Ramadan Mubarak - the holy month

Hello my friends,



How are things? I hope life is treating you well.



Today I want to tell something about Ramadan. When people think of Ramadan, they might think of Muslims fasting the whole day. This is actually true. But in order to understand the reasons behind it, you need to look deeper into this practise.



The objectives of Ramadan are basicly:

+ Solidarity with the poor people - go through what they go through

+ Spiritual enlightment

+ Mental discipline



So it's very similar to the fasting practised in Christianity or by the Jewish. And from my experience it is very true. During Ramadan, the lines between the social classes become smaler and hierachy level become lower, as everyone is going through the same tough feeling and experience of starving. It is also very common to give donations to the poor during these days.



In practise, the typical daily cycle for Muslims here in Oman is as follows:
+ breafast before the morning prayer at 4:30 am
+ praying - After the prayer no eating and drinking is allowed any more
+ start work between 8:30 am and 9:30 am. The government has reduced the working hours for Muslims during Ramadan to max. 36 hours per week. At PwC Muslims have to work min. from 8:30am - 3:00 pm.
+ working
+ shops usually close around 12:00 pm and don't open before 7:00pm. It is not possible to get food anywhere all over the city except of large supermarkets.
+ after work many people go to sleep, because they are eithre tired from being up late or it's just because of the low level of energy in the body.
+ after evening prayer at 6:22 pm Muslims are allowed to eat again. Some don't stop eating for the whole night and some jsut eat a bit. Both has advantages and disadvantages.
+ after dinner the life in the street becomes alive again. From 7:00 pm until far later then midnight people are on the steet, cafes or at friends, houses.
+ Some people go to bed around 11:00pm and some maybe at 2:00 or 3:00 am.

As you can see, the daily life cahnges completely during Ramadan, because of the eating habits and the opening hours of shops.
Me, I decided the best and most fruitful way to go through this Ramadan period is fasting, too. Currently, I have 10 days of fasting behind me inluding a little break while I was in Germany. Everyday I get up at 5:00 am, have a little breakfest, be at work at 8:00am, leave around 4:00 pm and kill time until 6:30 pm for dinner. The first week was hard to adjust to the rythmn. But it's getting easier now. I realised that I'm actullay eating smaller meals and more fruits than before without loosing significantly high amount of weight. So fasting it has also a good health aspect :-) I even still play football two times a week, of course after dinner ;-)
Beside this reason I think it is good for your character to be reminded from time to time how privilaged we are in terms of having enough food, water and luxuries avaialble. Last but not least having this Ramadan experience gives me a different access to the Arab culture whihc hopefully gives me new insight into their way of thinking.

I hope I could give you some nice views on Muslim fasting. And I'm already looking forwards to the huge "Eed" festival at the end of Ramadan (prob.1st of October) where everyone celebrates the achievement of successfully practising Ramadan and the joy of being allowed to feed the hunger during the day by having a wonderful lunch.


Ramadan Kareem

Hajo