Five Pillars of Islam (7)

Fasting
The fourth pillar of the faith is the fast of the month of Ramadan. Ramadan is the one of the twelve months of the lunar calendar, used by Muslims since the seventh century, the first century of the Islamic era. Because it is set according to the lunar calendar, Ramadan occurs on different dates in each year of the Gregorian calendar. It is the month in which the first Koranic verses were revealed to Muhammad and in which Muhammad’s small band of followers achieved their first important military success, at the Battle of Badr in 624 A. D. During Ramadan, Muslims are obliged to refrain from eating, smoking, drinking, and the pleasures of the flesh from first light to last light unless they are ill, traveling, nursing, or pregnant.
Islam is not an ascetic religion. The Koran encourages the use and enjoyment of the blessings that God has bestowed on mankind. But Islam does teach control of the appetites and discipline of the passions. The requirement of fasting, laid down in the Koran, contributes to the Muslim’s mastery of his worldly concerns and to the community’s collective sense of conforming with God’s commands. The fast fosters compassion for the hungry and thirsty.
The time of fasting begins, according to the Koran, when it becomes possible to tell a white thread from a black one in first light of dawn. During the daylight hours, Muslims are urged to pray at mosque and commanded to avoid all food and drink. Sexual intercourse is also prohibited in daylight. These requirements affect the pattern of life in the entire Muslim world, disrupting the normal schedules of work and study. Public life, commerce, and government slow to a crawl, especially when Ramadan falls in the long, hot days of summer, because the rigors of the fast inevitably result in curtailed work hours. Many a Western businessman has learned the hard way that Ramadan is the wrong time to travel to Kuwait or Libya; not only are work hour shortened but also influential offices with the authority to make decisions and sign contracts often leave for Europe when Ramadan arrives.
The strictness with which the fasting requirement is enforced varies from country to country, some governments and societies being more easygoing or secular than others. In Kuwait, where few hotels that cater to Westerners were allowed to serve food and drink, but even the ground floor coffee shop at the Sheraton Hotel, a popular gathering place for young men about town, was closed until evening. In Egypt, some restaurants and snack bars stay open but discretion is advisable, and most of the Muslims who choose not to fast take their refreshment in private. In the latitude of Amman or Jeddah, daylight during a summer Ramadan can last as long as sixteen hours. The fast is onerous and difficult. The people compensate after dark for the rigors of the day with a feast called the iftar, “break-fast.” When radio stations broadcast the cannon-shot that signals the sunset and the evening prayer follow, the iftar brings sweet relief as families dig in and children run through the dark street singing and waving lanterns.

At the end of the month, Muslims celebrate a holiday known as Eid al-Fitr, after which, life returns to normal. The end of Ramadan and the start of the holiday are proclaimed officially only when the new moon—the rising of which marks start of the next month—has actually been sighted by the appropriate religious authorities. The rising of the new moon is of course predictable with mathematical certainty through astronomical observations that Muslim scholars helped to develop, but tradition holds that human sightings are required before events keyed to the calendar can begin. Printed calendars and schedules list future events and holidays as “tentative” or “subject to official confirmation.” This tradition usually makes little practical differences, but occasionally it results in confusion, when the people of one community observe an event a day earlier or later than the people of another or make a false start on a holiday that is rescheduled at the last minute because the moon has not been sighted.
The Muslim calendar, which in a few countries is also the official public calendar, consists of a 354-day year divided into twelve lunar months. A day is added to the last month eleven times in every thirty years, so that in a century the Muslim calendar diverges from the Gregorian calendar by just over two years. The first day of the first year corresponds to July 15, 622 A. D. the year in which Muhammad and his followers migrated from Mecca to Medina. The months are Muharram, Safar, Rabi al-Awwal (Rabi I), Rabi al-Thani (Rabi II), Jumada I, Jumada II, Rajab, Shaban, Ramadan, Shawwal, Dhu’l-Qadah, and Dhu’l-Hijjah. The years are designated “A. H.,” Anno Hegirae, “After the hijra” (the Arabic word for the migration). The extent to which these months and the Muslim calendar are used in contemporary life varies from country to country. In general, business and international affairs are conducted by the Western calendar, and religious affairs are according to the Muslim calendar. Sometimes they are used side by side. In Cairo, a new bridge over the Nile is named “Sixth of October,” and a new town in the nearby desert is called “Tenth of Ramadan,” both dates marking the same event, the start of the 1973 war against Israel.
Ramadan is collective and unifying experience, in which workers fast together and families and friends feast together in affirmation of their obedience to God. The other great annual event that inspires mass participation is the hajj, the pilgrimage to Mecca, the fifth pillar of the faith.