Ramadan

A little explanation of my understanding of the purpose of Ramadan. It is intended to be a month of time in which Muslims focus extra effort into following the teachings of Islam. As a result, it is my understanding that people are more likely to be honest during this time because of the strong push for purity. It is also a time of greater generosity for Muslims because it is also meant to be a practice that teaches empathy for the less fortunate. Not everyone is required to hold the fast. A few exemptions are young children, the disabled, the chronically ill, the elderly, and women who are pregnant or nursing who think the fast will be harmful to them or their child. For some of these people, such as the elderly or the chronically ill, they are expected to feed others as a penance for their inability to fast. For others, such as the women, they are expected to make up the days at a later time. Even for those who are not typically very devout Muslims in Bangladesh, there is pressure to observe the fast as it is a very public thing. Those who refuse to keep the fast do lose respect in the eyes of their fellow Muslims.

As far as what the result of this is on my life, it does cause some issues. Being that I am not a Muslim, I am obviously not keeping the fast. I previously mentioned that I have to watch what I eat in public though as it is considered rude to eat in front of those who are fasting. I also learned this past week that at sundown when the daily fast ends, everything stops and people eat their Iftar meal. This becomes something that you have to plan your evening around. In our situation, we were hoping to stop by the A&W Rootbeer restaurant for dinner only to find out that they were not serving regular food until after the Iftar meal was over. So we went to look at shops until such a time as we could get this food. Unfortunately, they kicked us out of the shops so they could eat their Iftar meal which meant that we were stuck on that side of town with nothing to do while Iftar was being eaten. We did eventually find a coffee shop that was operating through the Iftar time and sat down for a chat while we waited for things to open up again. We eventually did get our nice frost mug of rootbeer but the process did open our eyes a bit to how much the month of Ramadan does change how society operates here.