Marking the holy month of Ramadan, Prime Minister Edi Rama and his spouse Linda Rama hosted an Iftar dinner at the Palace of Congresses in Tirana on Tuesday evening, reviving a tradition that was abandoned because of the COVID-19 pandemic for two years now.
The Iftar dinner brought together politicians, cabinet members, artists, doctors, teachers, university lecturers, journalists, small and big business representatives, Muslim community representatives, as well as other religious communities, Catholic, Orthodox, Bektashi order, heads of central institutions and local government authorities.
In his opening remarks, PM Rama welcomed the guests, saying he was so happy to see everyone coming together around the Iftar dinner after two years of restrictions due to the unprecedented pandemic.
‘’I have missed such a meeting a lot, because the table of Iftar dinner has for years induced a specific feeling of humanism inside me, nurturing a welcome feeling of peace. Welcome and thank you very much for your presence also on behalf of Linda, my other better half,” PM Rama said.
“Islam is definitely this table’s essence, but, on the other hand, Islam is not only a religion fervently embraced by Muslim faithful, but also an unconditional gift to all mankind. It is a gift that would be a sin to turn down, if not as a source of faith in God, as a source of more faith in man, in oneself, in one who not only should but can be.
Such a table is not superfluous, it is not old-fashioned, it has not become an obsolete in the world we know today, but it is in the place it deserves, in its time in this world where progress, technology, artificial intelligence, not only have they not made trust less necessary, but on the contrary. And it can’t be otherwise indeed, as long as religion is one of the most important aspects of human spiritual history and one of the most irreplaceable parts of anatomy and human culture as a whole.
Through the bridge of religions, people transcend their bestial-like dimension to usher in a spiritual domain, where truth and secret are inextricably linked and where an inner relationship with an afterlife being takes shape.
Islam has been depicted as the religion of equals. We have come together today as Muslims and Christians, believers and non-believer, as equal people around the table of an equal religion, which demands of us no submission other than respect for one another, togetherness in goodness, togetherness in self-restraint with an open mind to pay attention to others, stand shoulder to shoulder without taking any advantage, just like the Prophet on bended knees alongside His last follower in the fight of the equals in the name of their God.
The Islamic religion and civilization, notwithstanding all the systematic misinformation based on as vulgar as lethal simplification of Eastern fundamentalism, as well as the propaganda and even racist falsification by the Western fundamentalism, have survived through a revelation that freedom of conscience, sovereignty and knowledge and the individual free choice have been crowned since the very onset.
I wish all our Muslim brothers and sisters may Ramadan fasting is easy and prayers and devotions get acceptance!
As for the rest of us, I wish that regardless of different beliefs and diverse disbeliefs, we all find very much strength for self-control and reasons for understanding within the limits of our existence, however very temporary one.
May God be with us all, with your families, with Albania and Albanians!
Thank you!
