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You are here: Home / Open Threads / Open Thread: Ramadan Kareem!

Open Thread: Ramadan Kareem!

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As I understand it, Ramadan starts (started) at sunset (or moonrise) on the 28th, which means some of our global commentors are already observing it:

…During the month, Muslims will fast and practice abstinence from sunrise until sunset, to celebrate the event that marks the anniversary of the Quran being revealed to the Prophet Muhammad…

The word “Ramadan” is derived from an Arabic word for intense heat, scorched ground and shortness of food and drink.

During this time, Muslims focus on their purpose in life and reflect on their choices, priorities and plans.

It is also used as a time to study the Quran, as well as a month of generosity and charity. Time is also of consideration, as the major acts of worship in Islam – fasting, breaking and praying – occur as specific times, such as fasting, breaking [the fast] and praying…

There has been some discussion about Muslim players’ performance in the World Cup games, but it seems that if an observant Muslim feels his work performance would be negatively affected, he is religously permitted to “time shift” and make up missed fasts at a later time.

So, Ramadan Kareem!

Reader Interactions

61Comments

  4. 4.

    elmo

    I remember Ramadan in (I think?) 2003 being in November. I know it doesn’t stay in one place during the year, but it seems particularly unfair for a sunrise-to-sunset fast to take place in late June into July.

    Holy FSM, I hope there are no Muslims in Fairbanks! They’ll starve!

    And I was joking, but then I started thinking about Europe, and the growing Muslim population there. What do observant Muslims do in Sweden or Norway? Go south to visit relatives? What do you do when sunset is at midnight and sunrise is at 4 am?

  8. 8.

    Litlebritdifrnt

    At this point I don’t give a shit. I cannot pay my bills. The NC Legislature is bribing teachers to give up their tenure for an 11% payraise or if you don’t give up your tenure a measly 3% raise after five years of no raise at all. A bag of groceries that cost me $50 a year ago now cost me $150. Is there anyone paying attention here?

  9. 9.

    Cervantes

    There has been some discussion about Muslim players’ performance in the World Cup games

    Not only Muslim players:

    It’s a widely held view that Fifa is a corrupt organisation. This matters because Fifa has full control and full ownership of the main global football tournaments, which will give it a revenue of around $4 billion from this year’s World Cup. The decision to hand the 2022 World Cup to Qatar has taken this from a reluctantly acknowledged fact about the world’s favourite game and made it something that can’t be ignored.

    The admirable Sunday Times investigation into the bribery and corruption surrounding Qatar’s bid is providing evidence about how this shameful decision was made. It makes no sense to stage the summer tournament of an aerobically active game in a country where the temperature hits 50°C in the shade and there is little history of football, no infrastructure and a tiny population.

    Compare the circumstances of the country that lost out in the voting at the relevant Fifa committee, the US. You could just about – just, just about – see this decision as part of the general grotesquerie surrounding World Cups, if it weren’t for the fact that hundreds of migrant workers have died already in the construction of stadiums in Qatar. The best estimate of the current death toll comes from the International Trade Union Confederation, and stands at 1200 Indian, Nepalese and Bangladeshi construction workers. The projected death toll is four thousand by 2022. This horror has arisen as a direct consequence of the decision to award the World Cup to Qatar. It can’t be rationalised, can’t be justified, can’t be excused or explained away. What this looks like is hundreds of poor people dying because Fifa’s bidding process is corrupt.

    That’s from John Lanchester.

  10. 10.

    gbear

    I live fairly close to the Mall of America in Bloomington MN and for a while I was in the habit of mall walking there. When Ramadan ends, the Muslim community in the Twin Cities seems to head en masse to the mall, and it’s really a sight to see all of the rides in Nickelodeon Universe filled to the max with burqa-wearing women having a blast. The whole mall is jam-packed – even more so than before Christmas.

  12. 12.

    burnspbesq

    If you’re in Atlanta or Charlotte or anywhere in between, this is for you.

    Somehow, the Oconee County Animal Shelter, in Seneca, SC, ended up taking in 55 kittens yesterday. Yeah, they’re kinda swamped.

    You know what to do.

  17. 17.

    scav

    @Morzer: Peachy! But I think it might be a tad unkind to continue a thusly themed punrun in this particular thread, so I’m pleading the stitch in my side, and hobbling off the mend fences with those that don’t appreciate the species.

