taqwa. That we only fulfill the purpose of Ramadan by performing acts of worship and nothing more. That being productive in our workplaces is not part of Taqwa. This to me — is a very limited understanding of the purpose of Ramadan and of Taqwa in general.
What if we expanded the meaning of Taqwa and made it about making those disciplined choices — not only for our spiritual well-being — but for our physical and social well-being as well? What if Taqwa is not only about avoiding sins or doing acts of worship but we apply the same consciousness to what we eat, how we sleep, what to focus on, and how to manage our time optimally — with the intention of achieving success in this life and the next?
What if God-consciousness (Taqwa) becomes a driver for your productivity and not a deterrent to being productive? What if the purpose of Ramadan was to explore your full human capacity, and not just your spiritual capacity?
How to expand your Human capacity during Ramadan
Through my years of productivity training — working with thousands of Muslim professionals, students, and working mothers, I found that Ramadan is the best time to test your true capacity as a productive human being. Let me put this in context: outside of Ramadan, it’s easy for you if you had a bad night sleep, to get a quick coffee fix in the morning and you’ll be relatively functioning throughout the day. But during Ramadan, if you didn’t sleep properly, and you didn’t wake up to have your predawn breakfast, it’s going to be tough and you’ll struggle to stay productive during the day (or be spiritual at night). So these smart choices don’t become optional during Ramadan, rather, they become essential! And not just essential to performing well as an employee or family member, but essential for your spirituality.
If we start seeing Ramadan as a challenge — a challenge that asks those who are in the Spiritual camp to be productive and serve others to the best of their ability. And a challenge that asks those who are in the Pragmatic camp to increase and improve their spirituality in the month. Then we’ll understand that Ramadan is truly about boosting our Human capacity — spiritually, physically, and socially.
The above requires a lot of hard work and making tough choices about how we spend our energy, our focus, and our time to optimize and improve our human capacity. This is the work that we’ve been doing at ProductiveMuslim.com over the past 9 years; we’ve been helping individuals understand what those choices are and stick to them before, during, and after Ramadan.
Over the next few weeks, I’ll be holding free webinars online to help teach practical ways to boost your human capacity during Ramadan. We’ve a brand new webinar coming up this week on “How to Eat, Move, Sleep during Ramadan?”. If you’re interested, simple click the image below to register for free for this webinar:
If you’re more serious about making this Ramadan more productive (& spiritual), then I highly recommend that you consider joining me for a pre-Ramadan bootcamp. Where each day for 30 days before Ramadan, I’ll walk you through a technique that would you make more productive and prepared for Ramadan. Click here to find out more.
Conclusion
I started this article by mentioning the two sides of the debate. What I hope you’d appreciate by now is that having a productive Ramadan is not about focusing on the spiritual side of Ramadan only and neglecting (or even ignoring) our productivity and work performance, neither the opposite. A productive Ramadan is about asking yourself the critical question: How can I be the best version of myself — spiritually, physically, and socially during this blessed month? If enough Muslims ask themselves this question and follow through with practical implementation of the latest productivity science that helps them be productive, healthy and balanced human beings, then perhaps in a few years we might get a different result from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government research I referred to you above, one that says that Ramadan not only improves subjective well-being among followers but it also improves economic performance & productivity.
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