Happy Ramadan!

On May 11 2019 16:46 opisska wrote:


Maybe there are benefits in some forms, but the fasting as practiced by many muslims - sunrise to sunset and then eating in the night, at the expense of sleep, for a month, that just can't be healthy.

Moreover, it's also not well suited for the modern world, I once got almost killed in Tajikistan because our driver was too exhausted from his fast and kept falling asleep while driving winding mountain roads ...

On May 09 2019 15:00 Danglars wrote:

Am I missing some kind of poetic interpretation here of "from sunset to sundown?"

On May 11 2019 17:55 opisska wrote:


Well first of all, eating before going to sleep is in itself unhealthy, mostly everyone recommends not eating several hours before you go to sleep. Then, eating before sleep is for many people (not neccessarily everyone though) a source of problems in falling asleep.

And even all of this aside, when to you eat your breakfast? I know it's highly dependent on which part of the year the Ramadan falls and the latitude you live, but you are from Canada. which is about the same latitude as Warsaw and here the Sun is below horizon only 8 hours and a bit, so to eat both dinner and breakfast with between sunset and sunrise definitely cuts to sleeping schedule.

From what we saw in central Asia (the only time we happened to hit Ramadan in full in a Muslim country), people take their meals seriously, so they would get up about 2 hours before sunrise to eat - and then everyone was sleepy most of the day.

On May 11 2019 18:36 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:


I have quite a few students who observe Ramadan each year, and I know exactly when it starts without looking at the calendar, because my otherwise-alert students start coming in to class exhausted and unable to focus. Nothing like having no energy nor the ability to pay attention for the entire last month of the school year I feel so bad and frustrated for these kids; their religious tradition is actively undermining and sabotaging all the hard work they've put in since September. Neither food nor water from sunrise to sunset (except in medical emergencies, thankfully), which also means they're messing up their eating and sleeping schedules. Engaging in self-control and self-discipline should be a healthy experience, not a decidedly unhealthy one. This is bad mental health practice and bad physical health practice, but those who observe this kind of fasting don't seem to be particularly interested in what scientific or medical communities have to say, as they're doing it for religious reasons. As a teacher who wants to promote sensible academic practices and wants to see his students succeed, it's very frustrating to come across roadblocks with obvious solutions that can't be addressed for cultural or religious reasons. I can only hope that these students make the personal decision to break their fasts before any serious tests, and it doesn't help that AP exams are literally the first two weeks of Ramadan.

On May 11 2019 21:01 Moataz wrote:
The Moslems in Egypt fasts for 15 hours (its actually from dawn, not sunrise, till sunset), for me it's only painful in thinking/doing activities if I didn't get the meal before the dawn (Sohoor), when this happens I really can't think easily or be able to learn a new thing, and surrender to sleep during the day (If I'm not having an obligatory work), when this happens I feel like I lost the day and can't do anything, except reciting some of the Quran/playing football (when other friends encourage me).

But even when I can't think, I still believe religiously/scientifically that "Fast to be healthy" as Muhammad says, is true.
I feel that my body is generally strong (and sorry to say, sexually hard) after being hungry for a long time.

I think the prophet David (pbuh) was fasting for a similar period and not for one month in the year, but the whole life (fasting one day and eating the other)

A driver accident because of not having Sohoor can happen, but the ones due to drunk/crazy drivers are more.
And of course, it's not obligatory to fast for some patients, even if not patient, for example, all the travelers (which mean drivers, whether they're exhausted or not) in general, have a license to break their fast, and do it later,

Of course, eating then sleeping is a bad habit, sometimes I hate myself when sleeping after less than 4-7 hours from eating, but maybe it's harder to resist after Sohoor, because you've to eat, and then you don't have much work to do from 3:30 AM till the morning, all the shops are closing, most people are naturally sleeping.

Fasting is not to sabotage any work, but if you forgot/was lazy to wake up for Sohoor, you probably lost the day.

Lastly, the wisdom from fasting is "to fear", think of the people who die from hunger, what if you just have to fast for 24 hours (can you do 36 ?), think of the people that can't even take food through the mouth, but using injected medical liquids through the venous, for weeks.

Shouldn't we fear/thank our maker when we are healthy? The answer: we mightn't appreciate this until we lost the food.