Title: Ramadan

Author: MJ Gage (Yes, MJ is short for a real name, I never use)

Date: Feb. 16, 2000

Disclaimer: Wow, I wish I was as talented as the creators of these wonderful characters. Namely, Tom Fontana, Barry Levinson, & Rysher Entertainment. But I'm not so I just have to say, no copyright infringement is intended. I'm doing this out of love for the show and don't plan on making any money from this little venture.

Feedback: I will take @: MJG@sleepmail.org. I don't care what you say, it's just nice to know somebody is reading this stuff. As long as you aren't my mother.

Summery: Said muses on the meaning of the holiday and how he can bring it to Oz.

Rating: Nothing really happens.

Major big thank yous to my Betas. I could do this with out you.


Ramadan
by MJ Gage

The third Ramadan he spent in prison was the one of his greatest spiritual renewal since his conversion to Islam. Activities occurring before the Holy Month of fasting and meditation lead him to question the meaning and direction of his faith. The central question simmered down to the place of politics in his religion. Which was more important, power or spirituality? In the end, he chose Allah.

In the end, the message was more significant to Kareem Said than the relative position of the messenger. He made his decisions before Ramadan. He spent the holiest month of the Islamic calendar doing as the Qur'an bade; renewing his faith, fasting, meditating, forgiving and finally combining a good deed with an act of charity.

Ramadan is the holiest month of the Islamic year because, "It was the month of Ramadan in which the Qur'an was bestowed from on high as a guidance unto humankind and a clear proof of that guidance, and as the standard to discern truth from falsehood." The Qur'an 2:185. During the month long celebration the faithful are required to fast during daylight hours to separate themselves from their most animalistic parts and to emulate the angelic state of the after life.

Said was grateful he never had to fight with McManus or the warden over the fasting and the prescribed fast breaking every day of Ramadan required. They may be ignorant of many of the practices of his religion, but each understood the importance of an incontestable requirement of the faith. More importantly, they both knew the disadvantages of denying Kareem and the rest of Oz's Muslim population their constitutional right to practice their religion.

Nevertheless, this year was different. Said was separated from the rest of the faithful in the maximum-security prison. With one exception. His most recent convert, Tobias Beecher. Beecher the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back. Nevertheless, the distance had been growing before the issue of a white convert ever came about. Part of that was Hamid Khan's pride and thirst for power. A larger piece, and the only one that mattered, was his pride and arrogance. He acknowledged his failings and resolved to rededicate himself to Allah, no matter how difficult the path may be.

Said's greatest challenge was not where he expected it. The challenge was not placing his spirituality over the quest for political power. A renewed faith placed secular matters in their proper perspective. The challenge was his latest convert. If ever a student was created to try a teacher, it was Tobias Beecher. The man was willing to learn all he could about Islam. He possessed a fine mind and a quick intellectual grasp of the tenants of the faiths. It was the importance of taking those tenants, making them his own and putting them into practice that Beecher seemed unable to grasp. Unable or unwilling.

Islam was not a hard faith, but it did require discipline. A discipline the wandering sanity of Beecher's mind seemed unable to grasp. The daily routine of prayers only followed when in Said's presence. The fasting of Ramadan easily forgotten. The separation from one's animalistic urges an expediently discarded inconvenience. Kareem understood that it was often difficult and overwhelming for new converts. He realized the constant discord and violence of prison life often made the discipline of the faith seem an unfeasible luxury. He was aware the isolation and antagonism from the larger community of Muslims could not be conducive to a new practice of the faith. At times, it appeared to Said that Beecher was using Islam the same way he used heroin or alcohol. A simple solution to the overwhelming problems haunting Beecher.

The events on the twenty-third night combined with those on the seventeenth day of the Holy Month reminded Said that his faith, not the convert's, was the focus. The last ten days of the Holy Month were the most spiritually significant. These were the days directly proceeding the revelation of the Qur'an to the Prophet. This was the time the faith concentrated on prayer and reading the Qur'an. This is when good deeds were most highly rewarded.

On the seventeenth day of Ramadan, the Christians celebrated the birth of their savior. Miguel Alvarez killed Carlo Ricardo and reentered the tiny cell his grandfather had spent most of his life. The cell were Miguel would dissipate his life. Said saw the episode play out. He dismissed it as drug and/or gang related brutality. More prevalent in prison than on city streets.

It was the actions of his newest convert on the twenty-third night of the Holy Month that gave Said pause. Ramadan not only requires the faithful to abstain from all food and drink during daylight hours. It also required the faithful to abstain from their base animal instincts. This included sexual passion. Passions of a homosexual nature were always forbidden. The twenty-third night of Ramadan, while Said prayed for Allah's forgiveness, Tobias Beecher clearly gave into his animalistic passions with Chris Keller.

Beecher's faith was like his drug addiction and his madness. A crutch to get him through the pain of Oz. Tobias would leave Allah behind with all of the harsh lessons and memories the second he crossed the gates of freedom. Like everything else he gained in Oz, it would be an inordinately painful reminder of his incarceration. Said was isolated in his faith.

Miguel Alvarez, now there was an enigma worthy of contemplation. The boy committed some of Oz's most violent acts. Yet, one of his first violent actions was to cut his face open in attempt to appease his god. Kareem thought about Alvarez. In a way, he reminded the teacher of Jefferson Keane/Tizzie Ouzou. The same capacity for senseless brutality. The same desire to know God's love. He saw the young man's attack on Ricardo. He knew it was one of the endless kill or be killed dances at Oz.

Alvarez was known as one of the most devoted Catholics in Em City. Said had often seen him praying alone in his pod. Once he had even observed Alvarez praying the rosary. The boy was clearly searching for something and believed the answer rested in God's hands. Catholic rituals and devotions were as strict as the tenants of Islam were. The boy possessed the strength and the devotion to follow the one true faith. He just believed in the wrong savior.

Ramadan was a time of spiritual renewal and good deeds. Alvarez's religion may walk a different path, but Allah was in all things and all roads lead to him. He was a true believer and was it right to allow a true believer to unjustly suffer simply because he addressed God in an unorthodox language? Would it not be a greater act of charity to try to assist this boy, than to bring an erratic convert into the fold?

Kareem Said decided it was time to wish Timothy McManus a joyous New Year. While there, he would remind Tim of the eighth amendment to the United States' Constitution. The provision against cruel and unusual punishment prohibited imprisoning men acting in self-defense. Said knew it was also intended to halt the travesty of a lifetime sentence to solitary confinement. That would be an interesting Supreme Court case to pursue in the New Year. Yes, it definitely was time to visit Mr. McManus.

As Kareem rose to leave, Tim ventured one final question. "Said, why Alvarez?"

Said paused and turned to face McManus. Kareem thought of Tizzie Ouzou and the strength Allah gave him. "The boy seems to have a strong faith." He remembered the pain of observing Beecher and Keller. "Because I was there, I saw what happened."



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