Ramadan curiosities

For the first time in a decade Ramadan falls in the peak of summer. The timing follows the lunar calendar and is 10 days earlier every year. The Daily Star reported that “Lebanon’s highest Muslim Sunni authority Dar al-Fatwa said the holy month of Ramadan will start on Saturday August 22. Dar al-Fatwa said that religious authorities on Thursday were ‘not able to discern the new moon of the holy month of Ramadan.’ ’’ But Lebanon’s senior Shiite cleric used astronomical calculations and said that Ramadan was to begin on Friday August 21. So presumably we will have two Eids at the end.

Those who observe the holy month’s traditions abstain from eating AND drinking, smoking, sex, and impure thoughts from dawn to dusk for the entire month. It is an amazing feat, really. One Sunni friend said that fasting was good for cleansing the body, and that he mainly eats fruit and fruit juices during the month. However most people attend iftar dinners, enormous, lavish evening feasts that include a deep fried cheese-filed dessert slathered with flavored sugar syrup.

In any case it seems overly strict and downright unhealthy to me to cut out water for 15 hours of these summer days. It has been 95 degrees with 95% humidity here, though somewhat cooler the last few days. Work schedules are adjusted slightly, but we see construction workers out every day at 7 am, until at least early afternoon, six to seven days a week.

Sleep patterns are seriously disrupted, as people rise before sunrise 5 am I think) to eat their only meal of the day.

I wonder about all the women who rise earlier still to serve the morning meal, and who labor through the day to prepare the huge evening meals, weak and tired themselves from fasting and sleep deprivation, unable to sample a bite of a dish to see if it needs more salt or whatever.

And the servers at the restaurants! People fill the otherwise empty restaurant some minutes before sundown, and sit patiently waiting for the “Allah Akbar” chant broadcast from the nearest mosque. At that moment, they reach for a dried date to break their fast and, I should think, that blessed glass of H2O. The servers, if they are fasting too, presumably must wait until after they have brought plate after plate of the feast to all the customers. Perhaps Christian and non-practicing Muslims are in hot demand for Ramadan month.

We heard that US Muslims face a critical shortage of dates this year, since Ramadan started before the California date harvest.

The streets get unusually empty at quarter past seven in the evening, sunset.
At least the days are getting shorter now, but next year??
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Oh my, I just read that now Israel is forbidding Moslems to enter Jerusalem to pray at their holiest mosque ! http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=48274