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A Westerner’s Experience with Ramadan You can’t talk about food without discussing Ramadan, which is the most important holiday in the Islam religion. Ramadan lasts about a month, as measured by the moon, and is a time for Muslims to reflect on and to reaffirm their spiritual beliefs. That’s done partly by fasting during the day, from sun up to sundown. Muslims don’t eat or drink anything during daytime hours during the month of Ramadan. After sunset, though, they celebrate with a large meal called Iftar, during which they often congregate, eat, drink, and be merry, and sometimes well past midnight. Some of them eat too well during those nighttime feasts and have to go to the hospital from over-eating. In fact, the hospitals in Doha are usually packed with patients during the month of Ramadan of those who’ve overindulged during Iftar.
The work schedule for most companies in the Middle East shifts during the month of Ramadan, generally with shorter work hours for everyone, even those who aren’t Muslim. The Central Planning Office, where I work, is a good example. Many or even most of the people at CPO are not Muslim, but instead of working our regular nine-hour days, from 7:30 until 5 p.m., our workday during Ramadan lasts only six hours and we go home around 1:30 p.m. each day. Of course, as with most offices here, we don’t eat lunch during that time because that would be disrespectful to our Muslim colleagues who are fasting. Most offices in Muslim countries, including CPO, have a small room where non-Muslims can eat or drink out-of-sight of their Muslim colleagues, if they need to.
Like most non-Muslims, I don’t fast during the entire month of Ramadan. Heck, most non-Muslims don’t fast at all. However, each year I do choose to fast on one day, to remind myself of the sacrifice that my Muslim friends and colleagues endure. Not eating during the daylight hours isn’t too hard for me, but I have a difficult time not drinking anything, especially since I’m perpetually thirsty anyway and drink about twice as much as the average person. Ramadan this past summer was in late June, the hottest time of the year, so that made it especially challenging.
I fasted one day last summer, taking my last sip of water just before sunrise, then I worked all day in the CPO office. In the afternoon, after work, I walked over to the City Center Mall. Many stores there are closed during the daytime during Ramadan and the mall was mostly empty, but then the stores began opening around 5 p.m., an hour before sunset, and the foot traffic picked up. By evening all the stores were open and the mall was livelier than ever.
After I’d walked around the mall a few times, I sat down on a bench around 5:30 p.m. and waited for the “call to prayer” on the loudspeakers, which signaled sunset (and typically a time for Muslims to pray). I kept waiting and waiting, and my head was starting to get dizzy and my throat was parched. I can’t imagine what working outside in the desert heat would be like for Muslims during this time of year. But finally the Call to Prayer was issued and I walked over to the food court and ordered a big plate of Shater Abbas grilled meats and, especially, a large bottle of cold water.
That once-a-Ramadan fasting gives me a taste (no pun intended) of the sacrifice that Muslims make during the holy month. I must admit that I did feel a bit “purified,” for lack of a better word, afterwards for the personal sacrifice I had made that day. But of course, the next day, it was back to stuffing myself with dates and KFC. So much for my spiritual enlightenment!
The timing of the Ramadan holiday is based on the moon, so it shifts a week or so each year. Last year, in 2013, Ramadan started in early July and next year it’ll start in mid-June. Furthermore, the exact start of the holiday each year isn’t known until the new moon is actually spotted. It’s not like American holidays, which always fall on the same day each year and are known well in advance. Christmas, for example, is always on December 25 and Thanksgiving is always on the fourth Thursday in November.
The work schedule shortens abruptly during Ramadan, but you have to check the Internet (or your phone for texts) because it’s hard to know which day it will actually start. Qatar follows the lead of Saudi Arabia, so if the clerics there see the new moon, they declare that Ramadan has started and the next day the shorter work schedule begins. But if they don’t see the new moon – say, there’s cloud cover that night – then Ramadan hasn’t started yet. By the next evening, though, they’ll usually declare that Ramadan has started, even if the moon is still covered with clouds. These flexible holidays take some getting used to.
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