Every year as Ramadan approaches, I prepare myself for the familiar rhythms of the holy month — the pre-dawn meals, the deliberate pace of daylight hours without food or water, the communal iftars, the extended night prayers. I anticipate that distinctive spiritual atmosphere that settles over these 30 days, where time itself seems to operate by different rules.
This year, however, Ramadan arrived with an unexpected companion. Just one week before the crescent moon appeared, my husband was diagnosed with acute leukemia. In an instant, our carefully planned spiritual journey was completely rewritten.
The diagnosis came with little warning — a routine blood test, urgent phone calls and then the world as we knew it tilted on its axis. Suddenly, conversations about fasting intentions were replaced by discussions of treatment protocols. The anticipated spiritual retreat became something else entirely — a crash course in mortality.
In those first days, as my husband began treatment, I found myself in unfamiliar territory where faith and crisis collided. The expected rituals, such as extended prayers, Quranic recitation and spiritual contemplation, suddenly seemed like luxuries I could no longer afford. My days became consumed with the immediate demands of caregiving.
I still attended night prayers when possible, but at other times stayed home to sit with my husband instead. Late into the night, when the house finally quieted, I worked to complete my professional responsibilities, sacrificing sleep to maintain some semblance of normalcy amidst the crisis.
It wasn’t long before I began feeling a creeping sense of guilt. Was I failing Ramadan? Was I missing the opportunity for spiritual growth that this month promises? These questions lingered as I moved through days that felt nothing like the Ramadans I had known before.
Then one afternoon, as I was helping my husband shower — his body weakened by the aggressive treatment — something shifted in my understanding. There was nothing dramatic about the moment. I was simply holding him steady, carefully washing his back, mindful of the new PICC line that delivered his medication. He was tired, vulnerable and completely dependent on my assistance. And in that ordinary act of care, I felt something profoundly sacred.
It occurred to me that perhaps this was worship, too — this attentiveness to human fragility, this bearing witness to suffering, this commitment to sustain another person through their darkest hours. Perhaps the essence of ibadah (worship) wasn’t just in the formal rituals but in these acts of service rendered with full awareness of our complete dependence on something greater than ourselves.
The philosopher and Islamic scholar Seyyed Hossein Nasr once wrote about how modern humans have “burned their hands in the fire which they themselves have kindled by allowing themselves to forget who they are.” In the midst of illness, there is no forgetting who we are. The body — its frailty, its needs, its stubborn insistence on care — demands acknowledgment. My husband’s illness forced us both into a radical presence with the reality of our mortality.
As the days progressed, I began to recognize a different kind of Ramadan emerging. My fasting continued, but hunger now carried new significance: a physical reminder of the limits we all share, the vulnerability we typically ignore but that illness forces us to confront. The prescribed supplications remained part of my day, but they were now interspersed with simpler, more desperate prayers: “Please let the treatment work. Please give him strength. Please help us through this.”
There were moments when my husband would struggle with his emotions — the fear, the sadness, the profound fatigue that accompanies not just cancer but its treatment. In those moments, simply sitting with him, holding space for those feelings without trying to fix or minimize them, became its own form of devotion, a recognition that even these difficult emotions are part of our human experience before God.
My husband battled severe mucositis, making each bite of food a painful challenge. Managing his nutrition became a delicate process; each morsel had to be carefully considered for its gentleness on his inflamed mouth and throat. Each small bite he managed became a victory we celebrated together, a kind of gratitude practice I had never before associated with eating.
Meanwhile, our broader community established a meal train for me and our children that nourished us in ways both physical and spiritual. These food deliveries from friends and neighbors taught us profound lessons about the importance of community. Their sustenance carried us through when our own strength faltered, allowing me to focus on my husband’s care rather than household management.
This was Ramadan stripped of embellishments. Gone were the social gatherings and the opportunities to dress up and be festive that typically mark this month. Instead, I found myself in a Ramadan reduced to its essence — a confrontation with human limitation, a surrender to forces beyond our control, a recognition of our absolute dependence.
What emerged from this unwanted education was a different relationship with faith: one without ruffles, plain and unadorned. A faith not of transcendent spiritual highs but of steady presence in the face of suffering. In the simple act of washing my husband’s body, I found echoes of the ritual washing we perform before prayer. In the careful preparation of meals he might tolerate, I recognized the mindfulness we bring to breaking our fasts. In the long hours of simply being present as he processed his diagnosis, I discovered a form of contemplation no less profound than the night prayers I sometimes missed.
Islamic tradition teaches that one of the greatest forms of worship is to “visit the sick.” My husband spent the first half of Ramadan in the hospital before continuing his recovery at home. During his hospitalization, the steady stream of visitors created an intentional community — a different kind of gathering than our usual Ramadan celebrations, but no less meaningful. These weren’t merely social calls but acts of spiritual significance, each person fulfilling a sacred obligation while bringing comfort and connection.
There is a profound teaching in our tradition that God is with the sick — ”I was ill and you did not visit Me ... Did you not know that had you visited him you would have found Me with him?” This Ramadan, I felt God’s presence more tangibly than ever before, not in the mosque or prayer hall, but right here in our home.