  18. 18.

    ulee

    Anne Coulter is just praying that the US loses to Belgium. She’s looking really stupid at the moment, but if the US wins, then it will be world cup pandemonium. If Anne could cry she would.

  19. 19.

    dance around in your bones

    The first time boyfriend* and I were in Afghanistan, we happened to be traveling in Mazar-i-Sharif, really hungry, and wondering why there was no food to be found. Finally we spotted a bakery that had these delicious yellow cake things and promptly bought some and consumed them on the street. Couldn’t figure out why we were getting the side-eye-of-death from people. Ok, it was Ramadan. What did we know? We traveled through Turkey and kept seeing signs for the Topkapi Palace and had no idea what that was.

    Ah, the ignorance of youth (I was 16 at the time, my boyfriend was 19).
    * boyfriend became my husband of 40+ years…

  22. 22.

    lamh36

    so Maddie saw Frozen at school and when I asked her what it was about, she said…”let it go….let it go…”. Me and my cousin (her big brother) both laughed our azzes off.

  23. 23.

    dance around in your bones

    @Litlebritdifrnt:

    P.S. Litlebritdifnt – I care, and am paying attention for what it is worth. I wish I had a bazillion dollars to send to you, but I am in dire straights myself. Seems like paying political attention is worth just about squat. In terms of immediate relief.

  24. 24.

    Mike E

    To commemorate the WWI centennial, NBC’s Richard Engel gave it a go and accurately pointed out how the Ottomans’ loss (& subsequent map redraw) eventually led to today’s ISIS power surge in Syria and Iraq. I doubt his “reality and facts” will make a difference with wingers and their “real world experience” tho.

    /ht to Helen and her fb travails.

  25. 25.

    Violet

    @Cervantes: FIFA is corrupt. The International Olympic (TM) Committee is corrupt. It’s not really a surprise that this is the case. Glad it’s being discussed, though.

  26. 26.

    dance around in your bones

    @Baud: Well, that is high praise coming from you! King of the Well-Turned Quip! You fucking crack me up all the time.

    There’s a million and one stories in this Naked City, and I have about 900,000 of them :)*

    *Of course, they are only MY stories.

  27. 27.

    Violet

    @Litlebritdifrnt: Sorry you’re struggling. Anything happening on the job hunt front? How about that move to the UK? Either of those might help in the funds department. Hope it improves soon.

  31. 31.

    Roger Moore

    @Cervantes:

    What this looks like is hundreds of poor people dying because Fifa’s bidding process is corrupt.

    I think it’s a bit much to lay all the blame on FIFA; the primary blame has to go on the Qatari government for not giving a damn about human life. Had FIFA given the cup to somebody else, Qatar probably would have spent the money on some different boondoggle project that would have killed thousands of construction workers, but we wouldn’t know about it because it wouldn’t be in the public eye in the same way. That doesn’t excuse FIFA’s corruption or their willingness to turn a blind eye to the obscene conditions in Qatar when they’ve been pointed out, but FIFA isn’t the one working people to death.

  32. 32.

    dance around in your bones

    @Origuy:

    When I was in Afghanistan, those bag-shaped thingies with the little eye-net that enveloped women were called chadories.I mean ,even in the bazaar, because I almost bought one for irony’s sake. I remember reading a book by a Western woman who worked closely with Afghan women in the 60’s? and she thought they had some value in deflecting male attention from you. At the time. I kind of agreed.

    I remember having to hide the blatant sexual attacks (attempts?) from sexually oppressed guys because it drove my boyfriend* nuts. Like when an Afghan soldier (yes, they had them in the King’s day) would deliberately pop me in the boob I would punch him in the nuts.

    I remember (here goes one of my stories again!) buying vegetables in the bazaar, and some vegetable merchant said to me (not knowing that I spoke Farsi) that my boobs were like tiny grapes, and I told him right back that his nuts were like peanuts. Ha!

    *boyfriend who became my husband of 40+ years

    (yes, I had to hide the nut-punching from boyfriend

  33. 33.

    Morzer

    I won’t waste your time by linking to this, but in one of those lovely little ironies that sometimes add a sardonic smile to one’s day, a certain Rod Dreher did the Pew Political Typology Quiz and discovered that he was…

    A Faith-and-family LEFTIST.

