In the void that remember
Ramadan in Mirleft – Between Ocean, Heart, and the Return to Fitrah
“O you who believe, fasting is prescribed for you as it was prescribed for those before you, that you may become mindful (taqwā).”
(Quran 2:183)
In Mirleft, during Ramadan, time does not flow.
It breathes.
This is not a metaphor; it is a real, almost physical perception. There is a different rhythm—a quality of time that does not accumulate but restores. It is a small Amazigh village in southern Morocco, suspended between the ocean and the desert, where the red earth meets the wind and everything seems to exist without effort.
Life offered me harbor here a year and a half ago. In this place I call home, spirituality is not separate from life. It is not something practiced in specific moments; it is something that emerges when you stop covering things up. It is in the kneading of bread, in the tea poured slowly from a height, in the shared silence that needs no filling.
I arrived here with an intellectualized, almost abstract idea of spirituality, largely conditioned by a role I was defending—a role that still constructed and fed an identity. Then Ramadan began, and something shifted inside. I have not become enlightened, and I have nothing to teach. It is a joyful urge to share that guides and nourishes this unpretentious story: my Ramadan.
Ramadan
The term Ramadan derives from the Arabic root ramad/ramida, evoking “dry heat” or burning. This “heat”—comparable to the Sanskrit tapas—is not symbolically intended as a destructive agent but as a purifier: an inner fire that consumes the impurities of the soul, lightening it, unfolding it, and dissolving the veils that cloud the heart and separate it from the experience of the Divine.
It is a month of intense spiritual luminosity, where fasting, prayer, and dhikr (the remembrance of Allah) act as fuel to ignite the inner light. It is a time of daily retreat, discipline, and rebirth. The senses are withdrawn inward (Pratyahara, according to yoga) to allow fitrah—our true nature—to emerge and guide our life. This discipline is not meant as restriction—which breeds rigidity—but as an opportunity for taqwā, or awareness. A path of Return.
The Time of Ramadan: A Body Retrained
The day begins before dawn. In the most silent moment of the night, when everything is still suspended, we wake for suhoor.
It is more than a meal; it is a preparation.
Warm bread.
Olive oil.
Dates.
Milk.
Oats.
Sometimes eggs, sometimes tea—in my case, very long coffees and Balboula, a barley soup with milk, extra virgin olive oil, and a pinch of thyme.
We eat slowly, with a different kind of awareness. Not to fill ourselves, but to sustain. Then, the Fajr prayer. An intention is formulated and then let go. In that moment, something changes. From then on, the day is no longer organized by need or habit, but by presence and remembrance. The fast begins.
Fasting: Removing to Remember
Fasting during Ramadan is not deprivation; it is memory. It is the body remembering what the mind has forgotten. One does not eat, drink liquids, or engage in sexual acts. One does not smoke. But we also abstain from expressing negative emotions (which does not mean inhibiting them, as Gurdjieff teaches), from gossip, from complaining, and from lying.
Naturally, compulsive scrolling, inconsequential daydreaming, and hours spent consuming TV series or video content as compensation are, as much as possible, abandoned. We also practice Zakat, the obligation to give a portion of one’s wealth to those in need, with conscious intention (muʿāda) and avoiding personal recognition (anonymity is strongly encouraged). Zakat is a tool for purifying the heart and dissolving attachment to the possessive, proud, and fearful self. It is another opportunity for Taqwa, through the lucid observation of the emotions that emerge during the act of giving.
“Allah desires ease for you and does not desire hardship”
(Surah al-Baqarah 2:185).
The protection of life and health (physical and mental) always takes priority over the rigid observance of ritual precepts. Women are exempt from fasting during menstruation, and practices are suspended in cases of travel or illness. Ramadan is conceived in Islam as a period of accessible spirituality, not excessive difficulty. Ease (yusr) is the rule; hardship (‘usr) is the exception. Faith aims to be an opportunity for opening and expansion, not shock and rigidity.
