Ramadan Kareem


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Ramadan Kareem to all my Muslim friends.

It started on Friday night with the sighting of the new moon here in the UAE, though it may have started a day earlier/later elsewhere.

Back at work on a reduced timetable :)

I've always wondered, does the fasting make people grouchy? I know Muslims are supposed to be especially nice during that time, but does it really work out that way?

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I've always wondered, does the fasting make people grouchy? I know Muslims are supposed to be especially nice during that time, but does it really work out that way?

In the days of the Raj, I believe, Ramadan was considered a danger point for rioting... large crowds of hungry people getting tetchy, basically.

Here and now, it's very much like Christmas is with us - a huge marketing opportunity and a jolly family festival, interspersed with plaintive voices asking whether we have forgotten the real meaning of [insert festival here].

I've just received a mailing from my local hotel/resort telling me I can celebrate the season of fasting and generosity in their all-night Iftar tent (Iftar is the meal taken after dark when you break your fast) with VIP diwans (sitting rooms), sheesha (water pipes) and luxury dining... Not exactly asceticism, but good business.

Quite a few people suffer during the fasting (especially in the first week) because they can't drink or smoke either (fasting means no intake of anything, not just food). Just before twilight the roads are full of caffeine- and nicotine-deprived drivers speeding to their Iftar destinations: it's more dangerous even than usual.

Students are sleepy - often they are up very late with family and then they wake up a couple of hours before dawn to have their breakfast - or they have low energy (especially if they sleep in and miss breakfast). By the end of the month they are flagging.

Some of them positively glow with religious feeling, mind you. The last week of Ramadan has "the night of power", which is the night the Koran "came down" - ie was revealed. It's in that week, but nobody knows exactly which night it is, so that keeps people on their toes. Prayers are supposed to be particularly effective then and people may chant prayers or recite the Koran all night long.

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Quite a few people suffer during the fasting (especially in the first week) because they can't drink or smoke either (fasting means no intake of anything, not just food). Just before twilight the roads are full of caffeine- and nicotine-deprived drivers speeding to their Iftar destinations: it's more dangerous even than usual.

No coffee? NO SMOKING? EEK! Being pious can be tougher than a fifty cent steak.

Here and now, it's very much like Christmas is with us - a huge marketing opportunity and a jolly family festival, interspersed with plaintive voices asking whether we have forgotten the real meaning of [insert festival here].

I've noticed a huge over commercialization of messages complaining about the over commercialization of Christmas. I guess folks are just folks wherever you go.

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No coffee? NO SMOKING? EEK! Being pious can be tougher than a fifty cent steak.

No solids, no liquids (including water!), no tobacco (however imbibed), no sex, no gossip and no backbiting!

This runs from dawn till dusk (Fajr to Maghrib) , so if you're a Muslim in Alaska or in Lappland right now, it's a long haul.

I've noticed a huge over commercialization of messages complaining about the over commercialization of Christmas. I guess folks are just folks wherever you go.

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This runs from dawn till dusk (Fajr to Maghrib) , so if you're a Muslim in Alaska or in Lappland right now, it's a long haul.

That's funny, I was thinking the exact same thing. I'll bet there's not very many Islamic Eskimos for that reason alone.

I suspect that a travel angency might make a fortune selling Antarctic vacation packages during the month of Ramadan to Muslims all over the world.

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Naturally, there are special fatwas covering that:

In Alaska’s northernmost cities of Barrow and Deadhorse there were only about six hours between sunset and sunrise when the holy month started.

It gets worse. Because Ramadan occurs about 10 days earlier each year, within six years it will happen over the summer solstice, when the world’s northernmost towns will be in 24-hour daylight.

Dali Osame, of the Islamic Community Center in Anchorage, Alaska, said there were between 2,000 and 3,000 practising Muslims in his group.

They resolved the problems of prayer and fasting times in polar environments through a special fatwa issued last year.

