Eid al-Fitr, or the Feast of Breaking the Fast, is the
holiday marking the end of the month of Ramadan. For children the Eid is a time of magic. Schools are closed, there is visiting and merriment everywhere. Coins flow from the adults and they are free to spend them on sweets. It is a time of new clothes, carnivals, presents, and sweets that boggle the imagination.During Ramadan, Muslims fast from sunup to sundown. That means no eating, no drinking, no smoking, and even no makeup for women (lipstick might get licked and ingested, eye makeup might get into the eye, etc.). To help people along in the fast, they often get up in the wee hours of the morning and have a meal, call the sahoor.
Ramadan is a time to develop self-control and to think about
how to become a better person. Lying, arguing, gossiping, and other sins of all
types should be avoided. Charitable giving and prayer are encouraged. It is a
time to think of others and to be thankful for the blessings of God.
That being said, when you spend hours on end without food or
drink, your thoughts stray to food and drink more often than they might
otherwise. The evening meals are always more elaborate and more delicious than
any other time of year, the desserts are amazing, and everyone feels the
excitement and anticipation of the call announcing the end of the day’s fast.
In winter Ramadan is a lot of fun—especially for youngsters
who get up at unusual hours to eat, even if they don’t fast the next day. The
days are short and the meal at the end of the day is especially welcome after a
long fast.
In summer, it’s an entirely different story. The days are
unbearably long, and in many places unbearably hot without water. Traffic jams
become noisy masses of frayed nerves as hunger, thirst, and lack of nicotine
turn cab drivers into demons of speed and impatience.
All the problems of fasting in the summer have been
exacerbated in modern times for many Muslims who find themselves far from Mecca
or Medina. Now there are Muslims scattered across the globe, including places above
the Arctic Circle. Consider the dilemma of people fasting in Scandinavian
countries, where the daylight can last 21 hours or more. Fasting in the land of
the midnight sun? How is that possible?
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| Midnight sun in Advent Bay, Spitzbergen, Norway from http://www.flickr.com/photos/8623220@N02/3174207141/in/photolist-5QuDck-5noiCE-bD8bZG-5QyVPN |
There are two ways it can be done. One is to fast by local
time, which leads to fatigue and may have long lasting effects on the health.
The alternative is to follow Mecca time or the nearest Muslim country time. Dr.
Abdul Mannan, an Imam and president of the Islam Society of Northern Finland,
quotes Egyptian scholars who say “if the days are long - more than 18 hours -
then you can follow the Mecca time or Medina time, or the nearest Muslim
country time." http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-19199411
Why is Ramadan in the summer sometimes and in the winter
other times? Because the Islamic calendar runs on the lunar year, which is only
354 days long. Since we normally use the solar calendar, Eid appears to be
eleven days earlier each year.
Traditionally, the end of the lunar month was determined
when the new moon was sighted, witnessed by a Muslim known to be truthful and
trustworthy. Today, modern astronomy can accurately predict the appearance of
the new moon years in advance. There is no more guessing about whether the Eid
will be tomorrow or the next day—we can even tell what day it wall fall on next
year, or ten years from now.
The twenty-first century has intruded on Ramadan in other
ways, too. In the past, believers who were not within hearing distance of a
mosque could end their fast when they could no longer tell a white thread from
a black thread. Today modern astronomy can tell us exactly when the sun will
rise or set. Smartphones have apps that tell you when to begin the fast and when
to end the fast. Apps like iPray, iQuran, and Find Mecca, an app that tells
which way to face for prayer, have changed the face of Ramadan. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nidhal-guessoum/ramadan-modern-technologi_b_917031.html
We hope nothing ever changes the message that we should
always do our best to be good members of the family of man and good citizens of
the world.