During the day, as the hours slow down, what is normally veiled or sublimated emerges: frailties, restlessness, attachments, unresolved questions. Not because Ramadan creates them, but because we stop covering them with other things. And here, something essential emerges: the human being does not fear effort so much as they fear the void.
The Void: When You Stop Filling
We do it constantly, almost without realizing it: we fill. As soon as a space opens, we fill it with thoughts, words, notifications, worries, projects, sugars… and so on. But Shahru Ramadan interrupts this automatism, at least in part.
“Allāhuṣ-Ṣamad”
(Allah is the Self-Sufficient) — (Quran 112:2)
In spiritual language, the void is not absence; it is availability. When you stop compulsively filling, the energy calms, perception opens, and consciousness clears. The void becomes a space for realignment.
The Return: Tawbah as a Reset
At a certain point, an inevitable question arises: how do we return to who we truly are? How can we bring to light what has been covered by layers of reactive habits? Not through emotional effort or a promise, but through a reset, as the experience of Ramadan suggests.
“O you who believe, turn to Allah in sincere repentance (tawbah)”
(Quran 66:8).
Tawbah is not simply repentance.
It is a return.
A homecoming.
An unveiling of the fitrah.
The concept of fitrah is often translated as “natural disposition” or “original nature.” It is the “natural heart”—untainted by ideology, fear, or habit—where the Light of God continues to vibrate. It is a place where history, trauma, and conditioning cannot reach to bind or distort. It is perceived as an inner call, a nostalgia for one’s origin with Allah—a “memory of light” imprinted on the soul.
A reset, therefore, does not mean destroying; it means interrupting the automatic flow.
You do not erase your history.
You do not deny who you have been.
You simply stop letting it run on autopilot.
The True Obstacle
Sin is not the same as guilt. In Islamic spiritual tradition, sin is a veil that separates us from the experience of the Divine and our vibrant essence. Guilt closes us off and creates darkness; self-condemnation relegates us to an inertia that inhibits transformative movement.
The spiritual goal is to transmute guilt into regenerative awareness: to recognize, repair, purify, and realign the heart with the light of our primary essence. The problem is not the error itself, but the identification with the idea of error.
When we say:
“I am just made this way”
the system blocks. Ramadan aims to break this identification.
It doesn’t tell you that you are wrong.
It shows you that you are not this.
The reset does not happen when you feel strong. It happens when you stop defending, explaining, or justifying yourself. And you recognize, in silence: this configuration no longer belongs to me. No drama. No guilt. Only clarity.
Spirituality of the Heart
In the silence of my Ramadan days in Mirleft, during long walks through an unexpected bloom that turns the normally arid hinterland into a soft, multicolored quilt, something becomes experientially evident: spirituality is not separate from life. There is no separation between the sacred and the profane. Everything can become an opportunity for presence.
Nature, in this sense, stops being a background and becomes a revelation.
“There is nothing that does not celebrate His praise.”
The wind is not just wind; it is manifestation. The sea is not just sea; it is depth. The silence of the desert is not empty; it is pure presence.
Nature is an open book of the Names—the 99 “Beautiful Names of Allah,” to whose study I have dedicated myself this Ramadan. These are not theological concepts or simple divine attributes;
They are living qualities.
Frequencies of being.
Inner keys.
- The ocean → Al-ʿAẓīm (The Immense)
- The wind → Al-Laṭīf (The Subtle)
- The earth → Al-Ḥayy (The Living)
And suddenly, you are no longer separate. You are immersed in a continuous relationship.
Iftar: The Return Through Food
Then comes sunset, and with it, one of the most intense moments of the day: Iftar. We break the fast with dates and water, as the Prophet did—a simple, perfect, and essential gesture. Then, the table opens.
Harira
A warm soup of tomato, lentils, chickpeas, cilantro, and spices. Dense, nourishing, and deeply restorative.
