Ramadan, the Muslim holy month is this year from 27th Oct to 25th Nov. I am not a Muslim thus I don't celebrate it. I know many people who do though, e.g. many emigrants I worked with when I lived in UK. Are there any bog soccer fans celebrating it? Talking to the Muslims, I discovered that the traditions and habits for it differ from place to place. I think it would be interesting to know how they celebrate it where you are ... or whether you can note it at all? Happy Ramadan, and respect for all of you, of all religions.
I don’t fast, but I still shamelessly join in at the feast at the end of it.And the fasting members of my wider family even do everything not to make us infidels feel guilty while enjoying the lamb, the veal, the baklava… . Always a great time of the year. Especially as it comes every 10 and a half months.
I'm not a Muslim, but when I lived in a Muslim country for a little while, I fasted for one Ramadan. At least in Morocco, the whole month is kind of an all night party. Lots of people walking the streets, playing snooker and fooseball in cafes, sitting around playing games/eating at home. That's the nights, of course. During the day, people all seem in kind of a daze. The smokers are the most annoyed, clearly. And the coffee drinkers, who are often the same people. Everyone shows up late for work/school (admittedly, this isn't so unique to Ramadan...but even LATER than usual) and the streets seem oddly empty. For one thing, all the cafes, which are normally crowded with men sitting there for hour upon hour, are closed. About a half hour before sundown, the family gathers in the salon and begins assembling the "f'tour" (breakfast): coffee/tea, hard-boiled eggs, soup, sweets, dates, and a few other things. Nothing hugely heavy, though. The big meal is saved until 9 or 10pm. Btw, I made it through half the month fasting. Then I was at a friend's house for f'tour, and of course they forced me to eat more than I wanted, so when I got home, I ended up puking up the soup. That pretty much made up my mind for me that I'd had my "Ramadan experience." The next day, an American friend and I went to the only place in Casablanca that was open for lunch: McDonalds. It was glorious. For a REALLY cool experience, go to a major Muslim city sometime during Ramadan, and walk out onto a busy street at the moment of sundown. It's eerie. Where just 10 minutes before, you'd have seen masses of people, cars, bikes, etc., you now see nothing. Just a post-apocalyptic wasteland. Wild. Alternatively, stay OFF the streets for the 10 minutes before sundown. Everyone at that point is in total panic mode that they won't be home, sitting at the table when the call to prayer goes off. Bus drivers all start blowing through stops, speeding through intersections, and the cab drivers truly seem to go mad. A nightmare.
For a REALLY cool experience, go to a major Muslim city sometime during Ramadan, and walk out onto a busy street at the moment of sundown. It's eerie. Where just 10 minutes before, you'd have seen masses of people, cars, bikes, etc., you now see nothing. Just a post-apocalyptic wasteland. Wild. Alternatively, stay OFF the streets for the 10 minutes before sundown. Everyone at that point is in total panic mode that they won't be home, sitting at the table when the call to prayer goes off. Bus drivers all start blowing through stops, speeding through intersections, and the cab drivers truly seem to go mad. A nightmare. Wait, one of these has to be Sunrise, doesn't it?
Nah. Sundown is where its all happening. The sunrise beginning to the fast is usually quite uneventful. Some don't even wake up to get that last bit of food in. Some do, but it's a very subdued, half-awake snack before going back to bed as soon as you hear the call. (Obviously some would pray at this time, but not most young people in Morocco)
One of the things I learned was that there is a fair amount of leeway granted, depending on need. For example, if Ramadan fell during a particularly hard work period (harvest, for example) when people had to be in the field under the tropical sun, then drinking water wasn't considered sinful. (I also learned who were the Christian pedicab drivers, because during Ramadan they were the ones passing everybody else.) One night in Ann Arbor I was at a dinner party in a Muslim household. Ramadan happened to be in June that year and because Michigan is at the western edge of the eastern time zone, sunset was coming along close to 10 pm. There was a big crowd of men on the porch watching the sun slowly make its way to the horizon. I can still remember this one guy, desperately trying to make that case that "we really ought to be going by the time of sunset in Mecca instead of waiting for it to set here..."
at first i cringed when i saw this thread title in the politics forum - i feared it might be on that turns into a disrespectful thing against muslims in general, but i guess that was silly of me great stories all, thanks for sharing
That is actually how Muslims figure it when they're in way northern regions with say, 24 hours of sunlight.
It makes sense. We were all waiting to eat and I was starving, but I couldn't complain about it since I'd had lunch, unlike most everybody else. A college friend of mine went to Africa with the Peace Corp and because he hated to make people who were fasting prepare food for him (couldn't cook for himself) tried to fast and work the harvest like all the men in his village. He would generally pass out in the late morning-early afternoon at which point they would drag him under a tree somewhere and continue working. Finally, they sent a delegation of men to his house. Apparently they basically said: "Look, you gotta quit doing that. We're afraid you're going to die and we'll get blamed for it. We can even figure out why you're doing it, because the only reason we're doing is we're Muslims." So the next time Ramadan came around, he took a vacation back to the States.
Eid Mubarak! I believe it's Eid al-Fitr? My friend's Pakistani wife just refers to it as Eid. They also throw a party. The past two years Eid has happened somewhat close to Christmas, so they combined the two. Good times. I was in Karachi aboout three Eids ago (early January) and the city, even after dark, was pretty empty. The last night they waited until the exact time of the next new moon, thus ending Ramadan and starting off the celebrations.
It's always the 9th month of the Muslim calendar, but since that is on a lunar basis (and not alligned with the standard 12 month one), the 9th month rotates. It was in Feb. back in 96, and it's been creeping backwards ever since. Now it's in late October, so in a few more years, it'll occur in summer again. Ouch. Couple of interesting tidbits re: Ramadan. 1) Women on their period don't fast on those days. 2) If you travel over a specific distance on a day during Ramadan, you also do not have to fast (I think it's around 50 miles, technically, but maybe less). 3) If you're sick, and have a doctor's note, you don't have to fast. 4) No sex during the day! 5) There's a couple Holy Days in the months after Ramadan for people to fast if they had to miss days during the month. Obviously lots of women end up fasting then. There are actually two Aids: al Fitr and el Kabir. Aid el Kabir is a few months afterwards, and it's the biggest one (kabir means "great" or "big"): a combo of Thanksgiving, Easter, and Christmas all in one. That's when they slaughter the sheep. IIR, Aid al Fitr involves young kids getting new outfits and then parading around the streets with their families.
In Bosnia, where I come from, the celebrations at the end of the month of fasting are called Ramadan Bayram. The other, Kurban Bayram comes 50 days after that. It ties in the gifts to poor and the trip to Meka, the Hadj. I must say I have huge respect for the people who pull it through, especially the physical workers( I have a couple of uncles who fall in that category). And from the stories I’ve heard the generation of my grand-parents use to regularly do it even when it fell in the summer, while working in the field or traveling with the cattle.
I remember one year, Ramadan fell during our school's soccer season, and we had a guy from Iran on our team. Unless the game was a night game, he didn't want to play very much, because he'd be on the verge of collapse for late afternoon day games after playing about 15 minutes. It was cool though, even if he couldn't play, he'd still be at the games, sitting on the bench cheering us on.