Time for the Ramadan FAQ
Q: So it's Ramadan. What is Ramadan anyway?
A: Ramadan is a holy month for Muslims. It's a period of 28-29 days (the whole month) during which able-bodied Muslims fast from sun up to sun down. Because the Islamic calendar is a non-self-correcting* lunar calendar, every (Western) year Ramadan falls about 12 days earlier, moving backwards through the calendar.
(The Jewish calendar which is also lunar has a way to self-correct every few years so that holidays move around but always stay in the same relative time period. For example, Channukah always falls somewhere around Christmas which is fixed at Dec. 25th. Some years it's closer, some years it's farther from the 25th, but it's always somewhere around there. The Islamic calendar doesn't self-correct, so the Islamic months keep moving backwards in comparison to the Gregorian (Western) calendar.)
Q: What's involved in fasting? Can you drink water?
Nope. No water. Islamic fasting means no food, no water, no smoking and no sex.
But fasting is only between sun up and sun down. You can do any of those things at night/early in the morning.
Q: Isn't that unhealthy?
It would be unhealthy if it were 24 hours, sure. But because it's only during daylight hours, it's actually fine (and think how short the days are in winter...it's not that long). You eat an early breakfast and an early dinner. And sometimes people stay up late and eat again. So it's not like you're really missing a lot of meals.
Skipping smoking is not unhealthy. Ahem.
Skipping water for daylight hours would be unhealthy if you were doing heavy labor, sure. So you want to avoid that during those hours. Skipping water would also be unhealthy if you were seriously dehydrated to start with...but if you were dehydrated you wouldn't be able-bodied. You wouldn't need to fast.
Q: What if you have to take medicine?
If you have medicine you take once a day, you take it before sun up or after sun down. I take Levoxyl (thyroid Rx) in the am...so I take it before I start fasting. I also take Paxil (anti-anxiety Rx) before bed, so I take it after I break fasting at night. If I needed to take medicine during the day, then my health needs would over-ride the need to fast and I wouldn't have to fast.
Q: Do kids have to fast?
No! It's kind of murky at what age they are supposed to start (most people say puberty), but many kids do partial-day fasts until they are "old enough" to fast the whole day. My 9 year old sometimes gets up and has breakfast with us (at 4 a.m.) and then skips snack at school, fasting until lunch at 11. I don't require him to do that but if he wants to, it's good training.
The elderly, the sick, and women who are bleeding, post-partum or breast-feeding also don't have to fast.
Q: Is it all about fasting?
No. Ramadan is a very spiritual time. A lot of focus is on prayer, brotherhood and peace. For example, if people are confrontational, you're supposed to say that you are fasting and offer peace. It is also a time of being very aware of the physical trials of poverty...part of the point of Ramadan is to know what it feels like to go without food, not just once but every day. It gives a whole new perspective on extreme poverty. It's also an experience that is intended to erase lines of class, race, etc. because everyone is united in this shared experience.
Many Muslims stay up late at night praying a special prayer called "Tarawih." In mosques, it can go on for hours.
The holiest night of the year, the Night of Power (Lailat ul-Qadr), is towards the end of the month. The exact day is unclear, and many believe it was left deliberately unclear so that people would spend the entire last ten days treating each day as if it could be the most holy. (I personally believe in the "deliberately unclear" theory.)
Q: If I know someone says s/he's Muslim and but s/he's not fasting, does that mean s/he's not really Muslim, or not religious?
No. S/he could be sick or need to take medicine or have some other physical reason why s/he can't fast. If it's a woman, she could be bleeding or post-partum or breast-feeding. S/he could also be having a spiritual struggle with fasting. Ie. It's no one's place to judge.
Q: Should I not eat in front of someone who's fasting?
You might not want to make a big thing of eating, out of consideration. But mostly we're used to it, especially in the U.S. In Arab countries it's considered really rude to eat in public during Ramadan.
Q: What are you supposed to say to Muslims in Ramadan? Is it "Happy Ramadan"? Or "I'm so sorry you're starving..."
Yes, it is Happy Ramadan. It's very festive, despite what you might think of fasting.
You can also say "Happy Lailat ul-Qadr" on the officially designated Night of Power.
Q: Do you give presents for Ramadan?
No. Sometimes people give presents at the end of Ramadan, for the Eid.
Q: If I want to show respect for or be helpful to someone who's fasting, what are some ways to do that?
•Acknowledge that it's Ramadan. Say "Happy Ramadan" or "Ramadan Mubarek" (in Arabic).
•Don't ask them to have breakfast/lunch/coffee with you unless you know (or suspect) they aren't fasting.
•Invite them for dinner at your house (it's nice to not have to cook after fasting...cooking while fasting is a major drag).
•Join them for "iftar" (the evening meal of breaking fast) if they invite you.
•Offer to take their young kids out to play.
Q: Is there something tradition to eat for Iftar or Sohur (the morning meal)?
Iftar can be anything but often includes dates and milk. In Morocco, they traditionally break fasting with Harira (a minestrone-like soup), shebakkia (honey-soaked cookies--we don't have anything like them here in the U.S.), dates, milk, hard-boiled eggs, bread with butter, cheese or jam. And coffee. (Can we say caffeine-deprivation??)
For Sohur, since it's at 3 or 4 in the morning and people tend to go back to sleep, it's common to eat high-protein and high-fat but light foods. Yogurt, more hard-boiled eggs, cheese.
Q: What's an Eid? (And how do you pronounce that anyway?)
Eid ('Eed ---it starts off with a sound we don't have in English, but just "Eed" works fine) means Feast or Holiday in Arabic. Eid al-Fitr is the Feast of Breaking Fast ("Fitr" like "Iftar," see?). It marks the end of Ramadan. Right now they are expecting it to be the 27th of November. The exact day depends on sighting the new moon at the end of the month, though.
You can say "Happy Eid" or "Eid Mubarek" at that time.
Q: There was an Associated Press article that said it's more likely we'll have terrorist attacks during Ramadan, because it's a significant time of year for "Muslim" terrorists. Is that true?
Well, since the "Muslim" terrorists consider themselves Muslim, Ramadan is an important time for them. But there is definitely no Islamically-sound reason to wage war in Ramadan. Even a well-justified war should wait until Ramadan is over. (And since there is no justification, ever, for terrorism...)
That said, these people have shown themselves to operate on one principle and one alone: expedience. If they have the opportunity, they'll take it. They are not really concerned with anniversaries, marking high holy days, etc. They are opportunists.
So, no, I'd say we're no more or less likely to have more terrorist attacks right now.