I would like to especially welcome those who smoke tobacco. Ramazan has once again crept up on you, and the absence of your beloved cigarette makes the fasting all the more challenging. Bear with patience and courage, as Allah sees your struggle and will certainly have mercy upon you. This year resolve to release yourself from your nicotine nourishment. You may have made the same resolutions during Ramazans bygone and failed, but fear not this year can always be different. Being a non-smoker makes fasting easier.
As god looks mercifully at those that are making a due effort to maintain the fast, there are still those for whom, letting Lady Tobacco go even during Ramazan is difficult. You may abstain from food and drink, but the cigarette vapor proves to defeat you. Its absence is a nerve wracking sense of restlessness, which you succumb to by smoking sometime during the day. To break your fast like this must be done in secret lest the "vultures of virtue" encircle you to feed on what little patience you have. This may lead you to light a cigarette at a public place such as the roadside, or restaurant where you could be anonymous and prevent your fast from being questioned by the people you know. This, my dear reader, is what Ibn Serendib wishes to warn you against in the strongest possible terms.
Allah is merciful my dear Kalla Nombaali, and this Ramazan may he grant you the courage and opportunity to fast during our blessed month. Though god is merciful, the law may be less likely to show mercy. As you may already know, smoking in public places is a legal offence in Serendib. This includes the road side and pavements, parks and gardens, restaurants and public buildings. Also included are private roads, residential streets and alleyways. Smoking, consuming alcohol and other controlled substances in public are punishable by law. If you get caught you may be liable to prosecution, fines and even detention. The government’s resolve to reduce tobacco consumption in Sri Lanka is plainly visible in its brutal price increase on a cigarette stick. This government initiative makes the Police and the court of law look at you extremely unfavorably should you smoke in public.
Therefore my dear Saracen, avoid at all costs, smoking in public places and if you cannot observe your fast, at least find a safer place for your indiscretions. You don’t need a criminal record for something like this. Concealing your secret habit this way may prove useless, when your family is notified of your detention by Police. And you may be left with a more nerve wrecking state of emotions, but this time you are in a police cell awaiting a hearing, and though god may afford you a cigarette in life, police stations are definitely non-smoking.
May you be safe and free.
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