Slilo (Sellou)
Toasted flour, almonds, sesame seeds, honey, cinnamon, cardamom, and anise. Concentrated energy. Grounding.
Chebakia (or Mekherqa)
I call these “Arab chatters” due to their resemblance to Italian chiacchiere or bugie. They are flavored with orange blossom water, cinnamon, and saffron, dipped in honey, and garnished with toasted sesame.
Stuffed Msemen
Folded dough cooked on a griddle, filled with onions, spices, and sometimes meat or even seafood.
Food here is not consumption; it is relationship.
Iftar is a jolt of energy and joy. I savor my bowl of harira, feeling the vibration of every single spice. We do not usually overeat because it is followed by the Taraweeh (or Tarawih) practice—an extraordinary congregational night prayer.
It is a moment of meditation and dhikr through the prolonged listening and chanted recitation of the Quran, associated with ritual movements: standing (qiyam), bowing (ruku’), and prostrating (sujud). The parallelism with certain movements in Hatha Yoga is clear. The Quran is not translated; it is felt through resonance. It is a sonic experience and a living presence. The recitation produces phonic vibrations that move one’s entire being, evoking meanings and qualities of energy beyond the rational mind.
Community: The Shared Heart
Then there is the magic ingredient: community.
Wafae, a gentle presence; Aziz, who calls daily to check in; the shopkeepers, the seamstress, the girls at the gym—they all root for me. The laughter when we realize we are yawning simultaneously or sharing the same “Ramadan face”—sleepy yet sometimes unexpectedly radiant.
Children playing soccer before Iftar; Selma, who proudly tells me she tried a whole week of Ramadan for her 10th birthday. I felt supported—not theoretically, but truly. Ramadan here is collective work. A shared field. My body remembers, down to the cells, what it means to belong.
The Sign of Change
Change is not euphoria; it is subtle and discreet. It is not always visible from the outside at first, but it is substantial. When you are about to react as you used to… something stops. Not through effort, but through incompatibility. The old pattern no longer runs.
The void transforms: from a feeling of boredom or apathy to a “calm without content.” You don’t need to fill every space. You can just be, even for just a moment longer. And in that being, something realigns. A small, imperceptible click.
Ramadan becomes this: a return to fitrah, to the heart, and to the Divine. Not becoming someone else, but ceasing to hold onto what you are not. It is the first step of a new beginning (in-ire, to go within), which I look upon with wonder. I have no maps, but perhaps I am discovering the true territory.
In Mirleft. A place of being.
Where time does not flow.
It breathes.
PS: The Name That Is Calling You
There is a moment in the inner journey when you stop looking for techniques and start looking for relationship. No longer just silence or presence, but something that responds. In the Islamic tradition, this “something” has a precise language: the 99 Names of Allah—al-Asmā’ al-Ḥusnā.
God is not an idea to be understood; He is a Presence to be recognized. Every Name is like a color or a vibration.
- Ar-Raḥmān (The Entirely Merciful): A warm light that reminds you that you are supported.
- Al-Wadūd (The Most Loving): A presence that precedes you and knows you.
- Al-Ḥakīm (The Most Wise): The space where you stop wanting to control and start to trust.
- Aṣ-Ṣamad (The Self-Sufficient): The void that is actually fullness.
You do not choose the Name; the Name seeks you. If you feel alone, you need Al-Wadūd. If you are confused, you need Al-Ḥakīm. If you are agitated, you need As-Salām (The Peace). The Names are like mantras—relational invocations that return you to your original nature.
Credits and Greetings
Heartfelt thanks to Wafae, Naima, Aziz, Momo, Fatima, Giorgia, Franci, Eleonora, and the Kalimat di Luce group. Thanks to the local Imam for the record-breaking speed of the Taraweeh prayers, to those who helped me gain 4kg of “Ramadan weight” (which I intend to keep), and to the cat who gave birth in my closet.
Aji. Alhamdulillah.