~*A lesson about Ramadan in prison*~

Ramadan is always a special time of the year. Even in prison. Although I was separated from sisters throughout my incarceration, we still managed to see each other often alhamdulillah. The benefit of being around practising sisters is something we can easily take for granted on the outside.

In terms of our food intake, we were given a pack of dates at the start of the month. Instead of being given lunch and dinner, we were given a box that contained our iftar meal and a bag with our lunch- which we would have for suhoor.

The lunch bag would contain a sandwich (e.g. a slice of cheese in two pieces of bread), a fruit, a portion of cereal and a small carton of milk.

For iftar, we would be given prison food in prison portions- by that I’m referring to Holloway in particular. In the beginning, the sisters found it really tough. We’d be fasting the whole day not knowing what we’d be given for iftar, only to be given food (often cold) that was so off-putting that we sometimes were not able to eat any of it at all. The sisters would complain about a number of issues with the food that we were given.

In prison, every jumu’ah, all the sisters would be collected by officers and taken to a room in the church that was specifically for Muslims- known by us as our prayer room. I remember one jumu’ah, during Ramadan, a sister gave a speech which moved us all. She taught us about gratitude and that we should be happy that Allah had blessed us with food in the first place. Subhan Allah. She was right. We were truly blessed. There are people in the world who are stricken with poverty and do not even have clean water to drink. Yet there are still people in the world that choose to fast, despite their poor circumstances.

This talk really affected us all... to the point that all of us sisters decided to take a u-turn. Since that day, none of us made a single complaint about the food Allah had blessed us with. If anyone would ask any of the sisters about whether they had liked their iftar yesterday, the sister would respond saying “alhamdulillah” with a big smile on her face.

Wallahi, since that day, for every iftar for the rest of Ramadan, we received delicious, filling food. Wallahi I was amazed. Subhan Allah.

Allah Says, "If you are grateful, I will surely increase you [in favor]" 
[Surah Ibrahim 14:7]

I swear by Allah, this is true. I wanted to share this experience in hopes that we all start to appreciate the blessings we have. If we are unhappy with the lack of something in our life, let’s be thankful to Allah that we have something in the first place. Perhaps by that sincere gratitude, Allah will increase us in what we thought we had a lack of.

Alhamdulillah for everything.