    Quoth Dreher:

    I suspect that deep down, I’m a 1950s Catholic Democrat — back before the Democratic Party became so hostile to religious and social conservatives — so maybe it’s not wrong to call me a Faith-And-Family Leftist.

    Ah, there’s nothing like the old excuses…

  36. 36.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    @Morzer: It’s odd how the “faith and family” folk tend to confuse tolerance of other religious views with hostility towards religion. THIS is the reason I soured on the religious views of my youth in college.

    ETA: College for me coincided with the rise of the “Moral Majority”.

  37. 37.

    dance around in your bones

    @dance around in your bones:

    Ok, the gawd-damned telephone rang while I was composing my comment – what I meant to say was that I had to hide my discomfort with the blatant sexual attacks because it made my boyfriend feel like he couldn’t deal with it (which, in all fairness, he could not!) so I sucked it up and just quietly punched the guys in the nuts if I was able, and slew them with my witty sneaky Farsi in other cases. har de har.,

  38. 38.

    Morzer

    @BillinGlendaleCA:

    I was tempted to post a comment to Rod’s little crunchy bigot blog about how I was a 1950s conservative Catholic*, back before the Republican party became hostile to gays, blacks, women….

    But then I realized that Rod Dreher allows you to post whatever you like, provided you agree with Rod, because free speech must be preserved along with decorum and the aspidistra that once belonged to Robert E. Lee’s horse.

    Somehow, I didn’t think my comment would be allowed to survive.

    *None of what you’ve just read is true. Just so we are clear.

  39. 39.

    Anne Laurie

    @Morzer: Ha! When I was messing around with that quiz, I got the distinct impression that “Faith & Family – leans D” was their name for “working class Democrat, African-American / Hispanic”. As opposed to “Stressed-Out Skeptics – leans D”, which meant “working class Dems, White” (shifted my ‘ID’ by changing my response to the several ‘we’ve done as much by Those People as we can manage’ questions). I don’t remember the word Leftist being used at all… but I guess Mr. Dreher feels if you’re not “leans R” you must be some kind of off-label commie…

  40. 40.

    ruemara

    I think I may adopt those two sweet little runts of the litter. I am trying to resist. I think I have another month while they are being fostered and socialized, but the fact that those two follow me and like to sleep on me while I work is big in their favor. Bastards.

  43. 43.

    dance around in your bones

    @Mnemosyne (iPad Mini): Thanks for that link.

    When I was in Afghanistan the second-hand bazaar was called the Nixon Bazaar because of some policy he had (The Guam Doctrine? The Nixon Doctrine?) but whatever, everybody bought their clothes there. Hell, I used to shop there! You could get these old 40’s looking clothes from WW2…..I especially loved picking through the buttons in baskets. You never knew WHAT you might find.

    I am an awesome knitter, but you know what? Afghan women are awesome knitters as well. They used to rip apart the Nixon sweaters to get yarn to knit those Afghan socks we all loved? That I imported in bales back in the day for $2 each (to my everlasting shame)…..so, thanks, but I do not want to compete with the women there. I wish they could get compensated for their efforts (I know there have been attempts).

    I do have a sense of shame. I was blind and dumb, and still did not see, until much later on.

    @SiubhanDuinne: Thanks, SiubhDu
    nne – it’s like tragedies go in threes or something. Whoa! My bad!

  44. 44.

    Mnemosyne

    @dance around in your bones:

    Oh, I’m not trying to compete with their knitting skillz. I’m pretty sure that, compared to them, any hats or socks I make will be like stuff you get at Wal-Mart. But sometimes you need to not worry about making that baby hat yourself.

  45. 45.

    dance around in your bones

    FYWP – don’t you know we olds need more than a five minute fucking edit window??!!

  46. 46.

    Cervantes

    @Roger Moore: You may be right.

    Lanchester’s article, though, is about FIFA’s corruption, which he says he could no longer ignore after watching the referees during the 2002 World Cup. For him, said corruption has taken the joy out of watching. I happen to agree. Many others don’t.

    Perhaps one day we’ll get football back from its rulers and the World Cup can again become something small boys can look forward to, however old they are and however many Cups they can remember. In the meantime, I’m giving it a miss. The International Olympic Committee was once in a state very similar to FIFA, until the gigantic scandal around the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics, and the fact that it happened in a country with vigorous anti-corruption laws forced it to clean up. Let’s hope the scandal around Qatar turns out to be FIFA’s Salt Lake City moment.