The Assembly of Muslim Jurists of America ruled that prayer and fasting times had been “based on the moderate regions in which day is distinguishable from night” but that did not apply to all the countries in which Muslims lived.

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Naturally, there are special fatwas covering that:

It's nice that they can dink around with the meaning of 'sunrise to sunset' whenever they'd like. I guess Islam isn't so different from other religions, after all.

You must fast on Friday... fasting means don't eat meat... fish ain't meat... oh the heck with it, eat whatever you want on Friday.

When a fatwa is issued which says that smoking light cigarettes is okay because that's not really smoking, then perhaps I'll give Islam a closer look.

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Sorry, I forgot to add the link to the Muslims in Alaska story:

http://www.thenational.ae/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090825/NATIONAL/708249891

You must fast on Friday... fasting means don't eat meat... fish ain't meat... oh the heck with it, eat whatever you want on Friday.

Barnacle geese were apparently declared seafood... but in the Middle Ages "white meats" included poultry, fish, eggs and cheese, so you couldn't eat those either.

You also weren't supposed to make war during Lent and Advent.

When did the West give up fasting?

And when did we decide the prohibition on lending money at interest need not apply to us?

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Barnacle geese were apparently declared seafood... but in the Middle Ages "white meats" included poultry, fish, eggs and cheese, so you couldn't eat those either.

Barnacle geese? Yuck! I think I'd rather fast than eat things called barnacle geese.

I just looked up barnacle geese, and it seems that in medieval times they were thought to be the offspring of driftwood. Seems to me that if they wanted to eat them that bad, it would have made more sense to just declare them to be wood again, instead of seafood.

From Wikipedia: The natural history of barnacle goose was long surrounded with a legend claiming that they were born of driftwood:

Nature produces [bernacae] against Nature in the most extraordinary way. They are like marsh geese but somewhat smaller. They are produced from fir timber tossed along the sea, and are at first like gum. Afterwards they hang down by their beaks as if they were a seaweed attached to the timber, and are surrounded by shells in order to grow more freely. Having thus in process of time been clothed with a strong coat of feathers, they either fall into the water or fly freely away into the air. They derived their food and growth from the sap of the wood or from the sea, by a secret and most wonderful process of alimentation. I have frequently seen, with my own eyes, more than a thousand of these small bodies of birds, hanging down on the sea-shore from one piece of timber, enclosed in their shells, and already formed. They do not breed and lay eggs like other birds, nor do they ever hatch any eggs, nor do they seem to build nests in any corner of the earth.

The legend was widely repeated in, for example, Vincent of Beauvais's great encyclopedia. However, it was also criticized by other medieval authors, including Albertus Magnus.

You also weren't supposed to make war during Lent and Advent.

That sounds like a pretty good idea. Atypical, but good. If they hadn't ditched that rule, I'd be in favor of extending the end of Lent to the beginning of Advent, and the end of Advent to the beginning of Lent. (Don't get the wrong idea, it's not like there are hordes of Catholics clamoring to hear what I think they should do with their religious seasons)

When did the West give up fasting?

I don't know, all I can say is, "Good riddance!"

And when did we decide the prohibition on lending money at interest need not apply to us?

I never decided anything of the sort. How come no one ever comes to me when these important decisions are being made?

My friends all know that when they lend money to me they shouldn't the principle, let alone any interest.

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I never decided anything of the sort. How come no one ever comes to me when these important decisions are being made?

Sorry, that's the collective "we" which may or may not include either of us. Like "we beat the other team" when "we" personally did not go anywhere near that pitch.

X (a Brit) met Y (an Aussie) yesterday and said "We won the Ashes" [that's a cricket contest: cricket is thought by some to be a game...]

In fact you and I were not even born when Christians started charging interest.

It's still a live issue in the Muslim world.

"Sharia-compliant bank accounts" are the norm here and students who know a bit about the Bible often ask why we (the West) permit usury...

