World Muslims are at the tail end of their fasting. Eid’l Fiter, or the Feast ending Ramadan, could end on either 9 or 10 April, depending on the sighting of the new moon, which is an issue that refuses to die.

The last 10 nights of Ramadan are the most important when Layllatul Kadr, or the “Night of Power,” occurs. Muslims believe that the rewards one gets from prayers and good deeds multiply a thousand times if you do them on these particular nights.

The Hadith al Shariff says: “Whatever good deeds you do in the night, it’s like you did it for 1,000 months or 83 years.” Devotees double up on their prayers. My nephew, Eve Gandarosa Timberlake Trudeau, a budding stage and movie actor, describes it as a “pray all you can situation and a buffet of blessings.”

Observing Ramadan is no walk in the park. One’s daily clockwork routine is altered. Meal times and sleep structures are shuffled. One wakes up at a wee hour in the morning to eat suhoor, the first meal of the day, to start the fast from food, liquids and other deviant mundane activities until sunset for iftar, the breaking of the fast. Prayers and physical rituals in the evening are multiplied, with added special back-breaking bending and dizzying supplications in taraweeh and tahajud prayers.

Ramadan is the holiest month in the Islamic lunar calendar when the Holy Koran was revealed.

It is also a time for self-reflection and the remembrance of tales about how the Prophet Muhammad, PBUH, and the early Muslims struggled to protect and propagate the seed of Islam.

It was not easy. They met obstacles and persecution, including bodily harm and proselytizing Islam among idol-worshipping Arabs. In Taif, Saudi Arabia, they were stoned and shooed away. Islamic books and the compendium of accounts compiled by the followers of Muhammad PBUH in the Hadith al Shariff are replete with tales of battles, which, in a way, changed the trajectory of future Islam.

These wars occurred during Ramadan when Allah, SWT, flexed its power to protect the believers in what many considered a miracle.

The first major battle fought by the early Muslims was on the desert mountain of Badr. It was a battle like no other in Islamic history. It happened on the 20th day of Ramadan, when the Muslims were observing their fast. The Muslims were greatly outnumbered and “outweaponed.” About 313 Muslim fighters fought against 1,300 non-believer Meccans.

The Divine Power intervened. They were commanded by no less than the Prophet Muhammad, PBUH, himself. The bravery and battle ingenuity of the Prophet were revealed. However, accounts in Islamic literature credited the Muslims’ victory to divine intervention. The heavy rainfall — a hydrological cycle rarely seen in deserts — before the battle ensnared the horses and camels of the attacking enemy in a quagmire of loose sand and dirt, like quicksand, which made them sitting ducks for the Muslims. Their phenomenal victory was nothing less than a miracle.

That victory catapulted to prominence the persona of the Prophet, which metamorphosed from a tribal to a regional leader of men. It enhanced the Prophet’s evangelization. His magnanimity to the captives became legend.

The Battle of Hattin in July 1187 CE, also in the fasting month of Ramadan in present-day Israel, was another decisive victory for Muslims. The legendary Saladin, Sultan of Egypt and Syria (1174-1193 CE), led the battle. The Christian army of the Kingdom of Jerusalem and their Latin allies were totally defeated, paving the way for the Muslims’ retaking of the walled city of Jerusalem.

It was a combination of the battle genius of Sultan Saladin and divine intervention. The 400 Muslims appeared to be no match against the 1,200 Christian armored fighters, mostly specially trained Crusader Templars, but the Muslims won the day. The war ignited when the détente earlier established with the peace pact between Muslims and Christians was broken when pilgrims to Mecca were waylaid and annihilated.

Had the results of these battles been turned otherwise, the future of one of the greatest religions in the world would have been uncertain.

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