Fasting and the Moral Responsibility to Address Inequality
Ahmad Tholabi Kharlie
(Professor at UIN Syarif Hidayatullah Jakarta)
Ramadan always comes with the same mission: a pause from the noise of life, a chance to realign the inner self, and a call to purify human relationships with God and with others. Yet, our social experience shows that the growth of piety is not always followed by greater sensitivity to the suffering around us.
Fasting creates a distinct form of awareness. The body feels its limits, attention becomes sharper, and the reality of human needs appears more clearly in daily life. The experience of hunger during fasting opens awareness to the fact that hunger is a daily reality for millions of people.
The act of restraint builds discipline over consumptive impulses and reveals how the social ego operates collectively through economic systems, public policies, and social structures.
Spirituality and Inequality
This year’s Ramadan unfolds within social dynamics that are relatively familiar in Indonesia. As the fasting month approaches, consumption patterns rise, food prices tend to adjust, and household spending increases due to seasonal needs—from preparations for worship to family traditions.
For some groups with stable income, these changes can be managed as an annual rhythm. But for workers with unstable income, such seasonal adjustments often require a reordering of daily spending priorities.
In such conditions, the experience of Ramadan is shaped not only by spiritual readiness but also by a household’s economic capacity to adapt to annual social cycles.
In digital spaces, solidarity appears abundant in the form of slogans, campaigns, and symbolic expressions. But in reality, not everyone has the privilege to welcome Ramadan with the same sense of calm. Some endure hunger as an act of worship, while others endure it as a structural necessity.
Here, Ramadan becomes a mirror—reflecting both personal piety and the quality of social justice we build together.
In classical Islamic thought, fasting has never been understood merely as an individual ascetic practice. Imam al-Ghazali (d. 1111) emphasized that intentional hunger should awaken awareness of unavoidable hunger. Fasting is an education in social empathy—and true empathy always calls for changes in how we live together.
A key question arises: does the experience of Ramadan truly expand social solidarity, or does it only reinforce symbolic rituals without structural transformation?
Social vulnerability in Indonesia is not merely an individual phenomenon—it is structural. Daily workers without security, urban families with fragile economic resilience, coastal communities affected by climate change, and marginalized groups living in chronic uncertainty are all part of our social architecture.
Rapid urbanization creates new concentrations of vulnerability. The digital economy opens opportunities while increasing job uncertainty. Climate change pressures food systems. All these factors are interconnected.
Economist Amartya Sen (1999) frames development as the expansion of human freedom to live with dignity. In this framework, inequality is seen as a condition that limits people’s choices, capabilities, and ability to live properly.
Ramadan, in this sense, becomes both a spiritual moment and a process of shaping social awareness—directing attention to the structures that sustain vulnerability.
In a global context, this issue becomes even more evident. Climate crises, geopolitical conflicts, and global economic disruptions show that vulnerability is part of systemic dynamics. Economic interconnectedness increases, while moral solidarity evolves differently.
Fasting teaches human interconnectedness. But global systems often reveal a disconnect of responsibility. Ramadan, therefore, challenges us to read reality not only as an economic fact but as a moral and civilizational issue.
Social Responsibility
Ramadan is a religious event with social consequences in how we manage collective life. Food price stability, protection for informal workers, access to healthcare, and the distribution of social assistance are all part of public governance that directly affects people’s lives. All of these relate to human dignity—especially for those practicing spirituality under unequal material conditions.
Within the framework of maqashid al-shari‘ah, the goals of Islamic law are to protect life, intellect, property, and human dignity. A social structure that allows systemic poverty fails to protect life. Extreme inequality damages dignity. Economic insecurity weakens people’s ability to use their intellect and potential fully.
In other words, social injustice reflects not only an economic issue but also a collective ethical problem.
Providing temporary aid is noble. But maqasid demands structural protection. Solidarity cannot remain merely charitable—it must be institutionalized through fair distribution systems, social protection, and just economic governance.
Hans Jonas (1979) called this the “imperative of responsibility”—a moral obligation to ensure that social actions and public policies sustain human life. In this view, public policy is measured not only by technocratic efficiency but also by ethical responsibility toward vulnerable groups.
Fazlur Rahman (1982) emphasized that Islam aims to build a moral society, not just pious individuals. Social morality is tested in how the state manages welfare, how markets distribute opportunities, and how society responds to suffering.
Rising food prices directly affect people’s quality of life. Poorly targeted social protection erodes human dignity in everyday life.
Ramadan cultivates sensitivity to such concrete experiences. It teaches that every social decision carries moral consequences.
Fasting becomes a collective learning process that nurtures social awareness. Piety grows through personal worship and is reflected in the formation of just social structures.
Welcoming Ramadan means accepting the responsibility to see more clearly, feel more deeply, and act more fairly. It invites us to rethink our priorities: Does the system we build uphold human dignity or normalize inequality?
In a fast-moving world that often loses patience, fasting teaches pause. In a society that becomes accustomed to inequality, fasting teaches sensitivity. In public life often driven by technical efficiency, fasting reminds us of moral meaning.
Amid global crises, rapid social change, and layered economic pressures, Ramadan reflection becomes both a spiritual need and a civilizational necessity.
Perhaps this is the deepest message of fasting: the hunger we feel briefly is a call to eliminate the hunger others endure constantly. That restraint is a way to make space for others. True spirituality does not withdraw from the world but refines how we care for it.
If Ramadan only changes our eating schedule, then it has not fully changed our awareness. But if it makes us more sensitive to suffering, more just in policy, and more empathetic in social life, then it truly becomes an act of worship that uplifts humanity.
That is the deepest meaning of welcoming Ramadan: entering the holy month as a path toward building a more humane society.
This article was published in Media Indonesia on Wednesday, March 4, 2026.