    Let’s hope, if hoping is all we can do about it.

  47. 47.

    docg

    I wonder if Ramadan could be used for a one time, winner take all steel cage death match, Sunni v. Shia, to settle that unplesantness once and for all?

  50. 50.

    dance around in your bones

    @Mnemosyne: Ok, the last baby hat and sweater I made was for a Canadian couple I had met in Mexico – I sent it to them around the time the baby was to be born, and got a letter back that the baby had died at birth.

    Oh, FML. And I, like you, live inSoCal which is basically anathema for woolen sweaters – even the cotton ones i have made are too warm. I think I should move to Canada and marry my best girlfriend. We have talked about it in a joking kind of way.

  51. 51.

    Cervantes

    @dance around in your bones:

    When I was in Afghanistan the second-hand bazaar was called the Nixon Bazaar because of some policy he had (The Guam Doctrine? The Nixon Doctrine?) but whatever, everybody bought their clothes there.

    By the river, yes.

    It was called the Nixon Bazaar because it was where one could most easily get (mostly used) American clothes, i. e., blue jeans.

    In other times the names of other American presidents have been similarly utilized.

  52. 52.

    Roger Moore

    @Morzer:

    I suspect that deep down, I’m a 1950s Catholic Democrat — back before the Democratic Republican Party became so hostile to religious and social conservatives black people

    FTFY, Mr. Dreher.

  53. 53.

    Anne Laurie

    @Morzer: Yep, I’m a Solid Liberal myself (within the parameters of that particular quiz, where ‘flaming anarcho-socialist’ is not an option). But I ran through it several times, tweaking answers to see how it changed the results.

  54. 54.

    PurpleGirl

    @ruemara: I understand your trepidation and desire to adopt the two little ones… but it’s sweet that they follow you and want to sleep in your lap. They have already cast you as their meowmy.

  55. 55.

    dance around in your bones

    @Cervantes:

    Oh, Cervantes, you have been there? I swear to gawd I loved Afghanistan like nothing else except New Mexico (where I was raised, and AFG reminded me so much of NM) and I used to love to go to the Nixon bazaar. And the fabric sellers. And the tailors. And the vegie bazaar (except for that ‘your breasts are like peanuts’ guy – perhaps if they had been like melons? Which AFG is/was famous for, grapes AND melons.

    P.S. and the poppy – loved that shit.

  56. 56.

    PurpleGirl

    I worked with a very nice young women who converted to Islam in England before getting married. She told us about a family day at an amusement park in Canada she and her family went to. The sponsoring organization rented the park for the whole day and it was only open to their members for the day. That made it a family home and the women were able to walk around without their preferred usual public garb. That’s how they could go on the rides with their kids and friends in comfort. My co-worker wore a head scarf and a Moroccan style over dress publicly and at work. (Under it she wore sneakers and blue-jeans.)

  57. 57.

    Cervantes

    @dance around in your bones:

    Yes, a number of times. It is a beautiful place with a long and complicated history too easily over-simplified. Fundamentalists of all stripes have damn-near ruined it.

    In Kabul, there is a sort of poetry club, the Mirman Baheer, where women share their work despite being threatened and hurt when they do so. Here’s a poem from Lima, a teen-ager:

    You don’t let me go to school.
    I will not become a doctor.
    Remember:
    One day you will be sick.

    No doubt she is using the word “sick” in the physical sense. It makes a better poem.

  58. 58.

    Jay C

    Well, I took the Pew quiz, and it rated me as “Solid Liberal” – somewhat surprising, since given the simplistic dichotomy of most of their (inadequate number of) questions, I would have thought it would class me as “Leon Trotsky” or something. So I’m in the “15%”!! WooHoo!!

  59. 59.

    dance around in your bones

    @Cervantes:

    You are so right about it being a beautiful place screwed up by fundamentalists. My husband and I wanted to live there the rest of our lives, but then things got nasty. I remember being flabbergasted when AFG was mentioned in the news. Nobody had ever heard of it before in my experience.

    Ok, I was going to tell a personal story about a friend who has now lived in Kabul since…..way back when. I gave him the Roland and Sabrina Michaud book with the photos of AFG? because he’d never seen it any other way but destroyed by war by the time I met him.

    Ok, ’nuff said!

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