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i've been reading this thread and am lost.i thought ranadan started in december,and ended just before christmas?and somewhere eid was involved.

Ramadan dates (and all dates in the Muslim year) change from one year to the next, because the Muslim calandar is based on the moon, and a lunar year is 11 and a bit days shorter than a solar year.

So over 30 years or so, Ramadan moves all the way around the calendar and back again.

When I was a student in the early 80s it was in June (I knew a few Muslims even then). When I first worked in the Gulf in 2000 it was in November/December. This year it started on August 22nd.

Ramadan is a lunar month, 28 and a bit days (called Ramadan or Ramazan) - the 9th month of the lunar/Muslim year.

Some Muslim countries (Oman for instance) just timetable it in for when they know the new moon will occur, whether or not they see it, but the UAE (where I am now) and Saudi Arabia, for two, actually send a moon-viewing committee out to sight it. If they don't spot it on the first possible evening then Ramadan starts a day later.

Which means that some years I can cross the border into Oman (just a couple of miles from my house here) and it could be Eid one side and still Ramadan the other side...

Eid means "Holiday" in Arabic (in Turkish it is "Bayram" - I don't know what it is in Persian) and there are two Eids in the Muslim year: Eid al Fitr ("small holiday") which marks the end of Ramadan and the first days of the lunar month Shawwal, and Eid al Adha ("big holiday").

Eid al Fitr depends on when the next new moon of Shawwal is sighted, so again the date is only predictable to within a day or two (we're expecting it 19th or 20th September).

Eid al Adha comes on the 10th day of the lunar month Duul Hijja, so as soon as that month starts (the moon again) we'll know when Eid al Adha is due.

It'll probably be 27th or 28th November this year.

Clearer now?

wacko.gif

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Ramadan dates (and all dates in the Muslim year) change from one year to the next, because the Muslim calandar is based on the moon, and a lunar year is 11 and a bit days shorter than a solar year.

So over 30 years or so, Ramadan moves all the way around the calendar and back again.

When I was a student in the early 80s it was in June (I knew a few Muslims even then). When I first worked in the Gulf in 2000 it was in November/December. This year it started on August 22nd.

Ramadan is a lunar month, 28 and a bit days (called Ramadan or Ramazan) - the 9th month of the lunar/Muslim year.

Some Muslim countries (Oman for instance) just timetable it in for when they know the new moon will occur, whether or not they see it, but the UAE (where I am now) and Saudi Arabia, for two, actually send a moon-viewing committee out to sight it. If they don't spot it on the first possible evening then Ramadan starts a day later.

Which means that some years I can cross the border into Oman (just a couple of miles from my house here) and it could be Eid one side and still Ramadan the other side...

Eid means "Holiday" in Arabic (in Turkish it is "Bayram" - I don't know what it is in Persian) and there are two Eids in the Muslim year: Eid al Fitr ("small holiday") which marks the end of Ramadan and the first days of the lunar month Shawwal, and Eid al Adha ("big holiday").

Eid al Fitr depends on when the next new moon of Shawwal is sighted, so again the date is only predictable to within a day or two (we're expecting it 19th or 20th September).

Eid al Adha comes on the 10th day of the lunar month Duul Hijja, so as soon as that month starts (the moon again) we'll know when Eid al Adha is due.

It'll probably be 27th or 28th November this year.

Clearer now?

wacko.gif

not really,but it helped anyway.thank you.

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My pleasure.

One thing I have noticed living in countries which have climates rather than seasons (hot or very hot, as here, or wet/dry as in South East Asia), is how much more important the moon becomes as a time marker.

Here, everyone (that is, every Arab) seems to know exactly what time the moon will rise, where on the horizon it will come up, and what phase it is in.

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Here, everyone (that is, every Arab) seems to know exactly what time the moon will rise, where on the horizon it will come up, and what phase it is in.

That sounds like quite a few Wiccans and Pagans I know... With our lunar holidays... I hope all Muslims have a the Best Ramadan possible.

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