Sri Sri Ravi Shanker on Ramadhan

In a book written by Sri Sri Ravi Shanker, on which Dr. Zakir Naik finds faults, Sri Sri Ravi Shanker contends that the meaning of Ramadhan can be understood in a Sanskrit context as meaning Rama = God, Dhan = dhyan = meditation and therefore the word could mean meditating upon or worship of God. Actually, the Arabic meaning also alludes to this because the Islamic holy month of Ramadhan is all about the month where special prayers are offered to Allah. The literal meaning of Ramdhan in Arabic today may mean “that which is derived from the heat of the sun” and the month was named Ramadhan because when the Islamic calendar began this month coincided with the hottest month and therefore the month was named Ramadhan. But there is one thing we miss. Subsequent to the birth of Islam and the dominance of Arabia by Islam and therefore the Arabic language by Islam, it is not beyond imagination that the Arabic language itself got circumscribed by the parameters of Islam. If we go back to Arabic before the birth of Islam, the language would have allowed meanings to be derived from its words that are not limited by Islamic requirements, particularly as Arabic would have had connections with Sanskrit then.